News

Exciting News at Blue Thunder Air Racing!

Press release: For immediate release.
“Blue Thunder II Crew Report”
October 16, 2011
Ladies and Gentlemen:

There is a little good news that can be gleaned from the September air races and that is we won the only Sport Gold Race that was completed. The Thursday race was canceled when Mike Dacey had an engine failure on takeoff and put his Venture down in the infield. The good news is that Mike is back home in San Louis Obispo facing a long recovery. Thanks to many of you who donated to fly him back in a King Air arranged by Kevin Eldredge. As much as I would like to, of course, it is impossible to avoid touching on the unpredictable tragic event with our friend Jimmy Leeward that happened on Friday just after we won the Sport Gold. Our condolences go out to everyone affected by this tragic accident.

In the light of the unfortunate results of the September air race event, I think that a reviewing of the year and the successes would be beneficial for this report.
The report on the Golden West show is in the June 2011 Blue Report and some of the Blue II photos are posted on the Golden west web page and at. http://evanflys.com/golden_west_2011#Next

Immediately following the Golden West Show, we started flying at the PRS here in Reno. We were able to get in a little flight time practicing formation and the disciplines associated with racing on the pylon. A lady by the name of Margaret Watt took some pictures of Blue II while riding with some of the other participants of the formation. Many of her photographs are posted on the Sport Class web gallery. http://wwwsportclass.com/photogallery.php

The Oshkosh Show was covered in the August Blue Thunder report. The photo to the left taken at Oshkosh was a lucky shot of Blue II with the RARA banner in the background and one of our sponsors name written in the sky. The show was a big success and Aero Fusion http://www.aerofusion.com signed up as another corporate partner.

Back home from Oshkosh, we put a new 800+HP engine in Blue II for the races.

In the picture here, Kevin Eldredge is flying Ron Deblack’s Thunder Mustang. Ron’s TM was flown in the races by Scott Nelson.

After what was left of the races, we put the old tried and true 650 HP transport engine back in Blue II in preparation for the Gathering of Mustangs at the Nut Tree Airport, October 8th.

During the Gathering of Mustangs, a few select members of the spectators were invited to sit in Blue II. Mike is on "slip and fall" duty. In the event she should slip off the wing, she would land on Mike.

The US Air Force has an excellent selection process. The ladies pictured with the old guy are active duty airmen stationed a Travis AFB. We thank them for their service to our country and Blue II crewman Steve Edmundson is stationed a Travis, has their names and unit numbers and is on active "follow up" duty.

There are more photos of the “gathering of mustangs” at the Vacaville, CA Nut Tree airport posted on http://www.aafo.com/hangartalk/showthread.php?t=9487
At the risk of making this report too long, I would like to introduce Spencer Taw. He is a professional photographer in the Bay Area selling his pictures to magazines worldwide. He is a new and welcomed partial sponsor to the Blue Thunder Air Racing Team. For more information, Email Spenser at forffun@yahoo.com

With winter coming on, Blue II will be getting the traditional extensive conditional inspection. In the next Blue Report, I hope to have some maintenance news of general interest that should apply to most Thunder Mustangs.

The Blue Crew, Jan and I want to be the first to wish all of our sponsors, fans and supporters a Very Happy
Thanksgiving, and thanks so much for your continued support!

At the risk of making this report too long, I would like to introduce Spencer Taw. He is a professional photographer in the Bay Area selling his pictures to magazines worldwide. He is a new and welcomed partial sponsor to the Blue Thunder Air Racing Team. For more information, Email Spenser at forffun@yahoo.com

The Blue Crew will now start signing up sponsors for the 2012 season and planning the show schedule. Regardless of what happens to the Reno Air Races, American Air Racing, the Blue Thunder Air Racing Team, and the Thunder Builders Group will still be here and will plan an event of our own if necessary.
With winter coming on, Blue II will be getting the traditional extensive conditional inspection. In the next Blue Report, I hope to have some maintenance news of general interest that should apply to most Thunder Mustangs.
The Blue Crew, Jan and I want to be the first to wish all of our sponsors, fans and supporters a Very Happy

Thanksgiving, and thanks so much for your continued support.
John Parker

“Blue Thunder II Crew Report”
9/6/2011
August 11th we started removing the # 12022 engine from Blue II in preparation for the installation of a new, 12023-5, engine from RFI.

August 16th , the new engine arrived, but it had never been run before even on a test stand. On first start up, cylinders #5 & 6 weren’t working well at all, there was a major oil leak and the ECU program needed major work.

The oil leak was the easy fix. Cylinders 5&6 work much better at the higher power settings and appear to be “coming in” as we get more time on the engine but still do not work real well below about 4000 RPM. After many ground runs, Fred Roscher of 51 Aero Ltd., has corrected the ECU program so that the engine runs quite well above 4500 RPM. Just a few trim adjustments to go.

As of today, we are about as ready for the races as we have ever been. However, as you can see in the photo, on the last flight we had another water cooler door actuator failure.

Aside from this Reno Air Race preparation update, the real purpose of this report is to make sure all of our fans, supporters and sponsors know they are invited to the American Air Racing open house, an event we call Thunderstorm, held during the races September 14th through the 18th. We will be fast enough to be a contender and we will race hard enough so that the faster entries will have to beat us.

I hope to see everyone next week.

John Parker

Press release: For immediate release.
“Blue Thunder II Crew Report”
8/4/2011

We had a very successful week at the Oshkosh AirVenture 2011. The crew did an outstanding job of answering all sorts of questions. The most repeated one was, “What kind of engine is in Blue?"

We made some initial contact with PPG Industries about possible sponsorship which I will be procuring in the next couple of months. They gave us some sample products and they have the best cleaner wax I have ever seen.

It removes the exhaust stain very easily and leaves a brilliant shine to the finish. I will have more information on this product in the next report.

I might mention that my old friend Paul Poberezny dropped by for a photo opportunity.

The return trip to Reno went as smoothly as could be expected except for the start. I was in line for departure out of Oshkosh and when it was my turn, I hit the starter switch and nothing happened.

How embarrassing. All dressed up but can’t go anywhere.

To make a long story short, Jim, Mike and Fred replaced the start relay and after a minimal two hour delay, I was on my way back to the Blue Thunder bunker on the Stead airport which took only 6hrs.and 46 minutes which included a fuel stop. Post examination of the faulty relay found that it was full of water from the Oshkosh rains.

We are now in a rush to prepare Blue Thunder II for the Reno Air Races next month. We will be competing in the Sport Class and hope we do well enough to keep the fast guys honest, put on a good show, and make our sponsors proud.

Speaking of the races, I would like to remind everyone that they are invited to attend "Thunderstorm 2011" which is the American Air Racing open house held during the Reno Air Races September 12th through the 18th.

Those of you flying in with your Thunder Mustang, please leave the canopy closed and the tail wheel unlocked and the Blue Crew will supply all the ground support required.

Call us at 775-677-4860 and let us know when you will arrive, or that you have arrived, and we will tow you in to our ramp from the no prop turn line.
Blue Thunder will be appearing at one more show, after the races, on October 5th at the "Gathering of Mustangs" in Vacaville, CA. Come out and enjoy the show.

I see I have run off the front page so I will close for now with the traditional thanks to all of Blue Thunder’s Fans and Sponsors for your continued support.

John Parker

“Blue Thunder II Crew Report”
June 2011

Yes, I must admit that I have been lax in keeping everyone up to date as to what is happening with Blue Thunder II. Due to other commitments during February and March we did not get much done on Blue except a short test run on the engine after the valve job and the Conditional Inspection was finally signed off in May just in time to get our entry forms in for the PRS event.

The Golden West show went quite well for us even though the attendance was down for some reason. The weather was good and they had beer sales right by the front gate. More people should have shown up.

We brought Blue back from the Golden West show on Sunday morning so that we could get her in a few shots of a 3D IMAX feature that was being filmed here at the Stead Airport.

The next morning, June 13, I started formation and pylon race course practice, flying once a day for a week. Steve Edmonson was here for the week and he did a great job of finding places on Blue to mount our GoPro Hero camera. We got a lot of footage and Rhonda has edited some of that footage and uploaded it onto You Tube. The links below show some pretty cool stuff.

http://evanflys.com/golden_west_2011#Next Golden West 2011 photo gallery
http://youtube.com/7Z_5vIay-4s Blue II flight test #7
http://youtube.com//MUqv6umwHJg Yellow in formation flight with Blue
http://youtube.com//2GR-1a8cwuA Blue II at PRS 2011

One problem that cropped up during the week of flying was the water cooler door could not be controlled in auto or manual after about thirty minutes or so of flight. After a flight, we would down load the data recorder and try to figure out what was wrong. After making several tests, the Motion Systems linear actuator worked perfectly only to have it fail on the next flight. We decided to change out the motor on the actuator. On the bench, it would work perfectly until we heated it to about 150 deg. F where it would fail. Clearly this motor did not meet the specifications.

The 2011 engine program is behind schedule so we are going to cancel the appearance at the Arlington Air Show, but we will be at the Oshkosh Convention all week parked in AeroShell Square. The Oshkosh appearance should put us over the top of our objective of eight million impressions for our sponsors.

In August, we will be working over time preparing for the Air Races in September and it is not too soon for all of you to start planning your trip here for the races and Thunder Storm 2011. Everyone is invited and we will take good care of all the TMs that come for the show. Let me ask that the pilots ensure that the tail wheel is unlocked and the canopy closed when the aircraft is parked. We will provide all the ground handling required, display your TM during the day and hangar it at night.

The family styled dinner will start as soon as the last racer is on deck (LROD). John McCartney will chair the TBG meeting which I hope will include a report from Dean Holt on his progress as well as a display of his TM.

As a reminder, Blue Thunder II will be on display:

July 25-31: EAA AirVenture

September 14 – 18: Reno Air Races and Thunder Storm 2011

October 8th & 9th Mustangs over Vacaville.

The Blue Crew, along with Jan and I wish everyone a happy Independence Day and we are looking forward to seeing everyone at the eleventh annual Thunderstorm in September.

Thanks for your continued support.
John Parker

"Blue Thunder II Crew Report"

January 2011

As I reported last month, Blue Thunder II is in the wintertime conditional inspection, modification and update mode. Doing a valve job and T-bar clearance inspection is going a little beyond the scope of CFR 43 appendix D, but we are interested in establishing service limits as well as a trouble-free 2011 season.

Excluding the engine problems Papa-51, George Giboney and I have had, the majority of engine problems have been misalignment of the roller lifter and the cam lobe. The latest RFI spec on the clearance between the T-bar and the cam follower flat is .003". When we checked V12022, the clearance was from .010" to .022". RFI has some T-bar bushings and a procedure for bringing that clearance within the new specifications, which we used.

The RFI procedure for the T-bar modification is not very difficult but very time consuming insomuch as the upper and lower intake plenums must be removed to access the lifter valley. I estimate it takes thirty-five man hours to go from a running engine to a running engine.

We did a vacuum test on the valves and about five of the intakes had a little bit of a leakage, so we decided to do a cleanup valve job on the heads. The Work was done at A + Automotive of Reno where they cleaned everything, lapped the valves, tested the spring pressure and took .006" off the head face to true them up.

This photo shows the gasket preparation just before the head went on.

A custom I would like to become more consistent, is to highlight one of the Blue Thunder sponsors each report. In this report I would like to give special thanks to Rick Gold, owner of ERC, who has been supporting this team for many years. Located in San Lorenzo, California, Engine Research Company (ERC) has operated for 36 years and is a producer of custom specialty fuels.

As well as the "in stock" blends they carry, ERC has often been asked to produce custom blends meeting some very unique application specific requirements. They started out doing blends of this type and, over the years, ERC has done application specific custom fuels for everything from model airplanes, to classic vintage sports cars, to superbikes, to Reno Air Racers, to NHRA pro-stock cars. Additionally, they have provided consulting on fuels and combustion dynamics to literally a "who's who" of car manufacturers, major fuel companies, sanctioning bodies, professional engine builders, and independent racers. ERC is a resource for all who need special fuels or special help with fuel related questions or problems.

The Blue Thunder Air Racing Team uses the ERC 110K fuel which is 115.5 octane and releases about 1000 BTUs per pound over the aviation 100LL. If you want more performance from your TM, or any internal combustion engine, contact Rick Gold at ercracingfuels@sbcglobal.net

I have a little space left so let me include the Blue Thunder appearance schedule for 2011.

June 10 – 11 Golden West

June 16 – 18 Pylon School

July 6-10: Arlington Fly-In

July 25-31: EAA AirVenture

September 14 – 18: Reno Air Races

October 20 – 22: Copperstate

The Blue Crew, along with Jan and I wish everyone a happy Valentine’s Day and we are looking forward to seeing everyone at the eleventh annual Thunderstorm in September.

Thanks for your continued support.

John Parker