7 replies to this topic

[NSwanberg]

Old and I hope it has not been around already. I did not know the Rslone Rocket X-1 had anything to do with the Blue Flame. Seems like you could build a peroxide rocket engine in your backyard. This has some very interesting film.

 

[Dave Crevie]

Wow!!! Of all the videos you have posted, Nelson, this is the best! I have, over the years, known many guys from IIT, (Illinois Institute of Technology), and always considered them on par with those from Cal Tech. And I remember the jet/rocket car wars of the late 1960's and early70's. What a crazy show they put on at the tracks. 

 

A long time ago, a friend, who was a student at IIT, and I built a hydrogen peroxide monopropellent rocket, (vertical type). He did the designing, I made the parts. It used a rubber lined combustion chamber, and sprayed the peroxide in, where it turned to steam to power the rocket. The rubber came from old tires. It never got off the pad, but was good for some s**ts and giggles. 

[Tom Eatherly]

That is quite the vehicle! Amazing engineering. If you've never been to Bonneville, it's a MUST go event to see. Truly some inovative vehicles and that speed!! 

There's nothing like it.

[Bill Seitz]

Unfortunately due to salt mining on the Bonneville Flat, there's no longer room for the jet/rocket ultimate world speed record attempts. The current supersonic record was set at Black Rock Desert in Northwest Nevada using a permit that the late Craig Breedlove had to go to court to get. Since that attempt, BLM won't issue permits for another land speed record attempt. This is he same location as the "Burning Man" festival. Currently, there's no other location in North America for a WLSR supersonic attempt, and since to break the existing record will require reaching 1000 mph, is probably not likely anytime soon. Steve Fossett was killed while unsuccessfully searching by air for another record-setting location among the dry lakes in Nevada.

[Tom Eatherly]

Unfortunately due to salt mining on the Bonneville Flat, there's no longer room for the jet/rocket ultimate world speed record attempts. The current supersonic record was set at Black Rock Desert in Northwest Nevada using a permit that the late Craig Breedlove had to go to court to get. Since that attempt, BLM won't issue permits for another land speed record attempt. This is he same location as the "Burning Man" festival. Currently, there's no other location in North America for a WLSR supersonic attempt, and since to break the existing record will require reaching 1000 mph, is probably not likely anytime soon. Steve Fossett was killed while unsuccessfully searching by air for another record-setting location among the dry lakes in Nevada.

Yeah, this is probably the case. Too damn bad. Never saw the jet/rocket cars, but have seen some mighty fast piston cars go FAST!

[Bill Seitz]

According to Breedlove, the jet/rocket cars need at least 15 miles to accelerate, run the measured mile, and then decelerate. Probably needs even more to hit 1000 mph. It must be incredibly smooth without any wind, particularly crosswind. A gust of wind at Black Rock Desert turned Spirit of America over on it's side at nearly 700 mph giving Breedlove a very scary ride and bending the chassis. My understanding is that there's less than 10 miles usable at Bonneville now. Something as small as a pebble or an errant shell casing ingested into a jet engine will FOD it.

[NSwanberg]

Wow!!! Of all the videos you have posted, Nelson, this is the best! I have, over the years, known many guys from IIT, (Illinois Institute of Technology), and always considered them on par with those from Cal Tech. And I remember the jet/rocket car wars of the late 1960's and early70's. What a crazy show they put on at the tracks. 

 

A long time ago, a friend, who was a student at IIT, and I built a hydrogen peroxide monopropellent rocket, (vertical type). He did the designing, I made the parts. It used a rubber lined combustion chamber, and sprayed the peroxide in, where it turned to steam to power the rocket. The rubber came from old tires. It never got off the pad, but was good for some s**ts and giggles. 

 

You came out with all your limbs! Peroxide rockets were more like chemistry experiments. I remember when we used hydrazine as an oxygen scavenger for our deaerator in our powerhouse. The old itimers just told me be careful with that $hit as it's rocket fuel.

[Dave Crevie]

When I was in high school, kids used hydrogen peroxide to bleach their hair blonde. It was in every medicine cabinet. That ended at my house when my mother watched us blow up one of our liquid fuel rockets. And she was an aerobatic pilot, so it wasn't easy to scare her. That also ended my involvement with rockets. I decided to stick with cars, not that some of our fuels couldn't blow us to kingdom come as well.

 

https://youtu.be/XKC...Gz81uK4FIRyyLRt

 

In grade school we made a bazooka from EMT tubing used in wiring houses. We used Estes rockets for projectiles. The Estes motors have a cap at the nose end, intended to blow the parachute out of the rocket body, so it could float back to earth. We found we could pack the nose of a rocket with gun powder, and the cap would light it off when the propellant was used up. In the fall, the city used Elgin Pelican street sweepers to clear the leaves from the gutters of the streets. They dumped the leaves in a park that was at the end of our street. They made a huge pile. We would shoot our rockets into that pile, and watch the cloud of leaves created scatter them all over the park.

 

My father took a picture of one of our bazooka rockets to take to work and show his buddies what his kid was up to. That picture is around the house somewhere.