 
Racing P-51D “VOODOO” at the 2008
Reno National Championship Air Races
At the end of the week at Reno 2007, I was asked by Bob Button to consider
racing a highly modified P-51D Mustang for the 2008 Reno Air
Racing season. I considered my options and that winter we
shook hands on a one year deal to race the World Famous,
Purple P-51 “Voodoo”.
When I was 20 Years old, I was air racing radio controlled
model aircraft. This was called .60 sized Warbirds or “Mini-Reno”. It was nearly an exact recreation of the real
Reno Unlimited air races but without the screech of Rolls
Royce Merlins.I had been to a couple of airshows by that
time in my life. My dad had taken me to the Moffet and
Hamilton shows in 1987. Through a strange turn of events, I started flight
training at the Santa Rosa Airport in 1994, I was 23 years
young.
Fast forward 14 years, I am flying Daryl Bonds TF-51 over to
have a meeting with Bob Button and the Voodoo crew, kind of
a job interview of sorts. Unbelievable! How could I be this
fortunate?
Voodoo was bought by Bob Button in 1980? and was owned
previously by Bill Speers and called Pegasus. Once purchased,
Button took the airplane to Bill “Tiger” Destefani and
L.D. Hughes in Bakersfield, CA to be modified. After years
of tweaking, the racer has been raced by a number of well
known pilots. Matt Jackson, and Sherman Smoot are just a
couple of them.
Some of the
modifications to Voodoo include and depending on the
race season can include: Clipped wings, (approx. 44”
total) clipped tail, small canopy (2009), Race engine,
P-51 H style cooling system, ADI, water spraybar, Queen
Air Wheels and brakes, Carbon fiber cowl formers and
cowlings, modified fuel system (all Left wing), Modified
carbon fiber fairings. Removal of
offset in vertical fin.
I accepted Bob Buttons offer and I began my flight
training in Voodoo in May 2008 to get prepared for the
2008 Reno National Championship Air Racing season. The
airplane flew great, I was very impressed how it handled
the extremes in speed. Normally a P-51 resists increases
in speed above about 300 MPH. This is due to a number of
design features that kept young inexperienced pilots
from hurting the aircraft in turn themselves, not
Voodoo. It loved the speeds above 300 MPH, I was very
impressed and it was obvious that this P51 was
engineered from the beginning to win Reno Air Races. Prior to racing it, I was offered the opportunity to spend some time in Bakersfield learning the nuances of racing a race P51 with a very well known Bill "Tiger" Destefani and L.D. Hughes. I was grateful to them for helping me clearly understand the "WHY" behind the modified systems of this exotic racer.
On Racing a Highly Modified P-51 Reno Sunday
9-7-2008
“It was the first time I'd been on the course with Voodoo and I wasn't supposed to fly the airplane until Tuesday. This was Sunday and Bob Button came up to me and he was in his shorts and flip flops and said “if you want to fly the airplane, you can fly it”. It was out and ready to go so how was I going to turn that down?! To fly one of those airplanes at big power and fast speed you really want to get your head wrapped around it. I hadn't woken up that morning or gone to bead the night before thinking about doing this. I was thinking Steadfast. So I said give me 30 minutes to get myself ready for this. I sat down and had a coke to get my head ready. We talked power setting and these were power settings I'd never heard. Keep in mind that the most power I'd ever run on a Mustang was probably in “Speedball Alice” on take off of 61” manifold pressure at 3000 RPM. That's stock maximum takeoff power. Wartime power they could go to 67” if they were running away from somebody. I think an inspection ensued and it was kind of like, I'm going to guess it's something they didn't do a lot of. I don't know that. But 61” was the power of the day out here all the time. That was a lot of power. Generally we take the boost controller of a stock Mustang and we'll turn it back to 55” so the most power you can get is 55” manifold pressure. Bob say, “Ok, here are the power settings I want you to run when you fly it. I want you to run 70” and 3200 RPM.” I'm thinking well, that's pretty doable but I've never been there so I'm not sure. Then he says, “I want you to make two laps at that then I want you to make two laps at 90” and 3400 RPM.” I grabbed a Sharpie and wrote it really big on my arm. (70”–32…90”-34) I thought COOL – this is going to be really fast! I said to Bob, “Are you going to be ok if I never get beyond 70” because I don't want to set myself up for failure. I've never flown the course that fast and I know I can do it but I want to ease into this.” You want to do this in an educated manner. Everything you do you want to be pre-thought and calculated. You don't do anything out there that you haven't sat down and raced in your mind already. He says, ‘No problem if you only get 70”, but you're going to love 70”!
“So I jump in and taxi out. Of course I've got this other system I'm working with now. A race Mustang is quite a departure away from a stock Mustang, not just in the speed and power settings, but internally the way you operate things and the way things operate is totally different. Different switches, different ideas behind the systems. This thing is totally different and it's barely a Mustang on the inside. “
“I take it up and I'm overhead for about two circuits and I'm thinking well it's now or never! So I turn on the ADI, you open this valve we get from True Value Hardware we call the “tweedle valve,” and you're watching the induction temp as you bring up the power. I lower the nose and I enter the course right at pylon 8 and I come ripping through there and I've got 70” and 3200 RPM, and the thing feels great. Frankly Voodoo feels great when you fly it. The faster you go, the happier it is. At slow speed it kind of wallows around a little bit and you know a stock Mustang would like this better. Voodoo has a lot of roll due to yaw. I think is because of the shorter wings and it doesn't have all the dihedral working against each other. You would think it would be more stable because it has more tail per wing, but it's not.”
“So it feels great, I've got about ¾ of the lap done, and I say, “Hey Bob, this is easy, I love it, I'm in heaven and I can't believe how nice this is to fly. I'm going to go up to the next power setting.” I pushed it up to the next power setting, 90” and 3400rpm, and used the “tweedle valve” to adjust the ADI as I'm watching the manifold temp. We try to keep it under 80°-85° C. I get down on the course at this speed and the airplane definitely accelerated and it made a huge difference. I was looking at indicated speeds of between 410 and 420mph and the airplane was just singing. I mean it felt dead smooth. I was amazed at that because people had told me how loud and how violent it is in the cockpit at those power settings. Now maybe above 100” it's different, I'm not sure. I just can't say. But it felt great. My airplane, Steadfast, is rough and loud and shakes and is hot. It was great.”
“The airplane's laid over and you're looking up through the top of the bubble canopy to find the pylons and you have to look instead of two pylons ahead now three pylons ahead and you're trying to aim this thing for three pylons away. At that speed there's only about three to four primary pylons you're flying off of. So the course becomes totally different in not flying pylon to pylon, or pylon, skip one got to the next. This is pylon, skip two, and go to the next one. You definitely have to be way ahead of the plane. There was a point where I was coming around the home pylon looking at the situation thinking this is so much easier than my airplane. Bring on the traffic! I just couldn't wait to get in a pack of guys and race this thing. The ailerons were nice, the elevator was nice, the rudder's nice, it's smooth, great visibility, it's a P-51 so you feel comfortable that the thing's not going to come apart around you and I felt like racing!”
“I made two laps like that and I said Bob this is great. Our plan was to make two laps like that and come off back at four and come in and land. “Well,” he says, “Why don't you push it up all the way.” I said, “Say again.” He says, “Push it all the way.” I started pushing it up at about pylon six and I finished at eight. It took quite a while to get the power up nice and easy while watching the induction temp. I had the temp at between 80 and 85C. The engine was running great. I knew that fourteen and a half years of working toward those four laps was worth every bit. If you told me all your going to get out of this is four laps, I'd do it all again. It was that good. It was the neatest thing I've ever done. I loved it. I was born to do that. I can see why these guys spend millions to go 460 plus. I would do it in a heartbeat if I had the money. Those laps were at 460 mph.”
“As I came around pylon two, everything is just working great and I feel this little hiccup – a tiny little stutter and I'm wondering if that's what they meant when they said it was starting to blow up. I got through ¾ of that statement in my head then the plane did it again. I thought these are becoming more frequent. So I started coming back on the power and started pulling back on the stick, pulling probably 5+ G's. I got the nose up quick, laid on the G's, and got the thing pointed up while I still had a lot of energy and I was going for altitude. This thing started to shake like crazy with smoke coming out of the right side. I had a little bit of the denial that everybody talks about during an emergency so I have to that I didn't not have the denial but I got through it really, really fast, faster than I had expected. All I did was execute a plan. When I was taught to do this by C.J. Stevens, he said, “Look, you don't go out there and make up anything if you can help it. You have a plan for everything. If you have an engine failure on takeoff, you execute the plan engine failure on takeoff. That's what I did.”
“I was amazed when I looked over the canopy rail and I had to look a long way down and drop the wing because I couldn't believe how high I was. I'd never had that much energy before. Four hundred and something and you come off the power and you're suddenly a mile high and I'm thinking, how am I going to get this thing back down on that runway?! What's the path between here and there. I'm way back on the power and C.J. pulls up next to me in the chase plane and says, “Bob, you're smoking out of the right side and you've got some oil coming out.” He thought it was Bob flying. I said, “CJ, it's not Bob, it's Will, I sure wish it were Bob right now.” CJ said later on. “I knew you were going to be fine when you were cracking jokes!” He asked, “What runway are you looking at?” I said, “Runway 14, how's that look to you?” “Looks great,” said CJ. I thought I could chop the power all the way, throw the flaps and the gear down and go one shot down to this runway but I thought I've never done that from this high up. I could do it, no problem, but I thought the engine is still running and making some power so I decided why turn this major emergency into a major emergency. Why not just come back on the power some and make a normal, stay over the airport and circle and land, landing? So I made a pretty steep approach, power off with no chance for a go around. I can only say that it does change your outlook on it when you're doing it and you know you can't go around. I was committed to landing and made one of the nicest landings of my life. I put this thing on the mains and I made sure I had a little extra speed and little extra float. I rolled out at the end, pulled off to the side, and put the tail out into the dirt just like they had told me, and got out. I have to say that the thing I kept thinking was “how am I going to act normal in from of those guys when they see me?” I mean, I just got to go 460 and I just got to handle a mayday in a race Mustang at Reno? I thought this is the best thing in the world! It doesn't get any better than this! And I survived it and didn't wreck the airplane too! There were a lot of plusses to this deal. So it was probably my best flight in my life!”
“We tow the airplane back to the pits and all the guysare there watching me and I have to keep my head down and not smile too much. It was just fabulous and I have to play it down! Bob came up, patted me on the back, and said, “Great job. Thanks so much. We're going to put the stock motor in there now and I'll fly the rest of the week. You just concentrate on your airplane and if you want to race Voodoo next year, you're more than welcome.”
“It turned out I'd burned a piston. In reality it's not that big a deal when compared to CJ's mayday when his engine almost split in half.”
“Bob put the stock motor in and had a mayday on Thursday from a small problem. He said to me that I could race it, which I did.” I can
only guess that Voodoo would have made 475+ MPH laps or
so once it settled down on the course. I am amazed at
how slick that airplane really is. I have to believe
that we would have been a contender this year had that
engine held together. Thanks to Bob Button and his crew
for the opportunity of a lifetime. I cannot tell you
guys enough, how much fun it is to go that fast on that
course.
Note:
Will flew Voodoo with a stock engine on Sunday and easily took 1st in the final Bronze race at 371mph. He raced Steadfast that same day and took 3rd in the final Silver race at 385mph.
Here is the video from inside Voodoo's cockpit during the Sunday race!
This was the first Sunday win for Voodoo in it’s long history and hopefully will set the stage for a winning streak that will see us win the Gold in 2009!
Stay Tuned!
Though we are unable to identify all photographers who sent us pictures this year, we would like to offer a very SPECIAL thanks to photo contributors! Also, thanks to Evanflys.com
Will Whiteside |
On Voodoo Versus the Stock Mustang
Voodoo is what I’ve heard called a 3rd generation Race
P51. The two that it follows are Dago Red and Strega.
Designed with many of the modifications that Dago and
Strega had been, Voodoo I’m told is lighter and has less
adverse handling effects as the others.
Voodoo doesn't fly like a stock mustang in the ways
you’d think. I keep hearing it is the Version 3 of
development of Dago, Strega. Considering the stock
canopy, I compared speeds and power settings of the
other two and there is a chance that in full race
trim,(Small canopy) Voodoo may be an improvement in the
design. I am just taking a WAG at this of course.
Probably just wishful thinking since I hopefully will be
in a good race with the pilots of the other two next
season.
On Handling
Voodoo requires very little trim change for change in
airspeed and has a lot of roll coupling. Meaning if the
airplane is flown uncoordinated in yaw, it will develop
a heavy wing requiring aileron input to maintain wings
level or just rudder input to fly coordinated. This is
much more pronounced than a stock P-51. At cruise speeds
it feels less "Locked in" as a stock P51D, TF or C. The
ailerons are always lighter than a stocker at any speed
even with the servo tabbed trim tabs. At speeds above
300 Miles Indicated, the airplane gets a more solid feel
to it and the airplane feels near Sea Fury stable in
yaw, pitch and roll at 400 MPH indicated. I saw about
410-420 MPH indicated before Voodoo's Turbine smooth
Merlin said "SEE YA"! and I will say it was the
smoothest, most pleasant engine airframe combination I
have ever flown. Not pitchy, not yaw unstable and not
heavy on roll stability. I was in heaven! I see why it
has endured the test of time in overall use.
If you were
to go fly a Sea Fury and then a Stock P51D, you would
reflect and see how much more improved the handling
during maneuvering the Sea Fury is. Voodoo retains it
light controls throughout its speed range like the Fury
does. It makes racing at the higher speeds much more
pleasant. The Fury is a much later design. It has much
more aero refinement. Voodoo by comparison to a stocker
when talking about the traffic pattern is apples and
apples until you leave about 145 MPH. I was taught to
fly a D or a TF by Art and Dan Vance. They use 115 MPH
as a speed to shoot for "Over the Fence".
The stock
airplanes have good visibility over the nose and good
aileron control throughout the approach and landing
phases using this speed. At less than this speed the
tail starts to drop and the nose comes up a bit and you
can feel that the airplane would rather be at the 115
MPH number. I found that this occurred on Voodoo below
140 MPH. Not sure if its a CG thing or clipped wings or
tail incidence. When I flew the Collings P-51C, I found
that this occurred at about 110 KIAS or about 126 MPH
which may indicate it has something to do with CG but I
have not researched the CG's of the above mentioned
P51's well enough to say.
The sink rate was very high on
Voodoo compared to a stocker at a lower comparable
speed. I'm honored that I can say that for racing,
Voodoo would be my choice of aero mods,(Bring on the
little canopy). For just everyday fun and practicality,
A stock 51 like the Vance's Speedball Alice would be my
choice. I wouldn't change a thing from the original
design. They got it so right and the nostalgia part
makes the love affair complete.
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