All Aero

A modified P-51 Mustang, Voodoo was built from parts. It was built in the 90s and started racing right from the get go, in a stock configuration.It was slowly modified over the last 25 years into a full-blown racer. The wingspan is reduced by two and a half feet on each side. There’s a production break on the wing, so the outboard portion is removed. The canopy is much smaller. It has a smaller radiator scoop and hat to supplement the cooling with a spray bar system. The aircraft doesn’t have any automatic systems, it’s all manual. Three different wheels in the cockpit adjust water flows and methanol flows.

The biggest modification is the engine. The stock Rolls Royce Merlin put out around 1,700 horsepower, Voodoo has 34 to 3,600 horsepower. Ground speed on the course is about 540 miles per hour (869 km/h) compared to stock Mustangs are doing about 340 (547 km/h).

After five days of qualifying, heats, and semi-finals, the 2013 Reno Air Races came to a finish on Sunday with Steve Hinton, Jr., flying the modified P-51 Mustang known as “Voodoo,” winning the Unlimited Class Breitling Gold Race, with a time of 7:59.313 and an average speed of 482.074 MPH.

Hinton beat the second place finisher, Matt Jackson flying “Strega,” by more than seven seconds. Sherman Smoot, flying the Yak 11 “Czech Mate,” finished third.

Steve Hinton, pilot/Mechanic, won the Unlimited class Gold for 2016.

Steven Hinton, pilot, broke the speed record for an internal combustion engine-powered airplane, Class C-1e, on a 3 km closed course in September 2017. Hinton was flying the highly-modified P-51 Mustang named Voodoo.

Over four laps, Hinton took Voodoo to an average speed of 531 mph. The fastest lap was nearly 555 mph according to Pursuit Aviation, an aerial cinematography company that documented the flight. The previous record was set at 318 mph in 2012 by Will Whiteside Jr. in a Yak-3U named Steadfast.

The ultimate goal was to break the speed record over a 3 km closed course set in 1989 by Lyle Shelton in Rare Bear — a Grumman F8F-2 Bearcat. While Hinton’s speed was slightly quicker than Shelton’s, had the rules not changed the record would have to beat by 1 percent, translating to 533 mph.

Steven Hinton is the son of Steve Hinton, a pilot in his own right who held the 3 km speed record before Shelton, from 1979 to 1989. Hinton Sr. is the president of Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, California.