Cobalt wrote:
Did they reinforce the Glasair? With plastic aircraft, sometime people just add more layers, but the Glasair wings are metal, I believe?
No significant airframe changes except removing the flaps. The wing is fiberglass. These guys happen to be world class composites people in their main businesses (the race plane thing is a hobby) and if they’d done anything significant to the airframe they would have thrown away the existing wing etc and built a new one in carbon fiber. As it happens the Glasair structure is very overbuilt (and heavy) so that wasn’t necessary.
The Glastar has a metal wing, different high wing plane by the same company.
Silvaire wrote:
it’s interesting to make a widely seen homebuilt design perform like a stock P-51.
Indeed. I’m partial to the level playing field of the O-200 class, though.
It would be interesting to see the statistics of failure modes of such engines – quite useful for finding weak spots in the design and possibly remedying them through an STC (or a TC change if done by the TC holder).
Ultranomad wrote:
I’m partial to the level playing field of the O-200 class, though.
One of the guys with the Glasair had a long history in that class, including I think two original design airframes. In his words he built “I don’t know, a hundred?” O-200 racing engines. There are some tricks to those last long enough at over 4000 RPM, and I think the manufacturers are not unaware of what people do, in spite of the best efforts of the builders to keep their secrets away from anybody who might tell the competition 
What is used for anti detonation?
Cobalt wrote:
… and the rest of your money will go to the engine overhaul fundFairly normal pressure for a Diesel engine, just build your engine like one. But don’t complain it’s gone heavy, you can’t have your cake and eat it.
Silvaire wrote:
Another guy at my base just switched from a Lancair to an L-39
LOL, well not a bad decision also from a safety point of view. I’d take a L-39 over a Lancair (particularly the 4 and 4P) any day.
The L-39 guy still has his TSIO-550 powered Legacy as his daily flyer, the L-39 is mainly just for racing. I believe his wife will be flying the Lancair at Reno this year, so both planes will be racing.
The guys with the racing Glasair also have a Lancair IV that they use for family travel. They did an extensive panel rework and changed the wing tips per their own design to improve low speed performance and carry more fuel. They like it.
The Glasair ended up qualifying first in class at 397 mph (about 20 mph faster than 2019) and then finishing the race second in class. First place next year will take another 5 mph or so
