VW Beetle Fitted with a Jet Engine

6031769 writes "Ron Patrick has decided to go that little bit further by souping up his VW beetle with a jet engine, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. Serious planning went into the project. Patrick said, 'We did (computerized) structural analysis and we did stability analysis. And by God, you know what happens? It works!' Contrast with the Rocket Boy to see how it should not be done." Yes, the Darwin award winner was found to be bogus, but unlike the myth, Ron still lives!

Comments

Here's his personal website w/pics

[TubeSteak]

http://www.ecm-co.com.nyud.net:8080/jetbeetle/
http://www.ecm-co.com.nyud.net:8090/jetbeetle/

Coralizing the link doesn't seem to work for me, but YMMV.

FYI - It's hosted on his business website, so try not to /. it.
A mirror wouldn't hurt.

-http://www.ecm-co.com/jetbeetle/

Re:Military Equipment

[TubeSteak]

If it's properly demilitarized, he shouldn't have any problem.

For things like missiles & rockets, the process involves removing any fuel/propellant and then doing something to the outside that permanently fucks it's flight characteristics. Usually a big notch in the nose, fins &/or compromising the rocket nozzles/jet engine.

Any guidance electronics that come with your rocket or missile are another story. You might need a permit to own/buy/import them, assuming you can have them at all.

You can buy all kinds of fun stuff, but the caveat is that it'll never work again. Unless you're diligent, in which case you can build yourself a fully functional attack helicopter or various other things by digging around in supposedly demilitarized scrap. The Army improperly throws away a lot of stuff.

Not very impressive.

[Phanatic1a]

I mean, come on. He doesn't have the engine actually hooked up to any gears to turn the wheels. He just has it mounted on the back of the car, and he's relying on the engine thrust to push the car along.

Trouble is that that kind of engine isn't designed to do that. It's a T-58 engine, a turboshaft engine off of a helicopter. While the engine on a jet is designed to shoot lots of hot air out the back, producing thrust to drive the jet forward, turboshafts are designed to, well, turn a shaft, to turn a rotor blade. In other words, they're torquey, not thrusty, and helicopters don't go fast because of the engine exhaust, they go fast because of the rotor.

I was looking to buy a (ex-Soviet) MiG 15 or MiG 17 jet engine.

He'd have been far better off doing that. The engine off a MiG-17 develops 6,000 ft-lbs of thrust.

I mean, look what kind of performance he gets with his 1500-horsepower jet engine:

He said that a jet-boosted run will "pin the speedometer and that's at 140." He thinks that when it hits 160 mph -- he hasn't seen that ... yet -

140? My 300-horsepower Mustang GT is perfectly capable of hitting 140, and would probably do 160 if a governor doesn't kick in. 1500-horsepower is the power of the gas turbine in an M-1 tank; if he had this thing hooked into the drive wheels, he'd go like a bat out of hell. But as it is, all he's doing is making a lot of noise.

Which I mean is fun and all, but fundamentally, he doesn't have a jet-powered car. He's got a car with a jet engine in the trunk.

Re:Not very impressive.

[be-fan]

Trouble is that that kind of engine isn't designed to do that. It's a T-58 engine, a turboshaft engine off of a helicopter. While the engine on a jet is designed to shoot lots of hot air out the back, producing thrust to drive the jet forward, turboshafts are designed to, well, turn a shaft, to turn a rotor blade. In other words, they're torquey, not thrusty, and helicopters don't go fast because of the engine exhaust, they go fast because of the rotor.

In a more detailed article, they reported that he converted the engine to a turbojet by taking out the shaft turbine, the gearbox, and sticking in a nozzle. Since a turboshaft is just a turbojet with these extra components, it's quite a reasonable conversion.