Progress report on the construction of
“Blue Thunder II”
As of August 31, 2009
This
August account will include a few days of
September so that we can report that “Blue
Thunder II” has begun flight testing. We are
recording every second of flight, but most of
the information collected is when I am flying
around at low power settings just to
accumulation flying time.
Blue
II flies well but to say that we have not
experienced any glitches would have you thinking
“this is not a Thunder Mustang. The glitches we
have tried to solve were mostly with the
instrumentation and landing gear.
One reason for the delay in the start of flight
testing was the setup and calibration of the
MVP-50 and the EFIS system. This effort was
quite a cultural shock to a guy like me who has
been called “Mr. Steam Gauge” in the past.
The landing gear operation is a wonderment. The
system will work 30 out of 30 cycles on the
jacks but only one in five cycles in flight.
The problem is the right inboard gear door
doesn’t fully close. We are working on that.
As in past newsletters, we continue to thank
everyone who reads this for your continued
financial, moral, and technical support. As
race time draws near, the crew is working
diligently to earn that support and show you
impressive results of that labor. We wish to
reiterate a warm invitation to the Thunder
Mustangs, pilots, crews, sponsors, and fans to
our annual AAR “Thunderstorm 2009” open house
and tasty ramp dinners.
For those of you who
cannot attend, for the first time ever, there
will be a pay-per-view on your computer monitor
of all the Gold races on Sunday, September 20th
races starting at 0900 that day only, featuring
the “Blue Angels.” Here is the link for ordering
and pricing.
www.LiveAirShowtv.com.
See you at the races.
Gratefully, John, Jan and the entire “Blue
Thunder Crew”
Blue
Thunder Air Racing
