Butts Aerowing-The Only Way To Fly

**Master Oil Racing Team** · 08-11-2005

....pieces of the puzzle start coming together. Joe Rome put me on this photo of Tim in the Hyroplane Quarterly Spring 1971 issue. You're right Charley, and John--this is probably the boat you are thinking of. Don't know though if this is the one from the Memphis race in 1970 or not. This could be the second one. The picture was taken at the Orange Bowl Regatta at Lakeland in 1971.

**F-12** · 08-11-2005

I was there when that pic was taken. I ran my Marchetti A boat against Tim and was floored with the difference between Tim's Aerowing compared to a standard 3 point. I always told Tim he was fast because he spun his powerheads around. How many people thought that this was a sign from the future of racing. It was the summer after this that I got my D Aerowing. Sorry I waited so long. This is a great picture of Tim.

**Cameraboy** · 08-11-2005

It's interesting that the first unlimited with a picklefork design also had its roots in Michigan. It was designed for the Schoenith's by Dick Brantsner and Bill Cantrell more for safety reasons than for speed, and raced for the first time in 1968. At the same time, out West, Ron Jones was designing the outrigger Pay n Pak boat that debuted in 1969.

There were other "proto-pickleforks" at the same time (Gale's Roostertail, Harrah's Club) or slightly earlier, but these were the first deep forks. The state-of-the-art at the time were the Karelsen round nose boats (Bardahl, Budweiser). 1971 was the last year a non-picklefork was truly competive in the unlimiteds. Here are some pictures from the Unlimiteds Detroit site:

http://www.unlimitedsdetroit.com/photo_60.cfm

As far as inboards, the round nose design hung on a bit longer, with the Lauterbach hulls reamining competive into the 80s. I'm not sure when Jones first tried pickleforks on a smaller boat - I know he did the cabover first in limiteds (about 62-63) before the ill-fated 1966 Bardahl.

**Master Oil Racing Team** · 08-11-2005

Thanks Mike. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the U boats had a big influence on Tim's design. Interestingly, the boat known as "Windwalker" was called an outrigger by Tim. Similar in a general way to the "Pay-N-Pak" outrigger.

Hears the latest on the outboards. Joe Rome remembered a picklefork that Clay Pettifer ran somewhere between 1957 to 1959. Joe talked to Don Nichols who confirmed it and they both remembered it flipped at Alexandria. Joe says it had pickleforks a little longer than Tim's first Aerowing, but it didn't have the aerodynamic designs, and that it had some funny quirks down the straightaway. Maybe something like the tail lifting and dumping air. Clayton Elmer is going to try to track down the Weeks in Lake Charles and in turn locate Clay. Also, Don Nichols (a soon to be member of BRF) remembers that Milton Wiggins had a picklefork in the 60's. So Ralph Donald, what do you know about that?

**OLEGATORXX** · 08-11-2005

Sometime In The Early Fifties, The Man That Got Me Racing, Tommy Hagood, Ran A Picklefork Built By Joe Swift. Of Course, It Wasn't Called A Picklefork, They Called It The Fireside Dog. The Reason It Was Early Fifties, They Were Still Running Kg9's. Seams Like There Was A Picture Someone Posted On Scream And Fly. I Started Work For Hagood's In 1958. I Think Maybe Mk75h Could Find Us A Photo.
Jim Hunt

**Cameraboy** · 08-11-2005

I read an article by Fred Farley (who lurks here) that the picklefork concept was used on outboards in Italy in the 1950s.

John (Taylor) Gabrowski · 08-11-2005

In the north here we started to hear about term "outrigger hydros" around here in the early 1970s period. Running a stock and conventional hydro, we were more concerned getting and trapping enough air under our Ogiers, Sidcrafts, Swifts, Jupiters, Ben Hurs, Wetbacks (naaah not some much wetbacks! the name was bad enough!) and one off copies that were very much here so you could fly high with the sponsons off the water just enough and level enough to make the most of what stock A,B,C or D stock racing Merc or in C-Service engine you had on the back. We wondered a lot, how much power it would take an outrigger hydro to stay aired out? What kind of power it took to get it up there never mind stay aired out. Seems the concept boats were the Unlimiteds of the day as pointed out here and the rest seems that started to play catch up with the Alkys next and so on it all changed that by 1975 there were pickelforks of all kinds all over the place.

I can only think that running a home circuit like we did here with 6 to 8 races a season with 6 to 10 entrants per class and then straying south for something special like an event and vacation tied together was really a laid back style here that locked itself in for so long. Visiting Alkys were a pleasure to see and hear but for the students and you familys here that was not in the cards to go outside stock outboard because of cost. We stayed frozen. We were still building conventionals into the late 1970s. We saw there here and there and in articles/magazines but we didn't venture there with local hull building. The first pickelforks to turn up here were Giles DSHs near 1978 and by 1980 there were quite a few but then there were all those others that came out of the background by then too as racers changed boats on in the mid 1970s we seen or heard about but did little or nothing about seeing them in our nice warm long distances big blankets. Those were the days, warm and fuzzy and backward.

**Mark75H** · 08-11-2005

Here in the east they tell about another picklefork built in the 50's and raced for 20 - 25 years up and down the mid Atlantic ... it was built by a guy in New England and was known as the "Lobster boat" Dave Augustine tells about driving it when it was old ... he said by 1970 the only thing holding it together was castor oil and it was the worst handling boat he ever drove

Out west, the DeSilva brothers built at least one picklefork in the 50's and called it a "forklift"

I don't have photos of any of these boats .... I've been watching for all of them for years