- Who
- Steven Hinton Jr, Voodoo
- What
- 855.59 kilometre(s) per hour
- Where
- United States ()
- When
The fastest piston-engined aircraft is Voodoo, a highly modified North American Aviation P-51 Mustang. It was flown through an FAI-approved 3 km (1.86 mi) course in Idaho, USA, at an average speed of 855.59 km/h (531.64 mph) by Steven Hinton Jr (USA) on 2 September 2017.
The status of this record was somewhat controversial prior to this attempt. The FAI changed the rules for this type of speed run in the 2000s, meaning that the record of 850.24 km/h (528.31 mph) – set by Lyle Shelton (USA) in Rare Bear in 1989 – was technically no longer valid. The rule changes included widening the permitted flight corridor, so that the timing gates were 500 m (1,640 ft) wide rather than the 100 m (328 ft) allowed in Shelton's day.
In order to claim the "undisputed" speed record, Steven Hinton and his team decided to follow an even narrower corridor than Lyle Shelton did in 1989 – aiming to zoom through the timing gates without straying more than 15 m from the planned route in either direction. This way they could beat both the official FAI record – 511 km/h (318 mph) by Will Whiteside in 2012 – and the unofficial record of 528 mph.
The aircraft was originally built in 1944 and operated by the US Army Air Force. It was later transferred to the Canadian Royal Air Force before being sold to a private operator. It has been an air racer since the 1980s, and has undergone many rounds of modifications to improve its aerodynamics and increase the power of its Merlin engine.
In order to prepare for the record attempt, Hinton flew the course over and over again in a less heavily modified P-51. This allowed him to get a feel for the route and to learn the landmarks he would need to use in order to stay on course in Voodoo – whose turtle deck canopy severely limits visibility.
