by wifesaysno » Mon Feb 23, 2015 10:00 pm
And she had a troubled life...scared the crap out of Dick Rutan at first in particular on the ground. In the air its handling was nice albeit those engine installations were challenging. At least the fuselage plug still exists but no Pond Racer will ever be built again. Rather fond of this design and a bit obsessed with it...word on the street is under no circumstances would it have been a winner. To much intersection drag! Sadly every custom Unlimited Class racer has either crashed well before ever showing what it could do on the course or has yet to even see the light of day let a lone the course! I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to work on a custom unlimited...someone PLEASE hire Lancair Intl to design-build-test one!!!!!
September 14th 1993: Rick Brickert, 38, of Sandy, Utah - A former champion flying a Scaled Composites 158-8, registered as N221BP and nicknamed “Pond Racer”, he crashed at 4:42 in the afternoon during an off-airport emergency landing in the desert at Lemmon Valley, Nevada during the Unlimited trials. Brickert had just requested the timing clock between pylons number five and six when he abruptly initiated a pull up and stated that he was leaving the course. He then advised his pit crew that he had a little problem with the right engine, and the tower advised Brickert that he was trailing smoke. As Brickert was maneuvering east bound at the apex of his climb in the vicinity of the home pylon abeam the numbers/north of Runway 26 , a puff of smoke about the size of the aircraft was observed from the area of the right engine. The NTSB determined the probable cause of this crash to be oil starvation and connecting rod failure in the right engine, and a resultant fuel fed fire.
