The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded high in the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it wasn't. It was a car. The type of car couldn't be determined at the scene. The lab finally figured out what it was and what had happened. It seems that this fool had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet-Assisted TakeOff, a solid-fuel rocket, actually) that is used to give heavy military planes an extra "push" for taking off from short airfields.
He drove his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. Then he attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got up some speed, and fired off the JATO! The facts, as could best be determined, are that the driver of the 1967 Impala hit the JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles from the crash site. This was established by the prominent patch of scorched and melted asphalt at that location.
The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach a speed well in excess of 350 mph and continuing at full power for an additional 20-25 seconds. The driver, soon-to-be-pilot, most likely would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks in full afterburner, basically causing him to become insignificant for the remainder of the event.
However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20)seconds before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the roadsurface, then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet above the road, leaving a blackened crater three feet deep in the rock. Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable; 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.
Hmmm...maybe the gene pool could use just a little more chlorine...
He drove his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. Then he attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got up some speed, and fired off the JATO! The facts, as could best be determined, are that the driver of the 1967 Impala hit the JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles from the crash site. This was established by the prominent patch of scorched and melted asphalt at that location.
The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach a speed well in excess of 350 mph and continuing at full power for an additional 20-25 seconds. The driver, soon-to-be-pilot, most likely would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks in full afterburner, basically causing him to become insignificant for the remainder of the event.
However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20)seconds before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the roadsurface, then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet above the road, leaving a blackened crater three feet deep in the rock. Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable; 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.
Hmmm...maybe the gene pool could use just a little more chlorine...