The Pylon Place - April 2012

Secret Pete Law

By Marilyn Dash

Pete Law tells his tales for the NAG membership.Last month, the attendees of the National Air Racing Group’s annual meeting had a real treat in the form of guest speaker, Secret Pete Law. The aviation engineer has helped nearly every winning unlimited racer and even some sport racers along his amazing career path.

Starting in 1959 at Lockheed when Law worked on the F104 program he was immediately identified as someone worth knowing, and quickly recruited by Ben Rich to join Lockheed Skunk Works. To be brief, Pete is a specialist in heat transfer and systems. Commonly referred to as “ADI” in the air racing community, it is much more than that.

ADI stands for Anti Detonation Injection. Detonation occurs when a fuel/air charge within a cylinder ignites by something other than the sparkplug. The flame front in the burning charge collides with the flame front initiated by the sparkplug. Where this collision occurs, the pressure rises much higher than would normally occur when the cylinder is firing properly. The added pressure has a runaway effect, causing the fuel/air in that zone to burn so rapidly as to appear to detonate. The pressure spike caused by this can damage pistons, valves, connecting rods, etc.

Detonation happens when excessive cylinder compression ratio, and advanced spark timing occurs. Hot intake air and heavy acceleration/engine load can also trigger it. Detonation in an automobile engine is sometimes known as “knocking” or “pinging” because of the audible sound when it occurs.

All engine designs are a compromise. Engineers know that the more compression and spark advance they can run, the more energy they can extract from the fuel burned. The problem is that if they take it too far, the engine will start detonating and if it is severe, engine damage can occur.

To combat this detonation, the addition of a mixture of water and methanol allows an engine to increase the horsepower without fear of detonation.

Racing

Shockwave, the R4360 Racer Project. (Rudy Siegel)Darryl Greenamyer recruited Pete to assist him in his first racer, a Bearcat called Conquest One. Taking the knowledge from Skunk Works and applying them now to piston powered racers - Pete quickly became indispensable.

He soon joined forces with aerodynamicist and structural engineer, Bruce Boland. Boland would mould the exterior of an aircraft and Pete would change the systems to get the most power.

Pete is the original “been there – done that” guy. He was there when Darryl Greenamyer flew the F-104, Red Baron at Mud Lake, and was there when Steven Hinton flew the Griffon powered, P-51 Red Baron to set his records. He has been a key figure at every National Championship Air Race and is a lifetime member of the unlimited division.

Darryl again recruited Pete Law and Bruce Boland for Shockwave, the R4360 Racer Project, with a streamlined body and an F86 tail. Darryl is in the market for a deep-pocketed sponsor to help finish that project but the initial estimates were 555 mph in a straight line – 520 on the course. That would be something to see.

While most of his experience has been in the unlimited division, Pete has said several times that the future of air racing is in the super sport: the slick experimental aircraft with 1,000 hp engines, which look very much like a weekend flyer, until you see what is under the hood. Again, Darryl recruited Pete to work on his Legacy in the sport/super sport class - which led to Darryl winning four titles in this division to add to his five unlimited titles.

I should say that Pete assisted Team Ruby last year when we were having high oil temps and helped us develop a rudimentary spray bar system to keep the temps down. He is also there to answer questions, and I appreciate that. The best part about Pete Law is he is the friendliest and happiest person on the ramp and the most helpful. He never plays favorites, just gives the facts and shares his knowledge everywhere.

I could listen to him for hours telling his stories, peppered with comments like, “I can’t tell you about that one, and it’s still classified.”