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."

Comments

Good luck with that.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Little things zooming around up in the sky. Sounds like a pain in the neck to me.

Re:from Doom to Rockets...

[MeepMeep]

Interesting trivia for the /. crowd: Armadillo Aerospace was founded by John Carmack, id Software programmer.

This is Slashdot...anyone in this 'crowd' who didn't know that Armadillo Aerospace was founded by JC (peace be upon him) needs to turn in their geek cred card for incineration.

On/Off propulsion

[chaim79]

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.

Re:On/Off propulsion

[evanbd]

The racer flying was the XCOR plane; Carmack had theirs on display, but not flying. I don't know the details, but Carmack's engine may have a throttle -- he's done work with throttled engines for the Lunar Lander Challenge, and this engine is a related design. I believe Carmack's plane is larger, with a larger engine (but similar overall performance) compared to the XCOR plane.

I'm not up to date, but the course the RRL was talking about was basically a climbing straight past the stands, an acrobatic turn at the top, and then a power-off glide for the back stretch, before a sharp turn and relighting the engine.

For the XCOR engine, you can't leave the engine running nonstop for the full tank's worth of propellant while staying below Vne and at low altitude (ie on the race course) -- it just has too much thrust. The plan is several laps (3-6 or so, again I don't know current numbers) with the engine running ~1/3 of each lap, and then a pit stop and another round.

Suffice to say, it should be a good show.

I interned at XCOR and worked a little on their plane, but not recently; what I've said above is my recollection of what was publically available at the time, and may be wrong or out of date.

You should see that engine up close... It's loud through earmuffs (well, really you feel it in your chest as much as your ears), and it's bright enough to compete with the noon desert sun.