It will be a long time -- a few months -- before the official declaration will be made; but best-available information now says that Tuesday's absolute world's altitude record in class belongs to the Exxon Elite/Mattituck team that fielded the Flyin' Tiger, and the tall Texan who flew it.

As we reported in Wednesday's edition ("Bohannon's Flyin' Tiger Claws For Record: It's Close, Really Close," 04-10-02, ANN), it took a while to gather all the available and pertinent atmospheric data, to determine exactly what altitude Bruce had achieved. When the flight data are certified, Bruce should be issued yet another official sheet of paper, declaring him a World Record Holder, in yet another category.

Bohannon already holds the time-to-climb records to 3000, 6000, and 9000 meters; and the high-flying (cruise) altitude record, set over the past two years, in this same airplane. For this absolute altitude record, though, the TCM/Mattituck 550 was given a turbocharger, to keep its 350 horsepower available to as high an altitude as possible. Prior to Tuesday, Bruce had never brought this combination above 18,000 feet. He still hadn't tested, for instance, the pressurized Unison ignition at that altitude. [It worked fine, as expected --ed.]

Remarkable engine...

When Bohannon had touched down Tuesday, and everything was determined to be OK, long-time Crew Chief Gary Hunter was pleased, as only mechanics can be: "We can fly it home," he noted. Bruce told me yesterday one other interesting fact about this particular engine: it's the same one that set the altitude record last year, and it's the same engine that set the time-to-climb record to 9000 meters. One engine, three world's records.

"We took it apart to see how it was doing after that [the time-to-climb record]," Bruce said, "but everything looked fine, so it went back together -- and it's still working just fine."

No kidding.

FMI: FMI: http://www.exxonmobil.com/lubes/aviation/intro.html, www.mattituck.com, www.unisonindustries.com