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Space Technology

Rocket Racing League Flights With Armadillo Engine 73

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the now-with-more-cowbell dept.
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."
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Rocket Racing League Flights With Armadillo Engine More

Rocket Racing League Flights With Armadillo Engine

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  • Good luck with that. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ralph Spoilsport ( 673134 ) * on Friday August 29, 2008 @04:35PM (#24800601) Journal
    Little things zooming around up in the sky. Sounds like a pain in the neck to me.

  • Engrish? Do You Even Attempt It? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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?

  • Cool but... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by zerosomething ( 1353609 )
    Very cool but not sure it's quite as cool as the XCOR Rocket Powered Aeroplane. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MQvUCrjtmw [youtube.com] and http://www.xcor.com/ [xcor.com]

  • What is wrong with Forumla One? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anachragnome ( 1008495 ) on Friday August 29, 2008 @04:50PM (#24800949)

    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.

    • F1 isn't much more interesting. Actually, the cars don't crash nearly as much, so it's even less interesting. Besides, calling those things "cars" is pushing it.

      I'd rather have a 24 hours of Rocket Propelled Le Mans.

      • A friend of mine always used to say that F1 would be more fun if they started the race with half of the cars going rounf the track in the opposite direction.

        That'd be potentially even more spectacular for rocket plane races...

        • I've seen Formula One races that appeared to do exactly that.

          Laguna Seco is a good example. Bottom of the Corkscrew you often find half the pack facing the other direction.

      • F1, and other races, can be fascinating and interesting, whey they shoot the race from helicopter.

        Seeing it from above so that you see the whole track and all the racers at once is interesting.
        Seeing a few cars take a corner, or following same two or three cars as they battle for first position for half an hour, isn't.
        The boring ground level shots are totally worthless, but for some reason that's what they show 99.9% of the time when they show a race of any kind on TV.

        For this same reason, I'd never go and

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Zerth ( 26112 )

      The difference between this and NASCAR is that, yah, occaisonally one of the wrecks will try to mount the fence or a wheel will land in the stands.

      But when a wreck happens in this, you'll have a rocket propelled plane falling from the sky. It might lawndart into the stands or it might "safely" crash off in a field.

      Or it might go corkscrewing off towards the nearest building and everyone will be all "9/11!!!eleventy!!!"

      I can't wait to see their insurance rates.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Chris Burke ( 6130 )

        Or it might go corkscrewing off towards the nearest building and everyone will be all "9/11!!!eleventy!!!"

        "9/"? Why would people be yelling "9/" for?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Zerth ( 26112 )

          You made me snort pop into my sinuses. Damn that stings. And the bubbling noises...

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by mobby_6kl ( 668092 )

        > Or it might go corkscrewing off towards the nearest building and everyone will be all "9/11!!!eleventy!!!"

        Or they just might, you know, hold the races somewhere where there aren't any buildings to crash into.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HTH NE1 ( 675604 )

        You just know as soon as there are flying cars someone's going to fly one into a parking structure.

    • Not really. Tires in F1 have grooves in them to limit their maximum traction potential (though I hear they are returning to slicks). Also, AWD is banned. Dynamic aero mods are also banned (as opposed to fixed wings, etc).

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by berboot ( 838932 ) *
        2008 is the last year they will have the grooved tires. Next year, they'll allow full slicks again, but the aero requirements will be much more stringent (I've heard some people say that the new cars will have half as much downforce). All of this is part of Bernie's plan to make F1 cheaper for the smaller teams to participate (see Super Aguri Honda's withdrawl from the series.)

  • This is an Outrage! (Score:5, Funny)

    by frostilicus2 ( 889524 ) on Friday August 29, 2008 @04:52PM (#24800991)
    You're burning alcohol!
    • Yep, nearly pure ethanol. A real shame, except that it's denatured. Wouldn't want to pay all that extra tax!
  • 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...)
  • They're using the rocket engines off of the drilling vehicle in Armageddon? [wikipedia.org]

    Not that I ever watched that movie. I just heard about it.
  • Is he even human?

  • from Doom to Rockets... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 29, 2008 @05:17PM (#24801481)

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

  • Confucious say "Rocket jump likely. Bring parachute."

  • 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.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by BiggerBoat ( 690886 )
      Just a nitpick but it's actually only been 8 years. And they only switched over to cryogen/biprop engines 4 years ago. While there certainly is carryover from the lessons learned from the hydrogen peroxide work before that, they are fairly different regimes.

      This doesn't negate your point that it is difficult and has taken a while to get here; I just wanted to clarify.

  • On/Off propulsion (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chaim79 ( 898507 ) on Friday August 29, 2008 @06:09PM (#24802555) Homepage

    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 (Score:5, Interesting)

      by evanbd ( 210358 ) on Friday August 29, 2008 @07:30PM (#24803759)

      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.

  • 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.
  • 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.

  • Another advantage of alcohol (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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.

  • Where's the ... tag? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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 actual
    • ahh... wikipedia knows what i speak of. from the rocket racing league entry : "Races would take place on a race course two miles long, one mile wide, and 1500 feet in the air. A typical race would take about one hour, and fans would be able to see multiple camera views, including cockpit, "on-track," "side-by-side" and wing-angle views. Additionally, a computer game is planned which will interface with racer position data in real time over the internet, allowing players to virtually compete with the rocket

  • 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,"

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