I got a chance to race TWO new SSR's for the first time at the Dallas contest today. The black and red airplane above won with a 5:43, with decent, but not perfect pits. (Not a complaint or a shot at my pit man Mike Greb, I think he would agree with that assessment.) The even newer airplane, which I built for Mike's entry, came in second with a 6:02. Again, decent but not perfect pits, but we had no practice time with this airplane. First test flights were Friday afternoon. This airplane uses the "short tank" plumbing design described above, and we used it to good advantage in the race.
Perhaps more interesting about the blue and yellow airplane is the construction. It is built like a slow combat airplane. The foam wings have wooden spars, leading edges, trailing edges, and tips, but no sheeting. The wings are covered with silkspan, then covered with iron-on film. The fuselage and tail were sealed with thinned finish-cure epoxy, then painted with epoxy primer and epoxy paint. This type of construction goes together very quickly, and ended up a couple of ounces lighter than the red and black airplane.
For the gearheads, the Brodak has a .330 venturi, and the ThunderTiger has a .200 venturi. Both used the APC 8x6 sport prop. I don't have exact numbers from today, but I think the Brodak was running in the mid 18's, and the ThunderTiger was running in the mid 19's (airspeed, not RPM).