x planes

While we wait for a record breaker, another (potential) one caught my eye the other day:

“An amateur aircraft designer can tailor a plane to fit his or her precise requirements, no matter how outlandish. Take David Rose. Inside his hangar at Montgomery Field in San Diego, this former airline pilot is building a machine that he hopes will earn him aeronautical immortality.

If all goes according to plan, a thunderously overpowered racing machine called RP-4 will reach a straight and level speed in excess of 528.3 mph and become the world’s fastest piston-driven plane. The 22-year-old record is held by a modified World War II—era Grumman F8F Bearcat.”

from Popular Mechanics, 12/10/2011. I cannot find any update on the status of this aircraft since then.

(bottom photograph by Jake Stangel. Other great ones from the same shoot can be found here.)