Rutan Pond Racer
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|---|---|
 At 300 mph | |
 The pilot views the engines and the gear coming down | |
| Type | Racing aircraft, Historical aircraft |
| Configuration | Twin boom aircraft |
| Propulsion | Piston aircraft, Twin-engine aircraft |
| Manufacturer | Scaled Composites |
| Author(s) | Emmanuel Baranger (3D, FDM) |
| FDM | YASim |
| --aircraft= | pond |
| Status | Beta |
| FDM |
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| Systems |
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| Cockpit |
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| Model |
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| Development | |
| Hangar |
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| Website |
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| Repository |
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| Download |
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| License | GPLv2+ |
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The Rutan Pond Racer was a racing aircraft intended to create a new category of racing aircraft for the Reno air races. It was powered by two automobile engines developing 1000 hp each, but in practice never reached full power.
Review
Errors in loading
The Pond racer does not load in FG 3 without editing the pond.xml? and pilot.xml files that have some non standard French characters in the comments sections. Simply delete the relevant words and the problem disappears. Line 146 column 11 is where it all starts.
Flying
Flying this high performance aircraft was bound to be fraught with danger: starting with the usual magneto and and S key, the engines got up to speed fast, and the aircraft hurtled down the runway. Directional control was somewhat difficult to achieve, but climbing at 100mph and cruising at 300 at least was an experience. It was not difficult to fly, and handled quite well, even in high speed turns. The autopilot promptly rolled and crashed it, and pausing the sim was an opportunity to demonstrate how well one can handle an uncontrollable high speed roll.
Landing was another adventure, approaching at 200 mph for good measure, I bounced twice, no three times, and ran off the end of the runway, nose tipped over into the tarmac due to heavy application of the tail dragger that was now dragging its nose rather than its tail. One has to be careful with the brakes.
Gallery
View from the tower
Landing and bouncing
