Rocket Racing Could be Futuristic NASCAR Sport
July 31, 2008 by Lisa Zyga
Courtesy of Rocket Racing LeagueŽ
With its first demonstration of a rocket-powered plane, the Rocket Racing League is hoping to have invented a new sport. Thousands of spectators witnessed the league´s first flight, held at the Experimental Aircraft Association´s AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wisc., on Tuesday.
"We´re using 21st century technology to create a 21st century sport for 21st century people," said Rocket Racing League CEO Granger Whitelaw. "It´s the start of a new industry, and certainly a new sports and entertainment company."
Whitelaw, an Indianapolis 500 veteran, co-founded the Rocket Racing League along with Ansari X Prize-founder Peter Diamandis. Their vision is to race planes powered by bursts of rocket fuel around a virtual 3D race course in the sky that spectators will be able to watch on projection screens.
The rocket engines, which burn liquid fuel and so can be turned on and off, will allow pilots to alternate between bursts of acceleration and gliding, with top speeds of 340 mph. Pilots will strategize on the best times to release bursts of limited fuel to achieve the fastest flights, with three or four minutes of burn time allowing about 10 minutes of racing. As the planes release their fuel, they produce 15-foot (4.5-meter) orange flames from the engines, creating a dramatic visible effect. Whitelaw and Diamandis hope that the races will one day become a kind of "NASCAR of the skies."
At Tuesday´s demonstration, Rocket Racing League officials had originally planned to stage two planes with different engines in a friendly race on an aerial 3D track. Spectators would follow along with the pilots using large television screens and helmet displays. But one of the planes, used by the league´s Santa Fe Racing Team and designed by Armadillo Aerospace of Mesquite, Texas, is still awaiting approval by the FAA. That plane is powered by liquid oxygen and ethanol.
Still, the audience still got to witness a solo flight piloted by former space shuttle commander Richard Searfoss, who flew a plane with a liquid oxygen- and kerosene-powered engine, developed by Xcor Aerospace of Mojave, California. Searfoss represented the league´s Bridenstine Rocket Racing Team, which is led by former U.S. Navy jet pilot Jim Bridenstine.
As Searfoss fired the engine for takeoff, a bright flame emerged from the back of the plane. With 1,500 pounds of thrust, the plane quickly rose to a height of several hundred feet, when the pilot turned off the engine and glided. He "popped" the engine a few more times, releasing brilliant flames in between periods of gliding.
Spectators could also view the Santa Fe Team´s plane as a display, with its engine exposed. Rocket Racing League officials hope to get FAA approval for the plane by September, when they have plans for a two-plane race at Reno Air Races. Other planned exhibitions include races at the X Prize Cup in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in October, and at Aviation Nation in Las Vegas in November.
If everything goes according to plan, the league will begin hosting competitions next year. Six teams have already signed up to participate in races, sponsored by DKNY Men, a New York City-based men´s sportswear line. At the races, fans will follow the planes´ progress by watching videos from cockpit cameras, and the league also hopes to design a computer game in which players could race against real pilots.
More information: http://www.rocketracingleague.com
via: Space.com and The New York Times
-
Curiosity and the solar storm
Dec 15, 2011 |
3.8 / 5 (4) |
2
-
New operating system for space: High-tech tycoons
Dec 14, 2011 |
4.4 / 5 (9) |
7
-
Allen, Rutan plan huge plane to launch spaceships
Dec 13, 2011 |
5 / 5 (14) |
32
-
US honors astronauts for pioneering space flights
Nov 16, 2011 |
not rated yet |
1
-
Singapore family books $1 million Virgin space flight
Nov 14, 2011 |
5 / 5 (2) |
0
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (31) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
-
Never ending outer space.....
13 hours ago
-
Neutron Star fragments?
15 hours ago
-
stationary or not?
19 hours ago
-
Scale of the Universe
Feb 10, 2012
-
Titan's lack of impact craters
Feb 09, 2012
-
Real pictures of black hole eating a star?
Feb 08, 2012
- More from Physics Forums - General Astronomy
More news stories
Latin America mining boom clashes with conservation
Latin America is experiencing a mining boom as prices rise fuelled by a hike in global demand, but the region is also being hit by a wave of violent protests, strikes and rallies by environmentalists.
6 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Political leaders play key role in how worried Americans are by climate change: study
More than extreme weather events and the work of scientists, it is national political leaders who influence how much Americans worry about the threat of climate change, new research finds.
Feb 06, 2012 |
5 / 5 (6) |
72
NASA budget will axe Mars deal with Europe: scientists
US President Barack Obama's budget proposal to be submitted next week for 2013 will cut NASA's budget by 20 percent and eliminate a major partnership with Europe on Mars exploration, scientists said Thursday.
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Feb 10, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
55
Humans may have helped the decline of African rainforests 3000 years ago
(PhysOrg.com) -- Large areas of rainforests in Central Africa mysteriously disappeared over three thousand years ago, to be replaced by savannas. The prevailing theory has been that the cause was a change ...
Study shows global glaciers, ice caps, shedding billions of tons of mass annually
Earth's glaciers and ice caps outside of the regions of Greenland and Antarctica are shedding roughly 150 billion tons of ice annually, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 08, 2012 |
4.4 / 5 (9) |
14
|
Google might launch Drive for cloud storage soon
(PhysOrg.com) -- Google's next big move, according to the Wall Street Journal, is a cloud storage service called Drive. Hardly first to the plate, Google is simply catching up to introducing its cloud reposi ...
Love a click away in Indonesia's Twitter Republic
He was a geeky kid from Yogyakarta, she a glamorous city girl in Jakarta. In a country with one of the world's most vibrant social networking scenes they fell in love on Twitter.
Europeans protest controversial Internet pact
Tens of thousands of people marched in protests in more than a dozen European cities Saturday against a controversial anti-online piracy pact that critics say could curtail Internet freedom.
Walney offshore wind farm is world's biggest (for now)
(PhysOrg.com) -- The Walney wind farm on the Irish Sea--characterized by high tides, waves and windy weather--officially opened this week. The farm is treated in the press as a very big deal as the Walney ...
Navy to begin tests on electromagnetic railgun prototype launcher
The Office of Naval Research (ONR)'s Electromagnetic (EM) Railgun program will take an important step forward in the coming weeks when the first industry railgun prototype launcher is tested at a facility ...
Explained: Sigma
It's a question that arises with virtually every major new finding in science or medicine: What makes a result reliable enough to be taken seriously? The answer has to do with statistical significance -- but ...
Jul 31, 2008
Rank: 2 / 5 (1)
Jul 31, 2008
Rank: 4.3 / 5 (3)
Lame, liquid fueled rocket planes are so "last century"! (Messerschmitt's Me 163 Komet)lol
Jul 31, 2008
Rank: 4.5 / 5 (2)
It does look like it would be fun to fly though. And the computer game version should be fun, if paired with a great flight simulator program.
Interesting in the video, where the announcer talks up the "fuel management strategies" that will make the racing interesting, just like in NASCAR. However, he leaves out the fact that there will be NO MARGIN FOR ERROR.
I can't imagine that they would let the crowds sit close enough to make it much worth attending though. But, heck, I don't want to spectate, I want to participate!
Jul 31, 2008
Rank: 4.7 / 5 (3)
Aug 01, 2008
Rank: 5 / 5 (2)
...And, as spectacular engine blows in F1, i am afraid to say that a rocket engine blowing up in flight is even more spectacular...and maybe fatal.
Aug 01, 2008
Rank: 3 / 5 (1)