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!

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...

Bypass that stupid streaming for the video

[zephc]

http://sfgate.com/g/av/movies/2006/04/30/jetbug_m4 .mp4 [sfgate.com]

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 [russian.ee]

Re:Military Equipment

[modecx]

Indeed, I know a guy that has a prototype exhaust bell off of some old ICBM rocket which is now inverted and half buried in the ground. Obviously, it's now serving as a very stylish planter for geraniums. It's all titanium, and to decommission it, they took a torch and put a few holes in the bell it self, and demolished the tubo pumps. Luckily, he knew enough about welding titanium to at least fix it cosmetically!

Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Rover built a number (about 50 or so IIRC) of gas turbine cars in about the 60's or 70's. They were intended as a proof of concept prototype and were placed with customers for a trial. Not intended as a high performance vehicle. They worked but would have been too expensive to run and were a bit thirsty...for cheaper fuel than petrol, but it still didn't compute.
Fully street legal...

Re:"hopefully copfree run"

[surprise_audit]

Reminds me about a story I heard back in the 80's. This may just be urban legend, but apparently there was this guy in Europe who fitted a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine into a car. I think he got the engine out of a Spitfire fighter plane. Anyway, he'd go roaring up and down the autobahns in Germany at godawful speeds, but never got a ticket. As the story goes, there are a couple of places (not on the autobahn, I guess) where there are speed traps, with radar and cameras to take snapshots of speeding vehicles. The cops knew this guy had been past, but they couldn't prove it, because the camera only ever got photos of empty road. The reaction time in the system was so slow that by the time the camera fired, the car was already out of sight.

Re:Military Equipment

[surprise_audit]

Whatever happened to that guy in New Zealand who was building a cruise missile from commonly available, completely non-military parts?? As I recall, he was talking about building the guidance system using parts bought on eBay for only a few hundred dollars. Last I heard, he was prohibited from launching the thing.

Re:"hopefully copfree run"

[hector_uk]

"In the 1960s John Dodd of Kent, England put a Merlin engine (some say it actually was a Rover built Rolls-Royce Meteor, which was a de-tuned Merlin without superchargers and with steel components replacing some aluminium ones) in a car called "The Beast". Originally it had a grille from a Rolls Royce, but after complaints from them he had to change it. According to his own account he once drove by a Porsche driver on the autobahn who then called Rolls Royce asking about their "new model". The Beast was once listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most powerful road car. The engine came from a Boulton Paul Balliol training aircraft which would give 1,262 hp (941 kW) at 8,500 feet (2,600 m). No supercharger was fitted to the engine in car so it "only" delivered about 850 hp (630 kW). The chassis was custom made with a fibreglass body and used a General Motors TH400 automatic transmission. Australian Rod Hadfield of the Castlemaine Rod Shop built this: Final Objective" wikipedia is your friend

Re:"hopefully copfree run"

[TubeSteak]

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/37523/speed_camera_t est/ [metacafe.com]

The guys at Top Gear went to an airstrip to test the speed camera 'myth'.

Long story short: In their very unscientific test, the British version of the Speed Camera did not go off when you're going ~170MPH. No Flash, no picture, nothing.

I imagine a 1980's speed camera wasn't designed to capture very high speed objects.

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.

Re:Defensive driving

[Guysmiley777]

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.

Totally wrong.

F-15C max take off weight (MTOW): 68,000 lbs. F100-PW-220 engines max thrust in full AB: 23,830 lbs x 2 = 47,660 lbs.

F-16C MTOW: 37,500 lbs. GE F110-GE-129 max thrust in full AB: 29,000 lbs.

With a standard fuel/weapons load (which is lower than the MTOW) the F-15 and F-16 have about the same thurst to weight ratio, and both can pull some eye-watering "max performance" climbs. Of course the F-22 leaves them both in the dust.

Re:Defensive driving

[YrWrstNtmr]

If you stood within 100 meters of an F-15 without hearing protection, you'd be deaf.

Very true. We were required to wear double. Plugs and earmuffs.

But as to your F-16 comment, actually some of them, depending on configuration, can continue to accellerate in the vertical. I got an incentive ride while in Germany, and we did in fact go vertical, gaining speed as we went up. But yes...the twin engine F-15 has a better thrust to weigt ratio than the single engine F-16.

Other useless trivia...the Langley airshow is this weekend. The East Coast F-15 demo pilot is stationed here at Langley, and he practices once or twice a week. The other day he set off many, many car alarms as he went over the base at about 200' in full AB.