...and It's a Biplane!

ANN On-Scene Coverage of Reno 2003

Tom Aberle had a dream. A biplane racer and aficionado for years, he carried this idea around in his head for a number of years, about an 'optimized' biplane racer. Of course, others had developed such 'rules-meeters' before: one of the most-popular designs in the class is the Mong Sport; others (like recent 3-time champ Dave Rose) had even more-radical approaches.

You've never seen anything like Tom Aberle's Phantom, though.

Both wings are cantilevered; the interplane 'struts' are there just for show, and because the rules say there have to be interplane struts. The lower wing is an inverted gull-wing design, like a Corsair -- and for the same reason. Tom said, "The inverted gull wing simulates having noi landing gear -- all that drag: struts, springs, add-on pants, even wires." Phantom sits on its mains... literally.

"Everything is aimed at complying with the rules, minimizing drag, and going fast." Phantom has a high-aspect wing, top and bottom. At the tips, the chord is smaller than the span of my outstretched hand.

Started building in February. This February.

Tom said, "I've had this idea in my head for about seven years." Last winter, though, funding finally made it possible. How long had the idea been on paper, I asked. "It's not on paper," he said. There's just a bunch of sketches." Though Tom has a performance engineering background, and can produce professional drawings, he just didn't need to, for this one-off racer. "The 'paper' is ideas," he said. "The work is done by hand."

Tom had an aeronautical engineer come see the progress, three times. "He came out three times, and we worked 14-hour days for a week each time."

Local help and design work, as well as countless hours, were put in by Robert Busch, the head engineer; and by the Patterson Brothers, Andy and Stewart, who conjured up all kinds of innovative solutions, and did the airfoil research as well. Eagle Creek Systems, which is a business organization software firm, provided the major funding. They had two people at the races, to see how their new baby was doing.

Phantom's construction was really begun in February. "I had this truss lying around for about seven years," Tom said, referring to the tube truss section of a Mong, from the seatback to the firewall. "About 55% of that remains." His son said the plane is therefore, "a modified Mong." No kidding!

There's just 50 hours on the airplane, including the 40 it needed to fly off, just to allow it to fly out of town.

How does it work?

It's rough, trying to break into an established, highly-competitive class at Reno; and the bipes are that, if anything. Doing it with an airplane that has an innovation per cubic inch -- that's a miracle.

Tom qualified his revolutionary biplane on the pole, at 221.288mph.

FMI: www.ecs.com; www.airrace.org