Steve Wittman,
aka 'The Grand Old Man of Air Racing,' was a prolific airplane designer, builder, and
pilot. His Wittman Tailwind homebuilt airplane was very popular and proved to be fast
and efficient for its size and power. The 'Formula Vee' racer, motivated by a highly
modified Volkswagen engine, easily broke the 170 mph speed benchmark. Making outside-the-box
tradeoffs like suffering the drag of wing bracing wires for a lighter and thinner airfoil
are what made Wittman a crafty - and winning - designer. A scale model of the Wittman
Vee might benefit from a slightly thicker airfoil and larger tail surfaces unless you
want to have to aggressively fly the craft the entire time it is in the air.
200 MPH Volkswagen?

The Grand Old Man of Air Racing, Steve Wittman, looks forward
to his 70th birthday and to his first race in his Formula Vee racer. |
"Witt's V," like all his other racers, is faster than it looks. The simple lines
are very efficient.
by Don Berliner and Bob Pauley
Some people just don't know when to quit. Like, for instance, Steve Wittman.
In the Spring of 1974, he'll be 70 years old. That's the time to sit back and reflect
on more than 40 glorious years of designing and building and flying some of the most
exciting airplanes the world has ever seen; and on a lifetime of showing the aviation
world that there's a simpler, cheaper way of doing what other people insist on doing
in complicated, expensive ways. The spring-steel landing gear on the past 25 years' worth
of fixed-gear Cessnas is one of Steve's clever inventions. And a 125 hp two-place lightplane
that cruises 50 percent faster than anything the industry has been able to create? Well,
his Tailwind does that with ease.
Steve has had more harrowing experiences than most people can imagine. Like the time
he was shot down while flying over the Great Smokey Mountains and came out of it without
a scratch. Or like the time, many years ago, when his engine quit during a race and he
landed on top of an Army bomber! Or the time he threw a prop blade while flying out over
the middle of Lake Michigan in his Tailwind-and glided back to his home field to land
with an ice-cold engine.
Even that sampling would be enough for anyone person, no matter how talented. But
small, fast airplanes have been so much a part of Steve Wittman's life, that neither
age nor retirement could interrupt their romance. In fact, the extra spare time afforded
by retirement was just what Steve needed to enable him to start on some of the projects
he'd been thinking about for years.

The shortest route to speed is aerodynamic cleanliness. Witt's
Vee has no more than the absolute minimum frontal area and a very thin wing.
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Priority Number One went to a Volkswagen-powered sport racer for the new Formula Vee
racing class. The idea of building an airplane suited not only for racing, but also for
low-cost sport flying really appealed to Steve. And using a car engine in a homebuilt
airplane was another idea with all sorts of potential, especially in view of the steadily
rising cost of the few small aircraft engines still available.
Steve had been in on the beginnings of Formula Vee, back in March of 1964. The men
planning an "aerial Olympics" for Palm Springs, Caif., wanted a new class of homebuilt
racers, and so Formula Vee was created (it was then the 95 cu. in. class) from an idea
then being worked on in England. The Palm Springs extravaganza was pretty much of a flop.
Formula Vee was more so. There wasn't a single airplane off the drawing board, let alone
in the air.
As the 1960s dragged on, sport racing type people went in the direction of the established
Sport Biplane Class and Formula I. These classes were growing well, but not so well that
a lot of people and money could be siphoned off to start a new class without risking
serious damage to the old ones. Formula Vee just sat there, whimpering.
 The Instrument panel of Witt's Vee: Simple and lightweight. (From
Left): Manifold pressure, oil pressure, G-meter, airspeed, altitude, oil temperature.
 The critical area where the wing meets the fuselage. The square-sided
cowling is easier to build and just as clean as one with flowing lines.
 Landing gear struts are of titanium. Wheel pants will come later.
 Classic Wittman lines: Boxy. with a strange combination of curves
and points. But it's the first one across the finish line that wins ... not the prettiest.
 A long prop extension permits the sharpest nose of any VW-powered
engine.
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Finally. in 1969, the first pieces of metal were cut. And even though there was no immediate
prospect of a race, Steve's V out for public view during the first EAA Fly-In to be held
at Wittman Field, Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The 1970 Fly-In was held at the field he had managed
from 1930 until the late 60s; his home and hangar/shop are just across the runway.
The airplane so eagerly awaited by homebuilders and race fans alike must have been
something of a disappointment. It was an oversized Formula I: angular, hump-backed and
painted a garish green with yellow wings. It wasn't particularly sleek. It certainly
wasn't very pretty. And it didn't look very fast.
But it was by Wittman. His Tailwind fits the above description more or less, and it's
darned fast. Sporting aviation people have long since learned not to scoff at anything
from the wise old hands of Steve Wittman, and so they looked very carefully.
What they saw was the shape of things to come-just like his Buster had shown them
in the first Formula I race at Cleveland in 1947. For the first decade of Midget Racing,
practically everyone who had started off in some other direction, eventually came around
to Wittman's way of doing things. That was because Steve's homely little racers won most
of the races in those days.
He won races because his airplanes were clean and light and simple. They got off fast
and they got around the turns with a minimum loss of speed, and they rarely failed to
finish a race due to mechanical problems. This philosophy has worked for Wittman for
many years, and he sees no reason to change it. The new little VW machine was simply
more of the same.
With an empty weight of 435 lb., and the required minimum wing area of 75 sq. ft.,
he came up with a wing loading, at racing weight, of about 8 lb. per sq. ft. This means
such tight pylon turns that not even the most nimble of Formula Is could hope to keep
up with him around the turns. Several tried it in an exhibition race and watched him
leave them flat at the corners.
One way he kept the weight down was to use thin wires to brace the wing, so he could
get by with a much lighter wing spar (and faster airfoil) than airplanes having cantilever
wings. A bonus advantage of this is the elimination of the spar sticking through the
cockpit - any extra room for the pilot can be a blessing on cross-country flights.
One of the big problems with VW-powered airplanes has been the high drag of the blunt
nose, for the famous German car engine is not meant to be tucked into a streamlined airplane
cowling. Steve turned the engine around (so it runs the right way and he can use standard
propellers), and built a special housing for a long extension prop shaft. With the widest
part of the engine far behind the prop, a super-sleek cowl could then be built.
Construction is basically conventional. The wings are of spruce with plywood covering.
The fuselage and tail are built up of chrome-molybdenum steel tubing and covered with
fabric. Only the landing gear is different, with all struts having been machined from
titanium stock-light but rather springy.
Even after the airplane flew in late 1970, development moved slowly, for there were
no other Formula Vees in the air, hence no races coming up. Steve wasn't satisfied with
the center of gravity of his little bird, and made a major change in the location of
the wing. The engine, too, gave problems. for he was exploring unknown territory in the
use of a VW engine in a high performance airplane. Prior to his racer, VW-powered lightplanes
had been operating in the 100-130 mph range. He passed by this without a pause. and then
150 mph, and then 170 mph.
As he slowly built up hours on his new No. I, he became more and more pleased with
its handling characteristics and speed range, and this was what he wanted. Soon, spectators
at fly-ins and airshows were witnessing aerobatics displays by Wittman and his little
Vee:
Rolls on top of loops, snap rolls, and even the rarely seen falling leaf. From a minimum
speed of around 45 mph right on up to the top speed of at least 175 mph, it flew without
a bad habit.
Its first time on a race course came, appropriately enough, at Cleveland, during the
1971 Formula I races at Lakefront Airport. To get there. Steve hopped into his flying
Volkswagen and covered the 500 miles from Oshkosh in just three hours flying time. His
few laps were strictly an exhibition. but he showed a lot of people that his low-powered
sport plane could not only fly cross-country in fine style, but also wrap itself around
a tight pylon course like a true racer.
By now. a second Formula Vee design had flown and was attracting a lot of attention.
Young John Monnett's Sonerai had a cantilever folding wing with a thicker airfoil, but
otherwise resembled Steve's Vee in general arrangement. Monnett was eager to get the
class going, and so immediately began selling plans with enthusiasm-and considerable
success. Wittman preferred to hold back
until he was 100 percent satisfied with the design, though a few pushy friends were
able to badger him into releasing some drawings so they could begin building their own.
The months dragged on, however, and still there wasn't a sign of a race, mainly because
there were just the two Formula Vee airplanes-and what kind of a race can you have with
two planes? Dozens were being built, but race organizers want some kind of assurance
that at least a half dozen will show up, before they'll agree to put up prize money.
Lacking races for h is airplane, Wittman continued to do what he could to stimulate
interest in the new class by flying airshows and by showing the folks what his machine
will do-such as fly it across the Rocky Mountains to Reno in 1972 to see the Air Races.
In classic Wittman style, he simply climbed in and took ott. While crossing the highest
mountains short of the Pacific Coast, he climbed as high as 16,000 ft. and reported the
airplane handled "just fine" up there.

Each
time a few more thousand people see Steve Wittman and his neat little VW racer perform,
a couple more think seriously about building their own. He has now sold several dozen
sets of plans, while Monnett must have topped the 100 mark. By the summer of 1974, a
half dozen or more should be flying, and the first race in the history of Formula Vee
could be upon us.
In fact, the Great Miami Air Races, scheduled for January 18-20, 1974, has tentatively
included a Formula Vee in its program. It may come off, and then again it may not. But
each step brings Formula Vee closer to reality. And if the exact date of the first race
is far from certain, one thing can be counted on: Steve Wittman will be the odds-on favorite
to win that first race, wherever it is.
There's a very good reason for that "No.1" on the side of Witt's V.
Notice:
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Posted December 15, 2014
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