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

Turbonique

[cirby]

Back in the 1960s, a company called Turbonique made (along with a rocket-powered turbocharger for "normal" engines), rocket engines for automobiles.

One of these gadgets pushed a VW Beetle (the old, cool kind, not those new toys) to a 9.36 ET at 168 mph in the quarter mile.

Later, someone built a rocket-powered go-kart which managed about 240 MPH...

Re:Military Equipment

[DieByWire]

One of the most incredible stories of ex-military hardware making it into civilain hands was Darryl Greenamyer's F-104, built from parts scrounged all over.

An ex-Lockheed test pilot, his goal was to set an absolute altitude record with it - zoom climb it to flame-out, and control the ballistic portion of the flight with reaction thrusters.

After setting a low altitude speed record with it, but before the altitude attempt, Greenamyer had to punch out when one landing gear failed to extend. (You'd never survivve a gear up landing in an F-104.)

I'd hoped to find a lot more info on it on google, but will have to settle for this: Greenamyer

Re:Defensive driving

[The Snowman]

If you've ever stood next to a running jet engine (F-15 at full AB) oyu'd understand why.

If you stood within 100 meters of an F-15 without hearing protection, you'd be deaf. Every once in a while at Langley AFB (no, not the CIA place) I'd drive toward the side gate next to the runway, and one would be taking off. If I had the unfortunate luck to do so while they're doing a vertical ascension takeoff, windows up in my truck or not, it HURT. FYI that's when they take off at full throttle, full afterburners, and as soon as they're a few feet above the runway, turn to go straight up. As if the afterburners aren't loud enough, once the ass end of the plane has that flat pavement 10 feet behind it, the noise scatters all over and even half a mile away you can't hear the person next to you.

So yes, to the GP poster, flashlights and a hairdryer have NOTHING on a fighter jet with a cocky bastard at the stick.

Useless trivia fact: while the F-15 can perform this maneuver, the F-16 lacks the thrust/mass ratio to sustain that climb for more than a second or two.