Told December 30, 2001 by Ray Ward
Scott's letter the other day prompts me to write this, though it is ancient history to you new guys, The CAFE 400 was started in 1980 as an annual event to see which is the best cross-country airplane. Planes were accurately weighed before and after flying over a 400 mile course out of Santa Rosa , Cal to measure the fuel burn . score was MPH X MPG X passenger payload up to 200 lbs per seat allowable. 800 lbs. for a 4-place airplane. Ballast added to baggage compartment for light weight passengers. In 1982 a record was established that held for many years by --- you guessed it; a BD-4. Roger developed the Mellema windshield to minimize the draggiest part of a BD-4 and won; beating his nearest competitor by 44% He beat the darling of the aviation journalists; Bert Rutan flying his Defiant. The Defiant was getting all the ink in the press, and touted as "the world's safest airplane". Bert tried to get the BD-4 disqualified, saying the back seat is too narrow to be a 4-place, and should be judged as a 3-place.
Bert can't stand to lose, so in 1988 he appeared with the goofy-looking Catbird designed to win the CAFE 400. He put a center seat between the 2 front seats so the thighs of the 3 people overlap, keeping the frontal area minimized (the pilot seat was slightly raised). So now the Catbird holds the record with 5 passengers in the class of 3 or more category . 1982 race was an interesting comparison of airframe types. A Dyke Delta (tailless) , The Defiant (canard), and the BD-4 (conventional) competed in the 3 or more class. Most people would guess the tailless as most efficient, but he was beaten by the canard and the conventional.
Now comes the fun part. in 1988 I won the Triaviathon contest at Santa Rosa which is a climb-out contest run in conjunction with the CAFE 400. I was flying my BD-4 with the 300 hp Lycoming installed. That year I decided to fly in the exhibition class to go for a fixed gear speed record over the 400 mile course. The race numbers are assigned to planes in the order of their expected speed to minimize passing; the fastest taking off first, the rest at 2 minute intervals. I was race 6, and race 5 just ahead of me was an Italian plane described by its owner as the "Ferrari of Aircraft" (I can't remember it name , I think it is a Savoia and looks just like a Falco) It was a beautiful red 2-place retractable. He said anybody who appreciates airplanes will one day buy one of these, even if they are somewhat expensive. Anyway, after we all got off and climbed out , we were flying along when I began to see a speck on the horizon ahead of me. You guessed it ; it was the Ferrari of airplanes. We all monitored the same frequency for communication. I waited until I got close enough to see his face when I announced, "Race 5, race 6 is passing on your starboard quarter". He whipped his head around like a Jap Zero had him in his sights. His mouth was open in disbelief seeing a fixed gear 4-place coming by.
At the awards banquet that night he was much more respectful, and instead of talking about the Ferrari, he was asking about BD-4's Yes, I established a fixed-gear speed record at the CAFE 400, which, as far as I know is still held by a BD-4 ! I have another BD-4 fun story some of you have heard at my auto engine forums ,or read about in my book about my encounter with a high dollar twin, but I've run out of time. I'll write about that later stay tuned.
Ray Ward