Edited video of Lyle Shelton setting the low-altitude propeller driven speed record in the F8F Bearcat "Rare Bear" in August, 1989 at Las Vegas, New Mexico. 528 mph. Posted with permission from the Lyle Shelton Estate.
Love all the Cats. We used to run a Tiger Cat here in the UK at Duxford . I believe it now lives in the USA. 2 huge engines and a pencil fuselage shes a beauty and climbs like a beast.
Watched Lyle and "Rare Bear" at Reno in '89&'90, what a privilege.I'll never forget the sound, the speed, the race, the plane and the man. Thanks for posting
I worked for Specialized Testing Service and Sandy Friezner at this time. Lyle, Sandy and Clay Lacer were very close friends. I instrumented the P3 “Paddle blades” a few years later at Van Nuys.
I was there in 1976 at Mojave when it crashed. I had never seen a plane crash before. Shelton was on a qualifying run and managed to bring it around to the landing strip after his oil pump failed, but his approach was way too steep and he hit the strip at an angle where his left landing gear took all the stress and collapsed. He slid down the length of the runway, shooting sparks and flame from underneath the aircraft. A spectacular show for the people sitting in the grandstands, to be sure. Too bad though. He was the only competition to the Red Baron, a heavily modified P-51 mustang with a huge motor and twin contra-rotating propellers. He ended up winning the race easily.
I don't know that there was a lot of modification done. There was an excellent article about this in the British magazine 'AIR International' at the time. I remember it ran on special fuel and put out about 4,000 hp for this run. But I doubt anyone ever dyno tested it.
glenn maidhof No. As the rotational speed of the tips of the propeller approaches the speed of sound, there's a sharp fall in the propeller's efficiency, meaning it can't pull the plane through the air as well. Back in the '50's, the U.S. gov't made an effort to develop a supersonic propeller, but without success, in the XF-84 "Thunderscreech". The noise generated by the propeller actually made nearby ground crew nauseous.
Yes - if the pilot is bold, the plane is stable, sleek and the dive is long enough. However, the pilot won't live to tell about it because he won't be able to pull out of the dive without disintegrating the plane...
OK - thanks for the correction - a small city in NM is a strange place for Rare Bear to be setting speed records but thanks for pointing its existence out to me.
Reno is at ground level, but WW2 fighters like the Bearcat were designed to fly their fastest at about 30,000 feet, for dogfighting and to escort bombers. So what top speed would Rare Bear be able to reach at 30,000 feet, a/ if no adjustments were made to its current engine and b/ if it were adjusted to give its best at 30,000 feet?
ive heard the hellcat had a stout body and it did because it was originally designed as a Bi winged plane !,, but ended up as a single wing with its stout body...
@Richard Lux i dont think so.. the bodies were built 4 bi wings and used otherwise they kept it because the mighty strength,, and, they needed it the plane had more wing surface area than any U.S Single engined Fighter , even more than the jug
@@taproom113 hey wait a minute:: this plane came from a bi wing engineering from another plane thats why it is so stout ! they kept the body engineering and changed to mono wings ..dont tell me..
@@mgn5667 What are you making up here? The F8F went into Service in 1945 and was one of the pinnacles of late prop fighters, the last Grumman Biplanes were built in 1937. As far as Aircraft engineering goes some decades before. It had nothing to do with his ancestors and the barrel-shape was, as with every plane with these engines, a logic form to integrate the engine into the body. With your logic the Sea Fury has a barrel shape because the Hawker Fury from 1936 was a Biplane (with an inline engine btw...)... Go and read something about the history of these planes, the sources are plenty if you WANT to read them and gain knowledge. If not, of course, stay withyour BS...
