Gone West: Reno Air Race Pilot Darryl Greenamyer | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-10.06.25

AirborneNextGen-
10.07.25

Airborne-Unlimited-10.08.25

Airborne-FlightTraining-10.09.25

AirborneUnlimited-10.10.25

Sun, Oct 07, 2018

Gone West: Reno Air Race Pilot Darryl Greenamyer

Was Third Most Successful Competitor In Reno Air Race History

A former Air Force Reserve pilot who went on to work at Lockheed where he became an SR-71 test pilot has Gone West. Darryl Greenamyer passed away Monday in Indio, CA. He was 82 years old.

According to Wikipedia, Greenamyer used connections made at Lockheed's Skunk Works to modify racing planes. He won his first unlimited class race at Reno in 1965, and went on to become the third most successful competitor in the history of the races.

Among his records, on August 16, flying the highly modified Grumman F8F-2 Bearcat "Conquest I" , Greenamyer broke the 30-year-old FAI Class C-1 Group I 3 km speed record with a speed of 419.75 knots. He won the National Air Races six times with the airplane before donating it to the Smithsonian in 1977.

On October 24, 1977, Greenamyer, flying a modified F-104 Starfighter "Red Baron", set a FAI Class C-1 Group III 3 km speed record of 858.77 knots, which still stands.

According to Wikipedia, Greenamyer built the Starfighter from parts over a 13-year period. Some of those parts came from the very first production F-104A which had gone down in Palmdale, CA 22 years before he began his project. The "Red Baron" was lost as Greenamyer was preparing to attempt the FAI altitude record. He was unable to lock the landing gear in place before landing on a practice flight, and he was forced to eject from the airplane, which was destroyed.

(F-104 image from file. Not Greenamyer's airplane)

FMI: Wikipedia entry

Advertisement

More News

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (10.13.25): Homing [ICAO]

Homing [ICAO] The procedure of using the direction-finding equipment of one radio station with the emission of another radio station, where at least one of the stations is mobile, >[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (10.13.25)

Aero Linx: European Regions Airline Association (ERA) The European Regions Airline Association (ERA) represents a diverse membership of over 50 airlines and more than 150 associate>[...]

ANN FAQ: Q&A 101

A Few Questions AND Answers To Help You Get MORE Out of ANN! 1) I forgot my password. How do I find it? 1) Easy... click here and give us your e-mail address--we'll send it to you >[...]

NTSB Prelim: CubCrafters Carbon Cub

While On Short Final, About 300 Ft, The Pilot Performed A Forced Landing Near Trees On September 7, 2025, about 0932 eastern daylight time, a CubCrafters Carbon Cub EX airplane, N4>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (10.14.25): Severe Icing

Severe Icing The rate of ice accumulation is such that ice protection systems fail to remove the accumulation of ice and ice accumulates in locations not normally prone to icing, s>[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2025 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC