Griffon Powered P-51 'Precious Metal' Gets Dressed For Reno 2011

Recent test flight of the ungreened Precious Metal, the Griffon powered P-51 racer

 (3 pix, all from Precious Metal pilot Thom Richard's facebook page)

 The Unlimited racers for Reno 2011 (Sept 14-18) are lining up to make this an incredible year of racing. While I'm certainly no expert on all the aircraft that'll be racing, I have spent some time soaking up some info on several of the most notable... and the Rolls Royce Griffon powered mixmaster P-51 (with counter-rotating props) known as Precious Metal is certainly one of them. The airplane is now based at the Kissimmee Air Museum in Florida, where it can be seen when it's not at Reno. I had the pleasure of talking with PM's race pilot Thom Richard on the phone Wednesday about how progress is coming along for one of the most unique P-51 racers ever built. Here's some of what I found out.

 On Wednesday 8-30-11, the PM team put two test flights on the airplane totalling about an hour of flight time. They were testing out a variety of mods to the airplane that they've been working on for a while (sorry, no specifics to share) and everything worked! That's a pretty critical test to pass with the races starting in about two weeks. You may know that PM has been around for quite a few years but it's never really lived up to the potential that's packed into the front end... and the dreams that Don Whittington had for the airplane. The new Precious Metal team is hoping that these mods they've been working on will move the airplane from being a fascinating and entertaining novelty at Reno to being a real contender in the fast pack along with Strega, Voodoo, Rare Bear and last year's new kid on the block: Galloping Ghost...

(click pic to enlarge)  Precious Metal... highly modified P-51 looking pretty mean in flight

 The green painted wings that have been part of Precious Metal for many years have recently been stripped, and Thom said the plan is to get some updated markings on the airplane yet before Reno. It sounds like most of the airplane will be polished tho, which is pretty appropriate considering the name. Hopefully I'll be able to post some images of the updated look soon.

 PM is still race #38, and it's still gonna be really easy to pick out of a crowd with those counter-rotating 3-blade props out front. The Griffon engine is very different from the Rolls Royce Merlin which has been such a popular and important part of aviation history, and Reno racing. While almost 150,000 Merlins were built, only a little over 8,000 Griffons were built. The Griffon had increased displacement, 2,240 cubic inches compared to 1647 for the Merlin, yet it was actually a little shorter. It also had a very similar frontal area which made it possible to incorporate the engine into airframes originally intended for the Merlin. All those extra cubic inches didn't translate into a proportionally higher power output, but the engine did have noticeably more ponies than the Merlin, and of course, it was heavier.

 Those extra ponies (and the accompanying torque) led to difficulties in keeping the British warbirds that had the Griffon installed headed in a straight line down the runway. This was further complicated by the fact that the engine turned in the opposite direction from the Merlin. Eventually the engine was redesigned with the torque cancelling counter-rotating propeller arrangement. I'm not sure how many were built in these two very different configurations, but regardless, Precious Metal runs the two prop setup. Thom estimates the power output at 3,200 hp, and they only have the one race engine for Reno this year. He said some of the parts needed to keep a Griffon running are fairly easy to source out, and others are very hard to find. There's pretty much no common parts between the Griffon and the Merlin.

(click pic to enlarge)  The estimated 3,200 hp business end of Precious Metal

 So, how fast will Precious Metal run at Reno this year? No one knows. The team is gonna find out pretty much when the watchers do... out on the race course. They've proven so far that their mods to the airplane are sound, now they'll just have to work they way thru qualifying balancing speed, need, and engine stress. Thom said he believes the Griffon is a great engine with lots of potential to be competitive against the higher revving and harder working Merlins. All I know is that it's gonna really fun watching the mixmaster Mustang tear up the Nevada sky in the same air as the Bear, Strega, Voodoo and the Ghost!

Learn more about Thom Richard and Precious Metal at race83.com

Comments

[glen towler]

I have seen photos of a spitfire with contra rotating propeller but never thought I would see a P51 must be a amazing to fly.