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EspañolBUDWEISER ROCKET
The 'Budweiser Rocket' was a 3-wheeled land vehicle powered by a hybrid liquid and solid-fuel rocket engine that is claimed to be the first vehicle to have broken the sound barrier on land (near sea level) driven by Stan Barrett and designed and built by William Fredrick. There is much debate over the validity of the claim, and the Budweiser Rocket is generally not considered as the first vehicle to have broken the sound barrier on land.
The claim of breaking the sound barrier on land was made on December 17, 1979 after a run on Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards AFB. While it's been claimed that the Budweiser Rocket did briefly break the sound barrier, it could not gain any official titles because standard ground speed record regulations measure an average speed over a distance of either one kilometre or one mile. It should be noted that those claiming that the sound barrier was briefly broken all had a financial interest in making this claim, and no independent investigator was either at the run, or has since agreed to this claim.
The first run of the car at Bonneville Salt Flats showed that the propulsion system was unable to develop enough power to sustain a speed high enough to establish a new official World Land Speed Record. The team decided then that their goal would be to exceed the speed of sound on land, if only briefly, although no official authority would recognize this achievement as a record.
The speed of sound is essentially a function of the air temperature. In other words sound barrier is not an absolute speed value, but dependent on air conditions. The speed of sound during Barrett's speed run was 731.9 miles per hour.
The measurement of the vehicle's top speed during the run has been disputed primarily because of the methods used to calculate the speed, and its extremely small margin of success.
No independent authority was sanctioning the performance, although the United States Air Force radar tracked the vehicle and recorded the speed at 38 MPH. This was obviously an error, and is generally considered to represent the movement of a truck in the vicinity. The report on the speed achieved was confused, but eventually a figure was produced nearly eight hours after the run. This figure was based on in-car accelerometer data, which were affected by vibration. These data were interpreted by the team as indicating a high degree of probability that the car exceeded the speed of sound at one point in its path by achieving a peak speed of 739.666 miles per hour, or Mach 1.01.
However, according to witnesses, no sonic boom was heard, and no account was made for the excessive drag forces which are now known to affect ground-level sound-barrier attempts at speeds higher than 700 MPH. Since there was neither any independent witness, nor any degree of measurement expertise involved in this assertion, it is not generally held to be appropriate proof of the claim.
★ Claimed speed: 739.666 miles per hour (Mach 1.01), released by the United States Air Force 8 hours after event
★ Eyewitness testimony: no sonic boom was audible
★ Recorded radar speed: 38 mph (recorded speed of truck nearby by accident)
★ Other recorded data: Accelerometer data from vehicle, photographic images.
★ Driver: Stan Barret
★ Other top speed claims: 638 mph in earlier attempt
The "Budweiser Rocket" is in the Talladega Superspeedway Museum, Alabama, USA. (circa 2004)
The Thrust SSC is recognized as breaking the land speed record in 1997, with an average speed of 763.035 mph (1227.99 km/h) on a measured mile.
★ A Review of Chuck Yeager's Letter of Testimony on the Budweiser Rocket Car
★ The Online A-Z of 3-wheelers: Budweiser (includes photos of the car)
★ Land-speed record set in 1979 at Edwards
★ Rocket car
The claim of breaking the sound barrier on land was made on December 17, 1979 after a run on Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards AFB. While it's been claimed that the Budweiser Rocket did briefly break the sound barrier, it could not gain any official titles because standard ground speed record regulations measure an average speed over a distance of either one kilometre or one mile. It should be noted that those claiming that the sound barrier was briefly broken all had a financial interest in making this claim, and no independent investigator was either at the run, or has since agreed to this claim.
The first run of the car at Bonneville Salt Flats showed that the propulsion system was unable to develop enough power to sustain a speed high enough to establish a new official World Land Speed Record. The team decided then that their goal would be to exceed the speed of sound on land, if only briefly, although no official authority would recognize this achievement as a record.
The speed of sound is essentially a function of the air temperature. In other words sound barrier is not an absolute speed value, but dependent on air conditions. The speed of sound during Barrett's speed run was 731.9 miles per hour.
The measurement of the vehicle's top speed during the run has been disputed primarily because of the methods used to calculate the speed, and its extremely small margin of success.
No independent authority was sanctioning the performance, although the United States Air Force radar tracked the vehicle and recorded the speed at 38 MPH. This was obviously an error, and is generally considered to represent the movement of a truck in the vicinity. The report on the speed achieved was confused, but eventually a figure was produced nearly eight hours after the run. This figure was based on in-car accelerometer data, which were affected by vibration. These data were interpreted by the team as indicating a high degree of probability that the car exceeded the speed of sound at one point in its path by achieving a peak speed of 739.666 miles per hour, or Mach 1.01.
However, according to witnesses, no sonic boom was heard, and no account was made for the excessive drag forces which are now known to affect ground-level sound-barrier attempts at speeds higher than 700 MPH. Since there was neither any independent witness, nor any degree of measurement expertise involved in this assertion, it is not generally held to be appropriate proof of the claim.
★ Claimed speed: 739.666 miles per hour (Mach 1.01), released by the United States Air Force 8 hours after event
★ Eyewitness testimony: no sonic boom was audible
★ Recorded radar speed: 38 mph (recorded speed of truck nearby by accident)
★ Other recorded data: Accelerometer data from vehicle, photographic images.
★ Driver: Stan Barret
★ Other top speed claims: 638 mph in earlier attempt
The "Budweiser Rocket" is in the Talladega Superspeedway Museum, Alabama, USA. (circa 2004)
The Thrust SSC is recognized as breaking the land speed record in 1997, with an average speed of 763.035 mph (1227.99 km/h) on a measured mile.
| Contents |
| External links |
| See also |
External links
★ A Review of Chuck Yeager's Letter of Testimony on the Budweiser Rocket Car
★ The Online A-Z of 3-wheelers: Budweiser (includes photos of the car)
★ Land-speed record set in 1979 at Edwards
See also
★ Rocket car
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