Lycoming-Powered Nemesis NXT Wins at Reno Air Races

They said they would do it and they did! The sleek and speedy Nemesis NXT took top honors at the recent Reno Air Races in Nevada.

“It’s really the crowning achievement for everyone involved – and that includes Lycoming and Textron,” said Jon Sharp, the plane’s pilot and designer.

Powered by a world-class Lycoming TI0-540-NXT engine, the Nemesis NXT competed in four races over ten days at the national championships. “We soared through qualifying and heat races in the Sport Class (a class based on kit-built airplanes like the Nemesis). Each day we worked up our speeds and pushed the plane a little bit harder,” says Sharp. “On the final day we were flying laps somewhere around 360 miles per hour. The fastest we had flown before that was 330 miles. We really moved the bar up.”

Race day

Early into the final race on September 17, the Nemesis was third of eight planes racing. That’s when Sharp saw the plane in the lead cut the course. If the pylon judges witnessed the same thing, the lead plane would be penalized. “When that happened, I knew I had to pass one other plane to get into position to win,” says Sharp. By the fifth lap, in the six-lap race, the Nemesis NXT had passed the plane in second place. But there were no guarantees they had won.

A real nail biter

“We were on the ground for a full fifteen minutes. We had to keep quiet and hold everything in because we weren’t sure if the judges had seen the lead plane cut the course,” said Sharp. He explains that there are no video cameras documenting the ten-minute race so, judges rely solely on their vision. “They stand on the ground and look 50 feet up the pylon (made from a telephone pole with a marker barrel on top).” Sharp and his team knew there was a chance the judges had missed it.

“Then this golf cart starts hauling toward us with folks inside yelling, ‘You won! You won!’,” Sharp explained. “It was incredible!”

Patricia Sharp, co-designer of the Nemesis NXT, agrees. “I’m still in a state of disbelief,” she says with a laugh. “But we really did earn it.”

A partnership that paid off

“It’s the first time that a Lycoming engine has won the gold in the Sport Class division at Reno,” commented Ian Walsh, vice president and general manager, Lycoming Engines. “We are extremely pleased with the outcome of this race.”

Walsh, Textron Systems President Dick Millman, Roger Pascoe, senior vice president and general manager from HR Textron, and a team of engineers, all supported the Sharps over a three-year period. “We couldn’t have done it without them,” adds Sharp. “The trophy belongs to them too.”

Over the next few months the Nemesis NXT will be on display at a variety of locations. Then, says Sharp, they will prepare for a cross-country race in the spring. “We’ve been saying for a while that we’re the fastest kit-built plane on the market. It’s terrific to have the proof to back it up.”

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