Right now, Elliot Seguin is exactly where he wants to be. The flight test engineer and pilot is either in the cockpit of his Wasabi Air Racing airplane at the Reno Air Races, flying an airplane he designed and built. Or he could be on the ground, working on making that airplane fly even faster. Either way, it's a dream come true.
"Jen and I wanted to design and build an airplane because it's the Holy Grail," Seguin told us in-between test flights at Reno this week. "Jen" is Jennifer Whaley, his girlfriend and crew chief. The airplane is a Formula 1 class air racer they have spent the past two years working on when they aren't at work at Scaled Composites in Mojave, California.
Founded by legendary plane designer Burt Rutan, people at Scaled Composites work on airplanes like Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo during the day, and then work on their own airplanes evenings and weekends. Seguin is no different – as a flight test engineer, his day job might have him at the computer or in the cockpit of SS2's mother ship during a test flight. But unlike Silicon Valley or Wall Street, where a person's value is measured in dollars or startup history or both, in Mojave, airplanes are the currency of choice. And creating an airplane of your own is the ultimate way to gain the admiration of others. "Design build, test, race... that's the big time," Seguin says of the culture in Mojave.
Seguin, Whaley and their crew left Mojave as soon as possible after wrapping up work with SpaceShipTwo's second powered test flight last week. Today they are in Reno getting ready for the races this weekend. Every year the community of pilots who enjoy flying fast, low and turning left gather in the high desert to find out which airplane and pilot can make it around the pylons the fastest. The first few days during the week are spent in heat races where pilots can sort out and refine their airplanes and techniques, looking for every speed advantage possible. Once the weekend arrives, it's time for the main events.
Growing up around airplanes, Seguin has always been fascinated by the Reno Air Races. But when he was younger, he wasn't able to make it out west to watch the world's fastest motor sport – the races take place right when school starts.
Eventually Seguin found himself with an engineering degree and was looking for a job in aerospace. He didn't want to work in a cube farm, and he didn't want to simply be a mechanic. He wanted a job where he could both challenge himself as an engineer and actually work on airplanes, he discovered Mojave is that place where he could enjoy it all.
Living in the Mojave desert where so much aviation innovation takes place also gave Seguin a chance to join the crew of Jon Sharp, a legend in the air racing community. Sharp's Sport class racer, the Nemesis NXT, is an airplane designed to simply go fast. It's minimum airplane behind maximum engine. Sharp served as an invaluable mentor to Seguin, but eventually the Michigan native felt the pull to follow in Sharp's footsteps. He wanted to design and build an air racer of his own.
Seguin had bought an older Formula 1 racer (a plane, not a car) known as a Cassutt. The tiny airplane is the most common design in the class and has been around for decades. But the airplane is so tiny that Seguin – and just about anybody above average height – found he had to fold himself into the cockpit.
"It's an awkward seating position that can lead to loss of circulation in my feet," something Seguin points out is important when flying the small airplanes. He made some modifications to the design, including swapping out some nuts and bolts around the canopy to give himself the ability to turn his head – even just a bit – while flying.
The Formula 1 class of air racers is tightly defined. The airplanes must have at least 66 feet of wing area and weigh at least 500 pounds. They are also all required to use the same Continental 0-200 engine (though they can be highly modified). So anybody looking for maximum speed tries to build the smallest, most slippery airframe possible.
"The Formula class in general is a very understood problem," Seguin says. Every year some young new engineer walks down the flight line, looking for ways to solve a problem and help make an airplane go faster, he says. But the improvements aren't always so obvious.
For his own Formula 1 design, Seguin turned to the one thing that he knew needed improvement in his case. The ability to feel his feet, "the base idea being that a comfortable pilot does a better job racing the airplane."
Wasabi Special Flight Test Summary from Logan Seguin on Vimeo.
Seguin's new airplane gives the 6'3" pilot enough room that he can feel his feet and turn his head. This week he's been flying conservatively at the back of the pack as he learns more about his new machine. He said it has been flying extremely well, and feels "rock solid" during flight, something that isn't always the case when pilots are trading stability for speed.
"It's been cool to learn on the course, and then put that kind of feedback into the airplane on the ground," Seguin says of his long days that consist of flying and fine tuning the airplane.
Seguin says because the flying conditions change day to day, as does the competition, it's always a chess match trying to figure out which modifications or changes will provide the best results the following day. "It's a fantastic intellectual challenge," he says.
Of the 15 Formula 1 racers at Reno this week, Seguin qualified around mid pack at 229 miles per hour around the 3.2 mile course. During the heat racing so far this week, he's been working things out at the back, far behind Formula 1 class leaders like Steve Senegal who is regularly lapping at 250 miles per hour. But Seguin says he's patient. As a flight test engineer, he's gathering lots of data, he records verbal notes during his flights, and is constantly looking for improvements.
Seguin knows it's not realistic to show up at Reno in a new design and set any records in your first year. He wants to continue to refine his design, and along with Jen and the rest of the crew, plans on working some very long hours this weekend as they try to find a little bit more speed. Winning is rarely the goal in a team's first year of competition, and Seguin recognizes that taking a longer term look at the task of designing and building an airplane is the real way to win races, and perhaps more importantly, show what they can do in the aviation world.
