Some more about wildfire
Wildfire is one of the more unusual Unlimited air racers with perhaps the longest gestation period of any. The years of silence with this racer tucked away in a hangar in Mojave, combined with its mysterious first flight, have lead to the birth of many rumors surrounding its past, present and future. On a recent AAFO.COM assignment to Mojave, I had the opportunity to check in with Team Wildfire and separate truth from fiction.
Wildfire was conceived in the mid 70s to make Unlimited Air Racing more affordable and save the existing war birds seen at Reno each September. It is thought that with affordable Unlimited air racers, air racing as a sport will spread to other venues across the country while preserving WWII aircraft.
Former Director of Science and Engineering, William H. Statler, designed Wildfire and he is no stranger to air racing. Bill’s first design was a Goodyear midget racer for Al Foss who built the plane in 1949. Foss raced it as "Jinny" #94. It was later sold to Jim Dewey and raced by his son, Mike. It retained the #94 but was now called "Little Mike". Number 94’s last race was in 1970, but the airplane is still owned by Mike Dewey in Santa Paula, CA who is restoring it as a museum piece.
The Second aircraft to come from Bill Statler Sr’s sketchpad was for James Kistler. Assigned number 31, it has a colorful history with many name and owner changes. Kistler raced as "La Jollita" and "Skeeter". It was sold to Art Scholl who campaigned it as "Miss San Bernardino". Scholl managed a 3rd place finish in the championship race of 1964, and 4th in both 1965 and 1966. Sold to Smokey Stover and renamed "Skeeter" again, race 31 soldiered on with another 4th place in 1967. 1971 Marked another owner, Larry Borrow. "Skeeter" returned to Reno in 1976 with Smokey Stover at the controls once again, finishing 1st in the Medallion race. Race 31 continued to pass through owners and around the pylon until 1984.
In typical Unlimited fashion, Wildfire is a low wing monoplane with conventional undercarriage. Its wing is an entirely custom built NASA airfoil, attached to a heavily modified forward airframe and a scratch-built aft fuselage. Powered by a Pratt & Whitney R-2800-CA-97W and propelled via a 3-blade airscrew, Wildfire is definitely a very distinct air racer.
It was the team’s normal workday on the racer when I arrived. I felt a bit like I was in their way so I decide to let them work while I took pictures; we would sit down over lunch and discuss the racer. Wildfire was bigger than I envisioned it. Basically the aircraft looked complete but many little things remained unfinished and we all know those are the things that take the most time.
Working on the racer on this Friday, June 4th, were Bill Statler Sr., Skunk Works engineer Bill Statler Jr., Cal-Tech and JPL analyst Dennis Wittman, and mechanic and auto-racer Greg Austin. Slowly yet methodically the racer was coming together in the hot oven that is a hangar at Mojave, not far from Nemesis NXT and Scaled Composites. Missing due to work commitments were crew members Rich Statler, Senior Vice President, System Development, for the Mericom Corporation and Paul Novacek, Avionics Engineer and Vice President of Development for Electronic Flight Solutions.
Despite my small protest, I was treated to lunch by the crew and began the question and answer session to get the truth about Wildfire.
http://aafo.com/racing/2004/wildfire_2/
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