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Jayruss

the only way to altitude

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Hercules on a 45° take-off with the assistance of JATO rockets! It took off in less than 3000 feet and climbed to 1000 feet before the end of runway!!

__________________________________________________
"Beware how you take away hope from another human being."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes

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[/urlhttp://www.darwinawards.com/legends/index.htm[url]

Jet Assisted Take-Off
1995 Darwin Awards Winner
Confirmed Bogus by Darwin
The Arizona Highway Patrol were mystified when they came upon a pile of smoldering wreckage embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The metal debris resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it turned out to be the vaporized remains of an automobile. The make of the vehicle was unidentifiable at the scene.

The folks in the lab finally figured out what it was, and pieced together the events that led up to its demise.

It seems that a former Air Force sergeant had somehow got hold of a JATO (Jet Assisted Take-Off) unit. JATO units are solid fuel rockets used to give heavy military transport airplanes an extra push for take-off from short airfields.

Dried desert lakebeds are the location of choice for breaking the world ground vehicle speed record. The sergeant took the JATO unit into the Arizona desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. He attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, accelerated to a high speed, and fired off the rocket.

The facts, as best as could be determined, are as follows:

The operator was driving a 1967 Chevy Impala. He ignited the JATO unit approximately 3.9 miles from the crash site. This was established by the location of a prominently scorched and melted strip of asphalt. The vehicle quickly reached a speed of between 250 and 300 mph and continued at that speed, under full power, for an additional 20-25 seconds. The soon-to-be pilot experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners.

The Chevy remained on the straight highway for approximately 2.6 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied the brakes, completely melting them, blowing the tires, and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface. The vehicle then became airborne for an additional 1.3 miles, impacted the cliff face at a height of 125 feet, and left a blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock.

Most of the driver's remains were not recovered; however, small fragments of bone, teeth, and hair were extracted from the crater, and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.

Ironically a still-legible bumper sticker was found, reading
"How do you like my driving? Dial 1-800-EAT-SHIT."

Nick D

The key to Immortality is- first living a life worth remembering”

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>Hercules on a 45° take-off with the assistance of JATO rockets!

Ever read about the Iranian hostage rescue attempt? The plan was to land and take off nearly vertically in a C-130 using JATO and Shrike missile motors. The first test actually worked; a later test had predictably bad results.

http://www.geocities.com/equipmentshop/assaultzone.htm
http://home.earthlink.net/~quade/crediblesport.html
http://www.spectrumwd.com/c130/articles/Credible_Sport.htm

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i saw the footage of the JATO Hurc that was set up to fire it's rockets forward for short landing. They went off too soon, while the bird was still in the air, and as you might imagine, that hurc took all the kings horses and all his men to put it back together.

Cool idea, but if I flew, i'd like the idea of rockets that you can't turn off giving thousands of pounds of thrust to help me fly forward, than I would one that had those same un stopable pounds pointing backwards.

Z

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