If Bruce Bohannon so much as checks the air in the tires of the
Exxon Flyin' Tiger, you can bet he has another record in
mind for it.
He's not setting those records in
front of the throngs any more, though, as he said at the AOPA Expo
this year. Last year, you may recall, he set seven time-to-climb
and altitude records (he knew of five at the time), just before the
AOPA Convention in Palm Springs (CA). This year, he set some more,
before the Philadelphia convention. He set them in Texas, and out
over the Gulf of Mexico.
Officially, Bruce should get recognition for time-to-climb to
15,000 meters (not a typo -- 15,000 meters!), at 23
minutes and 47 seconds; he should nail the class altitude in
horizontal flight, at around 42,122 feet; and he should take home
another certificate for absolute US altitude in class, at
"somewhere about 44,000 feet." [Previous records were,
respectively, 31:03; 40,500; and 41,611 -- all held by... Bruce
Bohannon, in the Exxon Flyin' Tiger --ed.] Unofficially,
Bruce probably set some kind of motorglider record, as well, a
record he didn't set out to beat.
It could have/would have been better, if only...
If only the team hadn't improved something, it might have been
different. A high-powered machine like the Tiger uses a
lot of cooling at some altitudes, at some phases of flight.
Typically, when Bruce has comfortably blown past another record,
he'll stay at that altitude for a couple minutes and let the engine
cool down, while also allowing the machine to speed up; then he's
off to a higher altitude.
For this run, higher than he's ever gone (50,000 feet was the
target), the spray coolant was changed to windshield-washer fluid,
replacing the usual distilled water. The theory was that the washer
fluid would freeze at a lower temperature, affording Bruce some
cooling, in even cooler air than he had encountered before. The
extra cooling, the team figured, would allow Bruce to use higher
power settings (available from a Kelley Aerospace turbo that's
about the size of a washing machine drum), at higher altitudes:
that's what the Flyin' Tiger is all about.
Well, it worked, in a manner of speaking. Unfortunately, the
unforeseen interjected itself, and that extra cooling wasn't needed
as much as everyone had anticipated, 'way up there, where the OAT
was about -72F.
The long and short of the attempt was that the spray didn't get
warmed enough by the oil cooler on which it was sprayed; without
that additional warming (particularly of the air that exited the
oil cooler), the overspray refroze, in a very inconvenient place:
it covered the gas tank vent.
With zero fuel pressure available (the pump was pumpin' for all
its worth, but at some point it couldn't overcome the vacuum), the
record attempt had to end. The problem for Bruce was, he was maybe
60 miles out over the Gulf, and his engine wasn't running. The good
news was, he was at 44,000 feet when it quit, so his alternate was
-- what, Spain?
We'll add depth to this story here, this week -- keep
reading Aero-News!