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Rocket Racing League Flights With Armadillo Engine
Toren Altair mentions that the Rocket Racing League has video and pictures available from their recent flight tests of new Armadillo Aerospace liquid oxygen-alcohol engines. "Founded in 2005 by two-time Indianapolis 500 winning team partner Granger Whitelaw and X PRIZE Chairman and CEO Peter H. Diamandis, MD, the Rocket Racing League (RRL) is a new entertainment sports league that combines the exhilaration of racing with the power of rocket engines. To be held at venues across the country, the Rocket Racing League will feature multiple races pitting up to 10 Rocket Racers going head to head in a 4-lap, multiple elimination heat format on a 5-mile 'Formula One'-like closed circuit raceway in the sky."
Little things zooming around up in the sky. Sounds like a pain in the neck to me.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Makes flights?
Tests flights?
Has flights?
Launches flights?
Oh, fuck it. It's Slashdot. As long as there are words in the headline the "editors" will let it through.
Liquid Oxygen Alcohol? You could call it Sky...maybe make it catchy and throw in a spare 'y'
Weekend's coming up, where can I get some?
Very cool but not sure it's quite as cool as the XCOR Rocket Powered Aeroplane. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MQvUCrjtmw and http://www.xcor.com/
It all starts at 0
I don't like the sound of that.
Already cars are at the outer most limits of traction and control.
Is this simply a bid for more spectacularly "entertaining" wrecks?
Air races do not seem to be subject to the same rate of catastrophic wrecks as Formula One racing (or NASCAR for that matter), but ROCKETS? It seems to me that the margin of error is lowly being minimized to the points that wrecks are almost a certainty.
But, then again, who would go watch NASCAR if there wasn't wrecks? Even as a race fan, I find NASCAR as interesting as the commercials shown while watching it.
You're burning alcohol!
Nothing sucks like a Vax, nothing blows like a PowerMac G4
This would be awesome to watch, however, the overhead is probably prohibitively expensive-Insurance, Fuel, Insurance, Infrastructure, Advertising, Insurance, you know, the basics. I'll throw in MY venture capital (that's about $2.30 right now...)
I do not fear computers. I fear a lack of them. -Isaac Asimov
also, he appears to be married
Did you troll 48 minutes ago?
They're using the rocket engines off of the drilling vehicle in Armageddon?
Not that I ever watched that movie. I just heard about it.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Is he even human?
Eat sleep die
Interesting trivia for the /. crowd: Armadillo Aerospace was founded by John Carmack, id Software programmer.
Confucious say "Rocket jump likely. Bring parachute."
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
...call pod racing!
The 10 years it took Armadillo to reach this point just shows how hard to is to design a liquid fuelled rocket engine. As for the "rocket racing league" ever having an actual rocket race, don't hold your breath.
Nascar crashes are controlled to an extent. What happens when these jets explode? Couldn't the debris harm the viewers easy?
I was up at the EAA Oshkosh fly-in, they had one of these rocket powered aircraft showing off for the crowd. The most impressive part of the entire thing was the sound.
First off he was at a decent altitude, there was about a 3 to 5 second delay between the engine turning off and the sound stopping. Even with that kind of distance the sound was Very loud, only close-in jets were louder. The sound of the rocket igniting was a standard "FOOM" kind of sound, and the running engine sound was also normal, but the sound the thing made when they shut off the engine was the weirdest I'd ever heard. It sounded like someone took some sound effects software and crossed the rocket sound with that of a balloon (when you stretch the opening to make that really high pitched, air-escaping, sound, then shut off/stop the air).
The sound of the engine shutting off caught your attention more then the sound of it turning on or the sound of it running.
One last note, there was no throttle on that plane, the choices were full on or full off, nothing inbetween.
If these rocket racing courses are set out with some low-speed areas where they have to shut the engine off in order to make the turns, I will definitely be paying to watch these races, if nothing else for the sound of these rockets shutting off.
DEMETRIUS: Villain, what hast thou done?
AARON: Villain, I have done thy mother.
Shakespeare invents 'your mom'
Dare I say that maybe one day, because of these thrill seekers, we could see the evolution of transportation get to the point where the sky is everyone's new highway? :)
"...pitting up to 10 Rocket Racers going head to head in a 4-lap, multiple elimination heat format on a 5-mile 'Formula One'-like closed circuit raceway in the sky."
Until one of these things explodes and showers burning fuel and shards of hot metal on all the upturned faces of the crowd...oh, wait, that will be even more...ah...fun.
Sig this!
I mean, this is something Carmack is involved in right? I keep waiting the whole article to read the words "... from Hell". Like "Rocket Racers will use a BFG mounted on their rocket powered craft to stop demons escaping from Hell". But nothing. Oh well, maybe next one.
In case you're wondering why they're using alcohol and oxygen, it's cuz that's what they used on the very first plane to ever break the sound barrier. And that was a long time ago so they're even better now! Apparently alcohol is more powerful than on the ground. I mean I lit a fire with 91% isopropyl and it was a little puff compared to gasoline but I think they're using ethanol or something like that that's a little better.
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Is it's easy to color using various metal salts. Blue flames, purple flames, yellow flames -- I notice the video has a red flame. Probably added a dash of strontium chloride. Fair bet all the racers will have "signature" colors to help the audience track which is which.
So where's the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag?
i read an article, several years ago, in either the print version of popular mechanics or popsci, can't remember which, talking about this new sport, calling it nascar for the 21st century, etc. the most interesting part (to me, at least) was that these races would be telecasted in real time, and that the viewing audience would have a chance to install a rocket racing simulation client on their PCs which would alow them to virtually race the real life competitors in real time, with PC competitors who actually beat the RL competitors eligible of winning prizes, etc. anyone else remember that at all, or am i just crazy?
Moran. He's actually from Phobos. A mass-extinction event resulted in his parents placing him in an escape capsule, and aiming at the Earth, more specifically, Texas. Predicted to be the place where he'd fit in most easily. What they hadn't accounted for, was the fact that his programming skills, while only average on Phobos due to the high levels of Jolt cola and maths problems present in its environment, would far exceed any that existed in Mesquite in the 80s and 90s.
Jump forward some years. The man we know as John Carmack has accumulated enough money to develop rocket engines, in an attempt to return to his home planet. By securing this deal with the RRL he now has access to a ready supply of test pilots. Its only a matter of time now before he succeeds in escaping the Earth's gravity, returning to Phobos and leaving the world of videogame engines bereft of a figurehead.
I am unimpressed.
The Me163 Komet has a far better rate of climb than that white turkey ... and can shoot down bombers too!
I just happen to know where one's sitting too. Wonder if they left the keys in it?
Toad, Rocket Toad
A LOX-Alcohol flame should be blue, as in the X-cor video. Pink is a sign of a cool and imperfect combustion. further the X-cor engine shows the standing-wave bunsen-like effect of optimal tuning, and the ability to start and restart. Both companies are intending a gradual development into an orbiter. Let's wish them well.
A LOX-Alcohol flame should be blue,
The LOX/liquid methane plumes are blue, but LOX/ethanol is faint orange.
as in the XCOR's plane.
XCOR's plane burns LOX/kerosene, which burns bright orange.
Pink is a sign of a cool and imperfect combustion.
In the case of Armadillo's plane, it's actually a sign of "plume seeding," where chemicals are added to the exhaust to make the plume more dramatic and distinct, especially in broad daylight. To the naked eye that "pink" plume is actually brilliant red. But it's so bright that the video overexposes it and it ends up seeming pink.
further the X-cor engine shows the standing-wave bunsen-like effect of optimal tuning,
I assume you're talking about "Mach diamonds," which Armadillo's engines have as well. This page shows that, as well as what the LOX/ethanol plume looks like with and without seeding: http://armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home/News?news_id=358
and the ability to start and restart.
Which the Armadillo engines have.