What a Creation - Wind Walker Butts Aerowing
You really have to ask yourself what Tim was dreaming about in full color and stereo sound when he was dreaming while sleeping? Ahead of his time seems to fit that with him to a T, T for Tim! I had only heard strange roumors of that one and it never dawned on me that the Master team's raceboat logo on here was that very raceboat! Just how many "different" designs did Tim produce in all those years? I also heard that he had quite some influence on Schumaker hydros and some others on top of that, that were his understudies something like violin maker Stradevarius?? I hear that making hydros these days is still no easy business to satisfy anyone all the time, what is Tim Butts doing these days? Hoping its now teaching the unwashed like some of us?? Fantastic raceboats from a truly fantastic raceboat builder (and mine are staying put here too under lock and key!) :)
I know that "feeling" makes you shiver after your white collar hours were over!
That raceboat is the stuff of rumor and legend around these parts and really only known to Butts Aerowing owners as rumor and legend. There are those that said such a raceboat could not exist outside of the lil 1/25 scale stuff because it would take too much power to lift her. I always took the notion that it was developed, if it ever existed at all, to be kept down because all that horsepower that was available. I have seen 4 point hydros before, there was even one built here to run a 20H on but not a pickelfork way back in the early seventies by the notorius local runabout builders, Bruce and Les Barton. A Merc 20H just did not have the power to lift that crazy thing and back then it had a conventional front on it, pickelforks were only in the inventives hazy dreams at that point so they abandoned the project. The one thing they liked about a 4 point is just how well it went around corners but that was all,otherwise it was glued to the water. Tim Butts clearly took the concept all the way to the stars. This site brought what was a rumor into a reality for me. I have already emailed other Aerowing owners on the Wind Walker this evening! Who says you need an F1 or CanAm Group 7 car in your garage! Just open the door on that Wind Walker! You just went to pickelfork heaven! LOL! Has this been a weekend for revelations!! Mnay thanks to you and to the maste builder Tim Butts! :)
My 1987 or 1988 Butts Aerowing Has a Mystery To It To I Want To Get To The Bottom Of?
Back in the 1990s, I was offered and bought a Butts Aerowing already posted small here that evidentally was a real smoker at the 1988 APBA Modified Outbaord Nationals in FE running some Formula E version of a Merc 44 Modified. Evidentally after that even that raceboat disappeared until I was offered it and brought it home, it had no front cowl and was basically primered and left that way.
This is the stuff of legend! That hydro has a left single step sponson but the right is 2 step! The hydro has a tunnel right to the shortened transom and very short after planes. I saw it in a 1988 movie of that APBA Nationals but there was no display of the cornering problems I have had with it? I suffered extreme high speed blow outs with it at speeds most Merc 44 D/FE powered raceboats could not get to, that causes the rear of the boat to lift and swing alternating sideways from left to right and back again to the point where at speeds others could not do it was ready to roll. Scared?, you bet I was/am as it would develop speeds no one else could get to but get it to turn around a corner, not a chance! An oval tracker is not much good if it can't do both, that is go down those straights and then corner, SO?? Why in the movie could it do both and win?
I would sure like to get this figured out but it requires Tim Butts as well as that owner/driver of that era that got it going so successfully in 1988 to fill in those technical gaps. To this date she has that crazy high speed but that is no longer out of control, but, to turn her is still the big problem so what am I missing that is sure not the case in the movie? The only change I made was to run a custom made Kamic eared 4 blade prop instead of a 3 blade cleaver to stabilize straightway performance. It has inproved around the corners but is still wild and wants to hook??? and then? Why did the boat disappear off the face of the earth the way it did, until I came along and so far no one has come up with anything other than more mystery and more questions?
Can this be for real? About that Aerowing hydro I have here? Can anyone fill in the technical questions I would like to see answered. I am at a loss. :)
Two Blade Props Are Long Gone Items - But That Gives Me An Idea!
What you said just gave an me your idea some fresh thought in me. Two blade props are pretty much long gone around here with nothing but 3s and 4s being the norm BUT many 4 blades here were made from identical matched 2 blade ears, so back to to some trying, never tried. Its seems so strange that a Butts Super C hydro sporting a Merc 44 could corner and straightway that they do and then run into this later model spooky hydro that did not want to do either when you load the horsepower on her intended for her to use in the first place. In the small picture we had to make up raceboats at a meet for D-Stock class, so we had a 135lb driver running a Merc 55H that performed like the motor, no problems, but jam a D or FE Merc 44 on her and it brought out the worst in her. Maybe it is all prop and the setup to go with it? Thanks for the advice. :)