Does anyone know anything about the little green machine? Never saw that before, can't imagine roof being very easy to handle.
This will save you the cost of the beer... First, I just want to remind the moderators who may feel the “jet cars” are not what this section of the HAMB is all about, that the site rules do permit photos of cars through 1965. Well, this car was built and run only in 1965, and never after. Now, to the subject at hand. Going fast with a car that is not dependent on traction (as in wheel driven) means that going through the air is the primary goal. As Jim Nise mentioned earlier, reducing drag is the primary concern. Anyone that has ever stuck his arm out the window at 75 MPH learns the first lesson of aerodynamics. Air is reluctant to get out of your way. Air is happy just being air, and is not pleased if it has to get out of your way just because you are trying to push a vehicle through it. It “resists”, and it’s that resistance that describes everything about unlimited Land Speed Racing. However, there is one kind of drag that is a good thing to have. If you have ever played a game of darts in the pub, or launched an arrow from a bow, you marvel at the way the dart and the arrow can go so straight. The reason lies with those little feathers at the back of the darts and the back of the arrows. They create aerodynamic drag, which causes the back of the projectile to follow the front of the projectile in a straight line. Without those feathers on the back of the dart, you would probably be arrested for trying to kill someone sitting at a table 10 feet away from the dart board. The vertical fin on the rear of our LSR car is there to create drag, so the car will go straight. The fin does not MAKE the car go straight, the aerodynamic drag on the fin does that. As I said earlier, we did 36 runs at the Salt Flats in 1965, starting at slower speeds and gradually adding more power to go faster. On one run, Craig mentioned over his radio (at 550 MPH) that the steering broke, and that rotating the steering wheel had zero effect, and the car was starting to go off course. He did this as comely as if he was ordering a pizza. He deployed the chutes, and shortly thereafter he said the steering started working again. The car had load gauges over all 4 wheels, showing the load (downward pressure) on each wheel, independently. We down loaded the data after the run, and found out that at about 550 MPH, the front wheels left the ground. Craig was doing a wheel-stand at 550 MPH. The data also showed that there was a much higher load on the rear wheels, because the entire weight of the car (10,000 lbs.) was on the rear wheels. At first, we thought we had aerodynamic lift on the front end of the car, but we soon found that it wasn’t aero lift, it was aerodynamic drag on the vertical fin, mounted at the rear of the car, BUT, behind the rear axle. Look at that side view photo I posted again, and think of a teeter-totter with a fat kid on one end. There was so much drag on the fin that it leveraged up the front of the car, primarily because the fin was too tall. Had the rear axle been at the extreme rear of the car, or if the vertical fin had not been so tall, this would not have happened. We had some canard fins on the car, one in front of each wheel. We could adjust the down force on each wheel. We tilted the fins on nose down to counter act the tall vertical fin. It helped, but not enough so we built some bigger canard fins for the front, enough to make the 35th and 36th runs, got our 600+ MPH average for the last run. Five miles of acceleration, one mile to measure the speed, and five miles to stop (the car went through the measured mile in 6 seconds) and the exit speed was about 630 MPH. The original canard fins. The larger fins, about double the size. Anyone really interested in this kind of stuff, check out the books written by Samuel Hawley, “Speed Duel” and “Ultimate Speed”. I think they are available on Amazon.com…
Air Trails Hobbies for Young Boys February 1955 Come see more like this and other things at https://misforgotten2.tumblr.com/
I apologize up front, this car is later than 1965, but it's relevant to what we were discussing above. Mark Twain once quoted: "Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions." The design of Craig's next car, the Spirit of America "Sonic Arrow", came from what he had learned from the "Sonic 1". You still need to have the center of pressure (the drag at the back of the car or the dart or the arrow) as far back as possible, but it did not depend on a tall vertical fin. Drag is drag, whether it's on top of the car or on the sides (fairings that cover the rear wheels). This is a 4-wheel LSR car powered by the same J-79 as the "Sonic 1". The front wheels are right next to each other, which kept the car body as narrow as possible, other than the air inlet ducts. It was a much better design all around and it would have easily run at super sonic speeds...
Primitive photoshop. Background is text. Rear wheels are from the "car" part. Body was "put over a dragster." Background through the windows is also a give away. IMHO
what does the LBJ plate stand for?[/QUOTE] Lyndon Baines Johnson, he became President after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. He won election to the office in 1964 and served his four year term from 1965 through 1969.
If I remember well, I think I posted it a few years ago. Picture comes from a Rod & Custom magazine...will try to retrace it...
Lyndon Baines Johnson, he became President after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. He won election to the office in 1964 and served his four year term from 1965 through 1969.[/QUOTE] Not Le Bron James ?
i'm a bit younger, '73 is vintage to me, lol. The '65 and earlier is easy to forget when i'm slapping up pics at odd hours. Glad you enjoy my posts. i'll be on an early car/gas/tire/oil/etc ad tangent for a bit. they are mostly 1910-1950
The Jalopy Journal
