Sonic Wind & Constitution LSRV
I hope you all had a great Easter Holiday. I had my daughter Nicole and my grandson Torger fly in from Wisconsin Rapids where they now live and we had a typical Easter holiday. My older grandson Bishop and my son Tone as well as my eldest daughter Stephanie were here at the house also so it was a lot of fun. We hid eggs and had a big meal. I am lucky to still have both of my parents alive so it was three generations of the Stakes. Even my ex-wife came over so it was definitely a holiday to remember.
I always say that if you don’t have a family you don’t have jack. I don’t care if you are a billionaire and are married to a movie star. There is no substitute for family. Also you will see that when things get ugly in life, family will always help you get through it all. So if you don’t have a family get yourself one. They don’t have to be blood they just have to be people you love and vice versa. Keep them close and forgive them their trespasses because after all who is perfect anyway? I guarantee you; your life will be fuller and richer.
Last month I told you about that wild project of Johnny Conway’s the “Mach 1” wheel driven super sonic land speed record car project. This month I sent Ed Torsello a couple of photos to post. There is a line drawing of the car as well as a photo of the original model. I just didn’t think you could get an idea of what it was to really be like reading only my description. So I am sure you will like these shots. I hope Conway doesn’t sue me for posting these 37 year old pictures as I am broke anyway. Whatever happens here they are….You LSR heads enjoy…..
Last month I also heard from Stacey Becker of the “Team Prairie Hawg” group which run a Harley class bike at the Bonneville meets. The team sent me a couple of T shirts and a photo disk to look at. I haven’t seen the photos yet as of this day March 30th I just got back on line with a brand new computer. Thank you Stacey and please call me or e-mail me again with your address as I will send you something as a thank you. I don’t have anyone’s addresses or e-mail addresses anymore as all of my data was wiped out so everyone re contact me.
This is my forth computer in four years which was wiped out by viruses supplied to them by Uncle Sam. These are military viruses written by experts and computers which are very unlike the ones written by juvenile hackers or companies trying to sell you antivirus software to combat the viruses which they start.
How do you think these antivirus companies know how to combat those particular viruses in the first place? More likely than not they wrote them! Of course that is my personal skeptical opinion but it plays off a theme forever used by successful businesses through out history. Create a problem….Then offer a solution to that particular problem….at a price of course… and bingo you are a wealthy person. Politicians and people’s advocate groups use exactly the same concept all the time. As an example a government will demonize a group in order to start a war with that group or kill them for some other reason which they will never tell you.
Remember back during Bill Clinton’s presidency when he let that sweet woman Janet Reno demonize those “religious fanatics” the Branch Davidians claiming that the leader David Koresh was sexually abusing children? Then she allowed a couple of three letter agencies to bypass the Constitution’s Passe Commitadis (I believe that is spelled right) law and go after this group with military weapons. In the end the “stand off at Waco” Texas killed all the “lunatic sect” members most of which were those very same young children sweet Janet Reno wanted to protect. To top it all off you got to watch it all live on TV. Now how neat was that? I can’t tell you what kind of future fun and games to expect if Hilary gets elected to the presidency but I am sure you ain’t seen nothing yet folks. It amazes me that people tell me they don’t believe in the devil when things like this are as plain as the nose on your face. It is hard for me to believe Americans can be this dense and still hold down a job and vote, etc….
Anyway in my quest for the truth about certain technologies I used Google Earth to look down on a couple of “secret facilities” and when I tried to print a photo of a certain facility my computer was smoked instead. I really have to stop doing that and I will as of right now because I spend a grand or two a year on new computers and useless repairs.
What is really funny is when I take my computers in to say the Geek Squad (Best Buy), FireDog (Circuit City) or some other companies like that. It usually starts off neat with the computer “expert” saying something like…. “Don’t worry about a thing Mr. Stakes there is no virus we can’t fix. Come and pick up your computer tomorrow and it will be as good as new.” The next day they will call me midday and say something like…” I have never seen anything like this. Your computer is not responding to anything we do but we will keep at it!” and by the third day they call me and say… “I am sorry but we can’t do anything as the virus is in the very hard drive of the computer itself. We even cleaned out all the programs but now your computer won’t allow us to reprogram it. I am afraid it is toast!”
So what I am doing now is not buying expensive lap tops anymore. From now on it’s cheap, replaceable desktops for me and that is what I am using right now. The only consolation for my losses is that I was right about the place I was looking at or they wouldn’t have punished me with a computer death virus.
Well, enough about my eccentric curiosities let’s talk about Imagine LSRV. Ken Mason and I have been going back and forth on materials for the chassis. I at first wanted to use stainless steel in order to have a more corrosion resistant vehicle but mild steel will give us more of a vehicle which can be repaired easier as all we will need is a MIG welder to fix leaks or cracks in the chassis if they occur. If we use stainless we will need a TIG welder and backing gasses and everything gets a little more complex as far as repairs and changes go. I bought some pipe for experimentation and fitting and I am really leaning towards using 6-5/8 O.D. mild steel pipe for the chassis with a wall of .120 or 1/8 inch thickness.
I keep thinking about the monster rocket sled Rosco McGlashen bought when he was here with me in the states. Rosco and I took the rocketengine off and sent it to Australia for use as a promotional tool for his new rocket LSR car the “Aussie Invader 5R.” Later I had the 38 foot long sled hauled to Ken Mason’s property in North Edwards California. Ken and I studied this sled for days and were amazed at its strong monolithic design. It was a 1000 m.p.h. mega boom rocket sled built in the 1950s by Northrop and run at Edwards air force base way back before they dismantled the rocket sled test track there. It was built like a brick out house and extremely stout. This is how I want to build my next vehicle and if I use 110 feet of this particular mild steel pipe it will be just that. The chassis will double as the fuel tank and will be extremely rigid when pressurized to feed the engine. If there is a chassis crack or leak the engine will loose fuel pressure and shut down instantly.
The body design is very similar to Freedom LSRV only it is shorter and has a steering fin at the very nose which helps steer it but also puts the steering moment below the Cg. The rear of the car has a new look using some traits from Constitution LSRV and Freedom LSRV combined. A novel change is the use of a tunnel around the rocket plume to aid in directional stability. How it works is that it enshrouds the rocket plume which is a jet of 6,000 f.p.s. gas and flame. This high velocity plume will create a low pressure area on the inside of the tunnel around the entire interior. Holding it in place. This thus holds the rear of the car in place keeping the rear end immobile and adding to the overall stability of the vehicle without adding any drag. There will also be twin bi wedge tail fins mounted low and canted up at 45 degrees which use shock to stabilize the vehicle in roll.
I am building a model right now and it will be done in a couple of days. I have also been building heavy lift equipment in order to move the components of the new car around. All the components are here so once things get going it should go together quickly. It is quite a bit different than moving the much smaller pieces of Sonic Wind around. I will post photos next month.
I also spent three days at El Mirage dry lake earlier this month watching the first tests of the Steve Fosset car. Eric Ahlstrom has made many changes to the old Craig Breedlove design and it looks very different. Eric widened the rear track to nearly twelve feet, increased the side area of the rear wheel spats and also pulled the rear wheels further back. He also mounted the large chutes I supplied them into a large pod on top of the car. Eric also made many changes to the air intakes and the steering as well as changes to the wheels and bearings. I now see bleed doors and open square ports on the intakes in order to feed the J-79 enough air so it can breath properly. He also eliminated all of the scalloped rear edges on all of the airfoils. So the car is more reminiscent of Breedlove’s first and most successful car, the first Spirit Of America with the J-47 engine. That car was originally designed in 1960 by aerodynamicist Rod Schapel.
All in all Eric and his team have done a fine job and the car looks ready to go fast. Eric claims the car will be able to hit 1,000 m.p.h. but my calcs say the car “might hit” 800 m.p.h. So lets see who is right. Eric Ahlstrom the second generation aerodynamicist or Waldo the LSR buff. Anyway you slice it, this vehicle is a real LSR contender so lets hope they raise the money to show what she’s got.
I have a couple of shots so you can see the width of the rear end and the chutes we supplied them but I won’t put up a lot of shots because the car doesn’t have it’s sponsorship paint and will probably look very different when you start to see it in magazines and on TV. You always have to remember that my main goal is to promote the LSR so you will never hear any negative stuff about any team on this web site. It is a big world and there is plenty of winning for all so every car and team should have their time in the sun. That is my goal.
There is also a shot of one of the crew who were working the starter truck. This is the true face of the land speed record. Not the drivers swaggering for the cameras or the company reps posing for pictures.
These guys…the crew…the people who work for next to nothing or volunteer their time to help a team reach it’s goal of progressing man just a little bit further. These are the real land speed racers. Take a good look at this face this is the face that will push your car through the sound barrier and beyond…….Waldo