The Lemon Fool

Good riddance. A £45 million ego trip finally runs out of fuel.

I mean, what was it ever hoping to achieve? Did it perhaps need to prove that a rocket/jet engine could develop enough thrust to do 1,000 mph? Nope, we already knew that from the field of aviation.

Was it perhaps trying to prove that bearings, transmission, suspension and road running gear could be made to sustain those kinds of stresses at those kinds of road speeds? Who, apart perhaps from Elon Musk, sees any future for 1,000 mph roadgoing vehicles? Answers on a postcard please.

Which just leaves the heroic derring-do aspect of it. Because it was there, and all that. Hurrah for the plucky red, white and blue, and pass the money. No other nation on earth has ever seen a need to go this far out on a technological limb, and it isn't that hard to see why. A bonkers project which might have inspired schoolboys, but that's about the end of it.

Your views might vary.

BJ

I thought it was a race with a team in the USA to see who would be first to break 1000mph.
It was all about us getting there first.
Shame it's cancelled......

Hi BJ,

Who, apart perhaps from Elon Musk, sees any future for 1,000 mph roadgoing vehicles? Answers on a postcard please.

I agree with you, a waste of money for bragging rights.

I think it's pretty pertinent you mentioned Mr Musk though. After all, the Space X rockets go up and land in spectacular fashion and show what it is possible to do.

A Tesla or many of the other electric cars can accelerate so quickly they leave most conventional engined stuff way behind.

Whether or not the hyperloop will work properly is something that will be revealed over time. I like the idea of sitting in a maglev capsule at many hundreds of miles an hour getting from one place to another faster than a train or plane flight.

So we've got all of this proper fun stuff that can affect ones life, whether it's a car or better TV from a satellite or a way to avoid flying when you want to go a few hundred miles fast.

I reminded of an episode of 'Chigley' from the 1960's, the one where the Lord wants to raise some money for charity and hires a hot air balloon which he rides in while the villagers pay a shilling each to watch him do it.

There's lots of fun stuff happening and for me trying to get a car to do 1000 miles per hour is not of any interest. That car was like the D list celebrity at a party that no one can be bothered to photograph.

I would personally donate to the 1000MPH car idea if I could vote for the driver. I won't get the post pulled by mentioning names, but I've just thought of half a dozen people, I'd like to see drive a rocket and jet powered car to 1000MPH.

B.

richlist wrote:I thought it was a race with a team in the USA to see who would be first to break 1000mph.
It was all about us getting there first.

A post-war fancy, really. Take as much raw power as you could assemble, and then find somebody with the balls to pilot it. I'd say Chuck Yeager won that one fairly decisively. Cars were always going to be a second-best afterthought after that.

BJ

PrincessB wrote:I would personally donate to the 1000MPH car idea if I could vote for the driver. I won't get the post pulled by mentioning names, but I've just thought of half a dozen people, I'd like to see drive a rocket and jet powered car to 1000MPH.

LOL, Princess B, I get your drift. I've got my own little list of candidate pilots, and not all of them are Brits. Sadly, the No 1 Top Gun favourite couldn't fit into anything smaller than a golf buggy.

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:A post-war fancy, really. Take as much raw power as you could assemble, and then find somebody with the balls to pilot it. I'd say Chuck Yeager won that one fairly decisively. Cars were always going to be a second-best afterthought after that.
BJ

There was a lot more to it than developing the power, which is why the Americans needed help from the British Air Ministry who gave them research, data and designs for the Miles M.52 and they then built the similar Bell X-1. Yeager has shown some reluctance to admit this and is no fan of the British.

WWII flying ace Chuck Yeager in extraordinary attack on 'nasty' and 'arrogant' British people

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/1 ... ace-chuck/

RC

WWII flying ace Chuck Yeager in extraordinary attack on 'nasty' and 'arrogant' British people

As we drift smoothly off topic...

I can strongly recommend 'The Right Stuff' by Tom Wolfe as an excellent book to spend an afternoon reading.

It documents Yeagers problems with high speed flight, and in retrospect indicates a few problems they had when they sent test pilots up high and forgot that the flaps and paddles and stuff don't work when they have no air to work against.

I think from the my memory of the book that he got really cross later on.

There's a terrible film about breaking the sound barrier (which he did first) which relied on reversing the controls. For some reason, this film was more popular than he was and he complains a lot about people forgetting that he was the first through the sound barrier (which he was) after getting advice from the Brits about the control reversal (Which is nonsense).

So Yeager is cross because he didn't get the publicity he deserves - We know Neil Armstrong as the first man on the moon and we don't know Yeager as the first person to break the sound barrier and live - IIRC it was a pretty bad way to desend.

B.

PrincessB wrote:It documents Yeagers problems with high speed flight, and in retrospect indicates a few problems they had when they sent test pilots up high and forgot that the flaps and paddles and stuff don't work when they have no air to work against.
B.

He was a busy lad.... H/T to FT Alphaville for this one https://twitter.com/GenChuckYeager/stat ... .ft.com%2F

If you want to read up on the Miles M.52 and Bell X1 controversy, i.e. how much UK contribution was there then can I suggest you peruse
https://www.pprune.org/aviation-history ... again.html

All the evidence I have read over the years suggests that Yeager was not a very good instrument flyer, and also did not particularly like the British
https://www.pprune.org/military-aviatio ... itish.html
http://www.kalimera.org/nf104/stories/stories_01.html

"His incompetence and failure to follow the mission profile led to the destruction of the NF-104A. Following which, his influence with the accident investigators ensured that no verdict of 'pilot error' would be entered."

- dspp

PrincessB wrote:There's a terrible film about breaking the sound barrier (which he did first) which relied on reversing the controls. For some reason, this film was more popular than he was and he complains a lot about people forgetting that he was the first through the sound barrier (which he was) after getting advice from the Brits about the control reversal (Which is nonsense).

Oh I know that film - 'The Sound Barrier', 1952 Dir David Lean. Good old stirring British stuff!

PrincessB wrote:So Yeager is cross because he didn't get the publicity he deserves -

Bit like all those films where the American's are shown winning WW2 on their own, or getting that Enigma machine and code books off U-559!

PrincessB wrote:As we drift smoothly off topic...

I can strongly recommend 'The Right Stuff' by Tom Wolfe as an excellent book to spend an afternoon reading.

B.

I enjoyed the film, Yeager got a walk-on part playing a barman at Pancho's Happy Bottom 'Riding Club'. My impression of Yeager is that he resented the publicity and respect that the early astronauts received and probably resented the fact that he wasn't sufficiently qualified to become one.

RC

From the BBC News Site today https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-46591860
A 1,000mph race car project has been saved after an entrepreneur stepped in to buy the business.
The Bloodhound supersonic vehicle - built with a jet engine bolted to a rocket - is all but finished.
Its future was in jeopardy amid a failure to secure investment which forced the firm financing it into administration.
But Yorkshire-based entrepreneur Ian Warhurst has bought the project for an "undisclosed amount".
Administrator Andrew Sheridan, said: "Ian has a strong background in managing highly successful businesses in the automotive engineering sector and he will bring considerable expertise to bear in taking the project forward.

Well, I may be alone on this thread but I'm jolly glad that the project has been saved. Long live the spirit of human adventure.

here you go, here is a US anti-Yeager link, based upon the

http://www.whiteeagleaerospace.com/fina ... f-nf-104a/


The critical importance of quickly intercepting and maintaining the target inertial pitch angle during pull-up had been repeatedly demonstrated by other test pilots as had proper control of aircraft angle-of-attack during reentry. Colonel Yeager elected not to fly the aircraft in accordance with these dictates.

....The ultimate and lasting result of the post-mishap restriction on NF-104A flight performance was that it did a great disservice to ARPS student test pilots in that it made their spaceflight training experience something less than what it could and should have been. It is ironic that, although the correct manner in which to zoom the airplane had been repeatedly validated by USAF and Lockheed test pilots prior to the 56-0762 mishap, the decision to restrict NF-104A performance was based on a single flight which clearly demonstrated how not to fly the airplane.

Redmires wrote:Well, I may be alone on this thread but I'm jolly glad that the project has been saved. Long live the spirit of human adventure.

Indeed, shame funding is so scarce as people seem to have a skewed perspective on National Pride.

According to a sign I saw on a bus a couple of years ago the whole thing could have been paid for by the saving we'll make in he first weekend of leaving the EU

Paul