A Day at the Races

A Day at the Races
The 35th Annual National Championship Air Races & Air Show Lands In Reno

By D. Brian Burghart

It's quiet. Too quiet.

The Reno/Stead Air Base is almost deserted, which seems strange, considering that the 35th Annual National Championship Air Races & Air Show is set to begin in eight days on Sept. 17. You'd think with $620,000 in prize money at stake, somebody would be around.

There's a cool desert breeze making the manzanita past the runway wave, and if it wasn't for the hollow-reed sound of the wind, you could hear a wrench drop at the opposite end of the tarmac.

Famed photographer Don Dondero and I drive around the airport. Nobody. Nada.

As we drive around, I internally total up the sum of my knowledge about the races: This year the theme is “Air Power,” and the event is a salute to the United States Navy. The grand marshall is Vice Adm. Mike Bowman, Commander, Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet, who is in charge of all the Navy aircraft, personnel and the six aircraft carriers on the West Coast. There will be 44 races in six classes this year. I know the home pylon is 80 feet high, and the corner cans are 50 feet tall. I also know the courses vary in length from 9.125 miles for the Unlimiteds to 3.11 miles for the Formula Ones and the biplanes. That's about it.

Oh, yeah—those planes fly like bats out of the flames of hell.

The silence is almost eerie. I lived in Stead for almost seven years. Stead Boulevard and the airport during the weeks before the Air Races was always a beehive of activity. The planes going over my little duplex shook the windows, and the noise was so loud it thrummed through my body and shook the teeth in my head.

I also think the deadliness of pilot error
is one of the reasons the event
draws tens of thousands of people.

I have a 25-year-old memory of an air show in Dodge City, Kan., in which a pilot in a small plane—a Pit Special if I remember the name correctly—went straight up into the sky before stalling and falling like Isaac Newton's apple. As we drove out of the field, I remember the blackened ribs of the airplane sticking up. None of it was more than 18 inches tall. I think it was that memory that always kept me from attending the Reno Air Races in the past.

I also think the deadliness of pilot error is one of the reasons the event draws tens of thousands of people.

Don was a pilot in World War II, so when we were making plans for an advance story on the Air Races, I figured he could serve as an interpreter if and when we found some of the hard-smoking, hard-drinking, hard-flying men's men whom I expected to be getting greased up and putting the final touches on their hot-rod airplanes. At least he could tell me the difference between an F-14 and a P-51.

We make our way to the main hangar. There are a few brightly painted airplanes inside—GeeBee Sportster, a biplane, an AT-6, a plane with a German cross—but the only human being in the building comes out of the restroom with a mop and a rolling bucket.

As we head around the rear of the hangar, a young woman emerges and comments that we look lost. I tell her our mission.

“You need to talk to [executive director] Frank Kinnell, he'll help you out,” she says. We follow her up the stairs and have a seat in the executive offices. This is plainly the hub of activity this week. The phones are ringing off their hooks, and there are people striding between offices.

Kinnell's friendly, if a little bit stymied, when I tell him what we've come for.

“The pilots won't start coming in until Saturday,” Kinnell says. He supplies us with a brochure, this year's schedule and calls Larry Spitale, who is heading up site control, in to the office.

Spitale is no less disheartening. “We pretty much finished up the bleachers and the signs last week. I don't think we even have any crews out right now, but there's a guy out there working on his Formula.”

There's nobody in the hangar, although there is a handmade stool and pile of tools near a small airplane. I feel my story going down in flames like the Hindenburg, and that image of the zeppelin running into the tower at Lakehurst, N.J., on May 6, 1937, appears in my mind.

“Oh, the humanity.”

Formula For Success
“The fast ones go 250 mph, the slow ones go around 190 mph,” says Dick Roberts of Maybee, (“490 people last census”) Mich.

Roberts is leaning on and talking about his Formula One racer. He's also the first pilot to arrive at this year's air races.

“This is a slow one,” he says. “Last year I came in last. Dead last.”

His plane, which is a purple, orange and white Cassutt, will be one of 24 Formula One racers. There will be three races with eight airplanes per race in the Formula One class.

Roberts says that “Formula One” is simply a designation of airplanes.

“It's a whole series of rules that keep the playing field equal,” he says.

The rules relate to things like engine size (200-cubic-inch displacement); wing area (greater than or equal to 66 square feet); empty weight (greater than or equal to 500 pounds); and others.

He says the Cassutt reflects old technology.

“It's the Model A or Model T of the Formula One field,” he says, adding that Tom Cassutt, the TWA pilot who designed them back in the late '40s, built them for durability. “They're good for about 12 times the force of gravity. It's a real strong airplane.”

I can tell he likes just looking at his plane. He gives this simple explanation: “You don't see them put together very often, except at races. When they're home, you've always got them pulled apart working on them.”

He got into plane racing for the rush.

“Going fast is fun. Flying in a group of airplanes'll keep you on your toes,” Roberts says. “Noise levels are pretty high,” and he points to the straight exhaust pipes coming out either side of the cowling near the propeller.

“Some guys stay pretty low to the ground.
Some guys accelerate really fast,
and then the guys with the high air speed spend
the rest of the race trying to get past them.”
He doesn't worry much about the risk involved.

“When a guy's made it to the runway here, he's passed all the tests—you pretty much know what he's going to do.”

He says the Reno Air Race Association “runs a pretty tight ship,” which also helps with safety. “They're about the most professional of all the groups out there.”

Roberts' looks and manner belie his interest in fast planes. While he works on his plane, he wears blue jeans, a red-checkered shirt open over a T-shirt and reading glasses worn down on his nose. Characteristically, he understates the heart-pounding action at the starting line: “It's a busy time.”

The planes begin the race on the ground, but “full throttle, brakes on.” Back in the old days, someone actually held on to the tail to keep the plane from moving forward.

“[Off the start] some guys'll climb really fast,” says Roberts. “Some guys stay pretty low to the ground. Some guys accelerate really fast, and then the guys with the high air speed spend the rest of the race trying to get past them.”

Roberts has done few of the high-tech and high-dollar modifications that many pilots have made on their planes. He's got a compound prop to replace the old wood one, but he's still got a wooden wing.

“It's a hobby,” he says. “It's something I always wanted to do. You don't make any money at it. I may pick up $1,400 to $1,500, but it probably only cost me $2,800 to get here.”

I Love A Man In Uniform
Don and I return to the executive offices upstairs to see if more pilots have arrived.

Kinnell suggests we talk to the guys who are planning the military exhibitions, since the military demonstrations and static displays will be two and a half times bigger than at any show in the past. He leads us through a labyrinth of halls and boxes to the office where Tim Brioady, military coordinator, and Guy Brubaker, director, are eating Port of Subs sandwiches.

“This is the most military demonstration aircraft we've ever had at the air races,” says Brioady. “One real positive thing is it's pretty rare to get all the F's at one air show.”

“Call them max performance,” says Brubaker,
“but not max speed.
A couple trips through the sound barrier,
and we'd be replacing all the windows in the valley.”
The F's he is referring to are the fighters: F-14, F-15, F-16, F/A-18. There will also be demonstrations by the Canadian Forces T-33, the Alaskan Air Guard C-130, not to mention the Fallon Naval Air Station's Top Gun Wall of Fire, in which two F/A-18 jets fly through the flames generated by 100 five-gallon buckets of gasoline at 550 mph only 200 feet off the ground. Most of these demonstrations will happen each day.

“Call them max performance,” says Brubaker, “but not max speed. A couple trips through the sound barrier, and we'd be replacing all the windows in the valley.”

Brioady says there will also be a huge static (parked) display just east of the grand stands. He pulls out a 2-inch binder and begins leafing through it and calling out initials and numbers that mean nothing to me, although Dondero's nodding and grinning like Brioady's reading off winning lottery numbers.

“F-14, F-15, F-16, EA6-B, F/A-18, TA-4, F-4F, F-5, A-10, T-37, T-34, T-45, T-2, T-38, U.S. Post Office 727, KC-135, E-2C, S-3, U.S. Customs Black Hawk Helicopters, U.S. Coast Guard Dolphin Helicopter, SH-60, UH-1N Rescue Helicopter,” he says, occasionally leaning over to make sure I've got my hyphens in the right places.

“This is the most awesome aerial display in the world,” says Brubaker. “I don't think there is another place that does this—I know there's not another place that does the air races and the air show together. This is one of the best events in the country. For aviators, it's a real special event.”