Lovely Piston Craft Achievements ((free))

What's lovely about Reno? It's analog. There are no fly-by-wire computers. The pilot manually adjusts manifold pressure, propeller pitch, and mixture while pulling 6 G's in a turn. Every victory is a victory of mechanics over physics, of courage over comfort. Perhaps the most enduringly lovely piston craft achievement is the mass production of trainers . The Piper J-3 Cub , the Cessna 150/152 , and the Beechcraft T-34 Mentor have taught more pilots to fly than any jet ever will.

The achievement here is absurdity: a piston engine—originally designed for a 400-mph top speed—pushed past 528 mph. Rare Bear set a time-to-climb record in 1989, reaching 9,842 feet in 91 seconds, beating early jet fighters. lovely piston craft achievements

Consider the in 1924. Powered by a 400-hp Liberty V-12 engine, four aircraft set out to circumnavigate the globe. Only two made it—the Chicago and the New Orleans —covering 27,553 miles in 175 days. The "lovely" achievement? They did it with open cockpits, hand-drawn maps, and engines so temperamental that mechanics carried spare magnetos in their flight bags. What's lovely about Reno

Similarly, the series became the workhorse of the African bush, the Brazilian Amazon, and the Papua New Guinea highlands. Its achievement? Unassisted operational readiness. There are strips in Indonesia where the only vehicle that has ever landed in 50 years is a piston Cessna on bushwheels. Racing Against Time: The Renaissance of Pylon Racing Not all lovely piston craft achievements are practical. Some are gloriously impractical. Enter the world of Reno Air Racing , where modified piston warbirds like Rare Bear (a highly modified Grumman F8F Bearcat) and Strega (a P-51 Mustang) fly at nearly 500 mph. The Piper J-3 Cub , the Cessna 150/152