Rocket Racing League Flights With Armadillo Engine 73
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."
Good luck with that. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good luck with that. (Score:5, Funny)
Speed? - Check!
Noise? - Check!
Engineering? - Check!
Potential for large explosions? - Check!
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So, who gets to fly the pace car?
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Have you no reclining chairs??
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I'd rather wait for the ESPN coverage... now that's 1 minute of show and 5 mins of self-promotion.
What a pain in the neck!
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Engrish? Do You Even Attempt It? (Score:1)
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.
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Re:Engrish? Do You Even Attempt It? (Score:4, Funny)
It's a perfectly cromulent English flutzpah!
Oxygen Alcohol? (Score:2, Funny)
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?
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also, he appears to be married
Cool but... (Score:2, Interesting)
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Which is not quite as cool as this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTk_0lY0XxM [youtube.com]
In other words, everyone has to start somewhere...
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What is wrong with Forumla One? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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I'd rather have a 24 hours of Rocket Propelled Le Mans.
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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...
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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.
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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
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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.
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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?
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For the parent: I'm getting a sense of whooshiness from your comment. Not a strong sense but just a definite tingle.
Yeah, see, the joke was he was typing a bunch of exclamation marks in the typical joking fashion of the kiddie pounding on the 1 key including even typing out 'eleventy', and see i chose to act like the leading 1s were just un-shifted exclamation marks, so 9/11 becomes 9/, and now I had to explain it so nm.
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It was a pretty retarded joke to begin with, but you're welcome. :)
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You made me snort pop into my sinuses. Damn that stings. And the bubbling noises...
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> 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.
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You just know as soon as there are flying cars someone's going to fly one into a parking structure.
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This is an Outrage! (Score:5, Funny)
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Danger Will Robinson (Score:1)
Armadillo? (Score:2)
Not that I ever watched that movie. I just heard about it.
John Carmack (Score:2, Funny)
from Doom to Rockets... (Score:4, Informative)
Interesting trivia for the /. crowd: Armadillo Aerospace was founded by John Carmack, id Software programmer.
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There's a joke about rocket-whoring in here somewhere...
Re:from Doom to Rockets... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Confucious say (Score:1)
Confucious say "Rocket jump likely. Bring parachute."
Re:Confucious say (Score:5, Funny)
Rocket jump likely. Bring 100 Health, 100 Armor and "REGENERATION".
Q: What does a alcohol-fueled Armadillo do when it explodes?
A: Quad damage.
Q: What do you say when an Armadillo-rocket kills seven?
A: "Impressive".
*ducks*
A lot of work to build rocket engines (Score:2, Flamebait)
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.
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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)
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)
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.
from hobby to practical? (Score:1)
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Sounds like fun... (Score:1)
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.
Hmmm, little disappointed. Where is the Hell? (Score:2)
good fuel (Score:1)
Another advantage of alcohol (Score:2, Interesting)
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)
anyone else remember this? (Score:1)
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Can We Spell 'Komet', Hmmmm? (Score:1)
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
XCor engine better tuned. Pink exhaust for Armadil (Score:1)
Re:XCor engine better tuned. Pink exhaust for Arma (Score:2)
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,"