Frequently Asked Questions

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Why Rebuild Tsunami?

 

When Tsunami was first concieved; many people viewed this project as just someone's dream and would never come to fruit, let alone compete in the unlimited air racing circuit.  The small group that stood behind the building of this project; from the designer, the builder, the financial invester and so many others believed differently.  In their hearts they had the driving force to show the world what their RACER could do on the race circuit and 3 km speed record. 

This group, proved many of them wrong and showed the world that DREAMS DO COME TRUE!!!   Tsunami claimed her position just weeks after her first flight; in the Unlimited Gold by qualifiing with speeds of over 435 mph for the third fastest contendor in 1986 in the Reno Air Races. 

As of today; we have yet to see another scratch built Unlimited racer achieve what Tsunami and their crew acheived in their 6 years of racing. 

After years of being in a trailer, Tsunami deserves the reccognition she earned so many years before.

 

 

Photo courtesy of warbird.com

Tsunami is unique for the following reasons:

  • As stated in the article titled Tsunami by Jack Cox in the Sport Aviation December 1986 issue (2.7 mb), Tsunami finally answered the question so many had asked since the WWII surplus fighters had taken over the unlimited air racing in 1946: "What if you took a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine and built the smallest, lightest, sleekest airframe around it you could possible dream up?" Tsunami answered this question.
  • It was, and still remains, the first original homebuilt unlimited racer since Howard Hughes H1 from 1935.
  • Tsunami was the fastest homebuilt piston prop plane in the world.
  • Tsunami was, and still remains, the only homebuilt air racer qualified in the Gold heat race; only 1 month after the original flight.
  • The last race of Tsunami was in September of 1991 (photo above). She pushed a record speed of over 500 mph. Again, a first for a homebuilt unlimited air racer.

Tsunami represents all of this and so much more. The Legacy of Tsunami continues. 

Click here to make your donation towards this awesome project.  Fund Raising 

More Information About Tsunami

Photos of the 1979-1986 Original Build of Tsunami.

Click here to read "The Legends of Air Racing... Engineer Bruce Boland by Scott Germain (416 kb Adobe PDF file) - WarbirdAeroPress.com. Bruce Boland was the designer of Tsunami.

Skyfire Video (no affiliation with us) has photos and video of Tsunami for sale. You can view some of the video on their site.

Another great photo of Tsunami in the pits at the Reno Air Races can be seen here.

Note: If you have high speed internet, (it is 88 megabytes in size) watch an episode about John R Sandberg and the Tsunami. It was part of a 1989 TV show called "Hidden Heroes". The video is done as streaming video in Apple's Quicktime format.