Self taught "rocket scientist" plans to launch himself........

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It worked for Scott Truax's jump.

[video=youtube;D1EtAyv132E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1EtAyv132E[/video]

Completing the legacy: Return to Snake River
Eddie Braun is a stuntman, stunt driver and stunt co-ordinator with hundreds of hollywood credits to his name, from the original Dukes of Hazzard TV show, through to The Avengers, Sons of Anarchy and the Transformers movies.
Like many in the business, Braun holds Evel Knievel as an icon, a childhood hero and inspiration, and to cap off a crazy career, he's decided to retire with one last stunt. Braun is going to jump that Snake River canyon in a rocket bike – an almost perfect replica of the one Evel rode 42 years ago.
And who better to build it than Scott Truax, whose father built the original? Scott was just a child back at the 1974 launch, but he was there on the launchpad with his dad when it happened. Eddie and Scott are determined to complete what the last generation started.
The new bike, the Evel Spirit, has been built according to Bob Truax's original blueprints; an emotional journey for Scott, who spent many hours working with his father's original sketches, notes and calculations, as well as visiting the Evel Knievel museum in Canada where he measured "every nut, bolt and rivet" on the original test rocket. Building the Evel Spirit has been very much an exercise in walking in his father's footprints, and Truax hopes to prove his father's original design would have done the job if the 'chute didn't let go.

see: Evel about to push the firing button on his F100 powered scale test model:
https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?134620-X2-Evel-Knievel&highlight=evel
 
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I don't believe in a flat earth, but I might believe in a flat Mike. Can I join that society?
 
[video=youtube;D1EtAyv132E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1EtAyv132E[/video]

Completing the legacy: Return to Snake River
Eddie Braun is a stuntman, stunt driver and stunt co-ordinator with hundreds of hollywood credits to his name, from the original Dukes of Hazzard TV show, through to The Avengers, Sons of Anarchy and the Transformers movies.
Like many in the business, Braun holds Evel Knievel as an icon, a childhood hero and inspiration, and to cap off a crazy career, he's decided to retire with one last stunt. Braun is going to jump that Snake River canyon in a rocket bike – an almost perfect replica of the one Evel rode 42 years ago.
And who better to build it than Scott Truax, whose father built the original? Scott was just a child back at the 1974 launch, but he was there on the launchpad with his dad when it happened. Eddie and Scott are determined to complete what the last generation started.
The new bike, the Evel Spirit, has been built according to Bob Truax's original blueprints; an emotional journey for Scott, who spent many hours working with his father's original sketches, notes and calculations, as well as visiting the Evel Knievel museum in Canada where he measured "every nut, bolt and rivet" on the original test rocket. Building the Evel Spirit has been very much an exercise in walking in his father's footprints, and Truax hopes to prove his father's original design would have done the job if the 'chute didn't let go.

Thanks for digging that up, I was too lazy. In the post you quoted, I couldn't even remember the pilot's name (even though I posted it a few days ago). The mind is the 2nd thing to go and I can't remember the first!
 
Surely if steam can catapult a multi-million dollar fighter (or transport, or observation platform) off the deck of a carrier, repeatedly, then surely it can launch one mane in an aluminum can into space! (or whatever it's perceived to be..)

Surely steam (over) # in a fighter wing vs. steam (over) 1 man is a greater force.. or is that "times the root"...

I think this is apples and oranges. The video in #31 shows a rocket leaving the launch rail under thrust, with thrust continuing for some time. That means the steam power is carried with the rocket and adds to the mass of the rocket that needs to be accelerated and carried through the flight. On a carrier, the mass of all of the steam catapult equipment stays on the ship, so the plane doesn't have to cart it around. I would have thought that there would be other ways to get a better specific impulse, but maybe not for a guy building stuff out of scrap metal in his garage.

I hope he isn't just taking his last rocket and throwing more engine in the back. The accelerations from skywriting just off the rail would be rough on a person.
 
A mathematician calls it a formula. An engineer understands the logical reasoning based on experiments and scientific theories for the assumptions to use the formula correctly in a way that minimizes injury to others. My compressible gas dynamics mechanical engineering professor can help us find the weak and strong shocks of an oblique shockwave. He won't design a shock tube system and construct it himself because the formulas in compressible gas dynamics assume it's the same gamma for two different types fluids in the same shock tube which doesn't correlate to reality. Mind you that's a tube designed for supersonic shockwaves. That's neglecting the thermal analysis, structural design for pressure vessel, and designing it to fail at a certain perforated section. Believe in science or not. Physics won't care about your beliefs. Actions have reactions. Understand the limits or you're dead.

Jim Bede designed a supersonic home built jet as an aeronautical engineer. The fin failed in subsonic conditions due to stresses and loadings. Jim had designed multiple kit aircraft in his career. Tail ripped off in shearing motion killing two ex military test pilots. The aeronautical engineer didn't have the knowledge of flutter analysis of a mathematician nor the structural knowledge of a mechanical engineer. He also didn't have the design experience of the project type. And I don't want to scare anyone but there are real scenarios when the guys with PHDs say formulas don't exist for then you experimentally test for. Burt Rutan designed a spacecraft, he had X-15 design experience,military flight test experience as a pilot, an engineering degree, but he even refused to fly the craft as his view was there were better military trained test pilots than himself. And he was humble enough to ask a shop foreman the best way to make composites. Then ask all his buddies the important question of why at every single step until they figure all flaws were eliminated.
 
Steam powered rocket...

Right...

Queue the B2TF3 flying VTOL train images...

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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
There was a flat earth doofus tug driver at VW car factory, I was interning at. The tug driver found out us UTC student engineers were doing a rocket project. We never heard the end of it until our internships ended. I think the entire factory floor was laughing at the tug driver's opposing viewpoints and sadly the tug driver really believed in that flat earth crap. The other drivers were trying to pool money to chunk the moron to space in a MiG zoom climb flight. They were that tired of the stupidity, to send stupid up to edge of space and let stupid see it is round. I said he'll just deny its round even if he's sent up to edge of space.
 
A Steam powered rocket is sort of like a classic compressed air & water Rocket, but with super-heated (past boiling point) water inside a high-pressure container. When the valve is opened, the super-heated water converts to steam and produces thrust. It's more efficient than a classic "cold" type of air/water bottle rocket, but far less efficient than rockets that use combustion.

BTW - a bit better example of a "not hot" rocket motors converting a liquid into a gas, would be the old Vashon and Estes "Cold Power" rockets. They had thin walled metal tanks that were filled with liquid Freon, a refrigerant/pressurization chemical no longer used. When the valve opened, the liquid freon escaped as a gas, producing thrust. Here is a link to a PDF File of an Apogee Newsletter with info and history of Cold Power model rockets:

https://www.apogeerockets.com/education/downloads/Newsletter157.pdf

And actually, a more common current example is a CO2 fire extinguisher. They produce some "thrust" as the pressurized liquid CO2 escapes, but are optimized for fighting fires, not producing thrust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xQozXJKbGI

Back to steam rockets:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_rocket

Biggest thing going for it is relative simplicity and relative safety.... .compared to rocket motors that use combustible fuel/oxidizer. Not saying it is SAFE, but SAFER in relative terms. Biggest risk of "Kaboom" is on the ground as the water is super heated and the tank is under high pressure. Once the valve opens for rocket thrust, it's "safe", long as the valve indeed opens properly and not partially (Partial won't kaboom, but if it only opened 25% then the thrust might also be about 25%, causing major liftoff and flight trajectory-safety problems).

Bob Truax got a patent on the concept, filed in 1959.

https://www.google.com/patents/US3029704

rIvKdIO.png


Evel Knievel used Truax's steam rocket engines for his Snake Rover Canyon Jump rockets. Very few know this but Doug Malewicki, who was a well-known model rocketeer (and aerospace engineer) designed the first Skycycle, the "X-1" He has a web site devoted to it, with a lot of neat photos and info. There were some 21" test models flown, using FSI F100 model rocket engines.

Evel37.JPG


Then the full size prototype test. But it was launched off a ramp that did not have much angle to it, about 10-15 degrees, it plummeted into the canyon and crashed into the Snake River.

IIRC, Truax at far left, then Knievel, and Malewicki at right:

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X-1RocketMotorMounting-sm.jpg


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Later the Skycycle was redesigned by Truax himself for a different configuration (The X-2), including an open cockpit and "T" type tail fins plus rudder, and perhaps a bigger pressurized tank. And launched at something more like 60 degrees.

Back to Malewicki, one of his notable model rocketry contributions was the Malewicki Equations for predicting how high model rocket would go.

"Model Rocket Altitude Prediction Charts Including Aerodynamic Drag, Douglas J. Malewicki,
Technical Report No. TR-10, Estes Industries, Inc., Penrose, Colorado, USA, 1967"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malewicki_equations

Another notable achievement was the first successful R/C Boost Glider, in 1967. He wrote a 3-part series about R/C B/G's, with a plan, in Model Rocketry Magazine (that's him on the cover with a R/C B/G he flew at NARAM-11).

MRM-Oct-69-cover.jpg


Malewicki-1.jpg


I read those magazine issues in 1970 shortly after I got into the hobby for real. I didn't even have a successful glider for a good while, but reading about that "stuck" with me. Didn't think I'd ever be able to get into doing R/C Rocket Boosted Gliders, but finally did years later
 
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Hi George,

Yes, the first ramp was nothing more than a big pile of dirt. The prototype did go into the Snake River, a reward was offered if anybody found it. Not sure if it was ever recovered. Also it was rumored the prototype used Oly Beer for the steam. Not sure if they did or didn't, but they did change to regular water for the steam on the second one. The Oly Beer was the gimmick that was advertised for awhile.

For the actual launch they built a steel girder launch ramp on top of the dirt pile.

Was a teenager living about 35-miles from Twin Falls during those days. Great fun to watch the ramp getting built, knowing what was going to happen.

The day he launched, some motorcycle buddies and I travelled down a rutted dirt road on the landing side to watch. We were directly across from the launch ramp. When he finally blasted off, had a great view of the whole flight. He actually traveled past our location before the prevailing winds blew him back into the canyon. From our location we watched the inflatable boat travel upstream to rescue him.

Interesting week that preceded the launch. Lots of beer drinking going on at the Shoshone Falls Park. Lots of biker gangs showed up to watch. Interesting watching them doing wheelies in the cow pastures. Long raked front ends don't do well when they would hit the dikes and then "endo".....Great entertainment!

I'm with Rstaff on the thought this is just a big publicity stunt. The State of California is going to let him fly an untested "pressure Vessel" that hasn't been tested? The photo captions provided of the first rocket mention a few things that make it fake news, one more thing missing is a crash helmet. Read the story a couple of days ago, it said he passed out from the "g" forces. Not sure if I believe the whole story....

Mike
 
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The launch has been postponed:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...just-hit-a-speed-bump/?utm_term=.acf16bebd478

Seems he doesn't have permission to launch on public lands. He is now planning to launch next week or so.

Yeah, blame it all on the BLM.

"The BLM's denial, along with some technical difficulties — a motor in his modified motor home quit working for a day — threw a wrench into his plans, according to Hughes."

I wonder if he has a waiver.
 
He should rename his rocket after a certain public figure and he'd get approval in 30 seconds.

Or, he could rename it after certain other public figures, and guarantee it to crash, not only would he get flight approval, he'd get a federal grant of a few million bucks.
 
He sounds like one of those boners that use fluctuating definitions of words to "prove" the existence of whatever deity they believe in.
 
Yeah, blame it all on the BLM.

"The BLM's denial, along with some technical difficulties — a motor in his modified motor home quit working for a day — threw a wrench into his plans, according to Hughes."

I wonder if he has a waiver.

LOL...WAIVER

Yeah I'm going to bet he was operating on the, "It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission" principle which never EVER works with a gub'ment alphabet agency.

Now that he's got the BLM's attention I wonder how long the delay of game will be. If they're at all smart the BLM will be contacting their buddies at the FAA. Between the two this guy could be getting raked over the coals for a long long time.
 
I don't understand...

All the HATE for this guy...

It's not like he is taking...

Money from tax-paying...

Citizens like MUSK...

Even he wouldn't fly on...

One of his own rockets...

Sheeeeeeeeeeesh...
 
I don't understand...

... like MUSK...

Even he wouldn't fly on...

One of his own rockets...

Sheeeeeeeeeeesh...

er... Musk's rockets aren't "Man-Rated" yet. That sorta matters if you're playing by the rules...
 
It's also a new update on OLD NEWS. He was going to do this last April, then had some sort of technical problem days before the scheduled flight and no news update until recently. See this link to a different thread earlier this year:

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?132995-Amateur-Manned-Rocketry&p=1564661#post1564661

In that message, I include a link to a short video claiming he already flew onboard a rocket during a private test flight in 2014. They show the rocket launch. But not ONE frame or photo showing him IN IT at launch. Only some handheld video supposedly showing him being removed from the rocket after it landed. So either faked (that he was in it for this test), or he's an idiot for not documenting he was REALLY onboard when it launched.


[video=youtube;3feaiPcv6yE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=3feaiPcv6yE[/video]

why was the angle of the pad the way it was? Looks like he flew more horizontal
 
I don't think he believes the Earth is flat. He spouts the flat earth dogma for the sponsorship.
I did some research and nearly 100% feel the launch in AZ was a fake, rocket was launched but he was not in it.
The Amboy launch he has attracted too many spectators to stage so he postponed the launch when there are no witnesses not on his team.
 
I don't think he believes the Earth is flat. He spouts the flat earth dogma for the sponsorship.
I did some research and nearly 100% feel the launch in AZ was a fake, rocket was launched but he was not in it.
The Amboy launch he has attracted too many spectators to stage so he postponed the launch when there are no witnesses not on his team.

So if the only spectators he wants there are the ones on his team then one can conclude he will NOT be in the rocket. Again.

Yeah, Hughes is definitely an attention whore.
 
How can you tell whether or not the earth is flat from 1800'? Flat earthers have been on commercial airliners and still think it is flat. We need to get one of them into space.
 
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