I doubt the part about the 747 producing less power, there are too many undefined variables in the comparison and the aircraft weight has nothing to do with power output...but it's interesting anyway, and perhaps the rest is true.

A Definition of Acceleration.


* One Top Fuel dragster 500 cubic inch Hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first 4 rows of NASCARS at the Daytona 500. Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1-1/2 gallons of nitro methane per second; a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.

A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce
enough power to drive the dragster's supercharger.

With 3,000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a near-solid form before ignition. Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock at full throttle.

At the stoichiometric (stoichiometry: methodology and technology by which quantities of reactants and products in chemical reactions are determined) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitro methane, the flame front temperature measures 7,050 deg F.

Nitro methane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from atmospheric water vapor by the searing exhaust gases.

Dual magnetos supply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder. Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After halfway, the engine is dieseling from compression, plus the glow of exhaust valves at 1,400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting the fuel flow.

If spark momentarily fails early in the run,
unburned nitro builds up in the affected cylinders and then explodes with sufficient force to blow cylinder heads off the block in pieces or split the block in half.

In order to exceed 300 mph in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must accelerate an average of over 4G's. In order to reach 200 mph (well before half-track), the launch acceleration approaches 8G's.

Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before
you have completed reading this sentence.

Top Fuel engines turn approximately 540 revolutions from light to light! Including the burnout, the engine must only survive 900 revolutions under load.

The redline is actually quite high at 9,500 rpm.

Assuming all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs an estimated $1,000.00 per second.

The current Top Fuel dragster elapsed time record is 4.441 seconds for the quarter mile (10/05/03, Tony Schumacher). The top speed record is 333.00 mph. (533 km/h) as measured over the last 66' of the run (09/28/03 Doug Kalitta).

--------------------------------------
Putting all of this into perspective:
--------------------------------------

You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter "twin-turbo" powered Corvette Z06. Over a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged and ready to launch down a quarter mile strip as you pass. You have the advantage of a flying start. You run the 'Vette hard up through the gears and blast across the starting line and past the dragster at an honest 200 mph. The 'tree' goes green for both of you at that moment.

The dragster launches and starts after you. You keep your foot down hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums and within 3 seconds, the dragster catches and passes you. He beats you to the finish line, a quarter mile away from where you just passed him. Think about it, from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you 200 mph and not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he passed you within a mere 1,320 foot long race course... and that my friend, is ACCELERATION!

Dan

POTYHC

www.HadA.GoKartThatFastOnce

Dan, not realy interrested in dragsters. I think about all of the neat guns, all of the ammo, and safaris I could do with just a portion of the money spent on those speed wagon things.

As for the crat, just spot him and give him a CB cap.

Hog Killer

Got a 20 grain Hornady VMAX that will go from 0 to 4200f/s in 26", good for one run only. If calculations are correct, thated be 6300G. Good thing the VMAX don't weighin much. Fast as fast can be, I really don't wanna be standin' in front of any of 'em. Sound barriers being a thing of the past, and setting aside Crats for a moment, what's mach 4+ all about anyway?

It's speed, the need for speed.

It is rumoured that DRG has a vette. Think we could talk him into recreating this little scenario. Maybe get Saeed to fund and sponsor it? Walter could be a cheerleader! derf

Mid 1990's, January. Runway alert. Outside air temperature is -8 degrees. Runway is at ~200' MSL. 23 knot headwind coming straight down the runway. F-16 C model, no pylons, no external tanks; just two AIM-9 P heaters on the wingtips and 135 rounds of 20mm for the internal cannon. "Scramble!" is called. Standing start. Go right to stage four afterburner. Off the ground in less than 250' at 150 knots, go directly to a deck angle of +/-70 degrees, accelerating the whole way. Out of burner at 500 knots or so. At 2X,000 feet roll and pull just enough g's to roll out on heading at Angels 3X. Key the mike. "Lawndart 31, on station, hot." Get the vector, glance at your radar scope, get your head back out of the cockpit and go to work.

About as long as it took to read this paragraph.

Launched an AIM 7 Sparrow missle in practice once. I was doing +/- 4XX-5XX knots. Sounded like a freight train taking off, accelerated so fast away from me that I almost climbed out of the plane to see why it had stopped.

LD

The top fuel dragster would scare me a lot more.

Lawndart, that was very well told...quite a ride I'd imagine!

Sometimes you see little strands of knitting yarn affixed to the windscreen in aircraft, used as a low-tech HUD slip indicator...just occurred that a crat tail would serve nicely in that scenario, your choice of designer color patterns too!

Somewhat on a reverse course, one of the biggest thrills I've experienced in aviation is a high angle rocket run in a Cobra, initiated at 1500' AGL. It is simply breath taking how fast they accelerate when there's nothing but dirt and tracers in your field of view. And how fast the distance shrinks...maybe time to pickle 2 pair of 2.75" Rocs...and hoping your wingman is on the stick when you turn your back to it all on the break. I'll gaurantee ya safe from any and all proctologists fer a spell afterwards.

Still, I'd like to try that with a little piece of carpet glued to the nose and a live crat hangin' on, just to see if my theory would work.

Dan

POTYHC

www.YankeetownAeronauticsResearch.AndDoodling

Good post Dan.
I have been a freak for NHRA Drag Racing since '66.I've watched it evolve from 8 second 1/4 miles to under 5 second runs.
If I can find it, I will post an article about about calculating a Fuel Dragsters Engine output.I remember that it said the engines make so much horsepower that it is impossible to Dyno them.
Another thing I've learned is TV drag races look like a booger compared to going to the Spring Nationals or other such meets.
Ear-spitting does not describe these beasts, and from a standing start,they jump up and accelerate so fast,they are hard to catch on film.

In my misspent youth, I was semi involved in "outlaw fuel" Tony Defeo is a friend of mine, and kept egging me to build one, kinda like the bad kids encourging the neighborhood nutcase to jump off the roof to see if he could fly

Anyhoo, he had a vintage early 80's flopper which he cut the body off of, and attached a T bucket body shell. The result was a modern Fuel Altered. It was an iron block 426, a single Mallory "arc welder"(Litterally the slang used to refer to the Mallory 44 amp) a standard helix 6-71, and a single enderle fuel pump.

Horsepower was about 3500 with a 88% mix.

Tony had issues with power. He made "Tim the tool man" look like a sissy boy. I went by his house one day, and he was mowing the lawn with the sorriest looking lawnmower you've ever seen. After enquiring about it's sad state, Tony replied "I was mowing the grass a couple of months ago, and I ran outta gas, and I had some Nitro just sitting in the garage...." He pulled the governor off, poured in the juice, and had to wrap a towel around the handle bars because it was shaking so bad. He told me it "pureed" the grass.

On the fourth, instead of fireworks, he used to like starting up whatever rail job he had, and let the noise fill the air. Well, the dragster guys use tennis balls on strings to shove down the zoomies to keep the crap outta the pipes. One year, he forgot to take them out before starting the car... He never did get them back.

I haven't seen him in a while, last time, I did, he had gotten out of fuel cars, because the NHRA tracks started not letting the outlaws run on their tracks. So he sold the car, for a Nitro Drag bike.

You know, after recounting this story, it got me thinking: Do I actually know any "normal" people at all?


HTRN

quote:

One year, he forgot to take them out before starting the car... He never did get them back.

Ya get an Oscar for that visual buddy!

Normal people? Where?

Dan

POTYHC

www.WereStranger.ThanFiction

Gotta stick to my story-you may be able to fly at Mach 2+ at 30,000 feet, but I can (and will) land in a bomb crater and pick you up after you eject. Only payment due is:

Pucker factor at speed.

Somewhere over Vietnam, running just above the canopy at 600+ in an unarmed F4 with camera pod
instead of mini-gun. No rockets. Along as number 2 just for grins. What can happen anyway???
Start to climb out to do recon run, see two, yep two SAMS coming out of canopy. Start to say some
thing to pilot when the whole world starts rotating very fast and then a hard turn to port is taken and the afterburner kicks in. Absolutely helpless and scared shitless feeling. Get back to carrier and ask to go on the next run. Need to have sanity checked.

And who said recon was boring?! OEH, that's classic...truly.

Only thing that really made me squirm was radar guns and missles...Spring '72. Don't even know how to describe the stuff goin' thru your brain when that crap starts up... Well, it was better than the E-ticket if you got to talk about it later.

Dustoffer, somehow some of us missed the Bomb Crater PZ...xin loi!

Dan

POTYHC

www.FateIs.Fickle

hey dd - whatda suppose would happen if we could mount a crat on the dragsters hood and 4 seconds latter step on the brakes really hard??

Maybe I'm just getting too old, but my pick-up truck's got all the acceleration I need these days. Coming off a red light I think I can take it from 0 - 50 at a nice acceleration in around 200 yards or so.

(And planes and I don't get along much at all. Never puked, never felt like I needed to - just don't care for 'em is all.)

It's neat to read this article and stuff, but I got a little queasy on just imaging sitting in that thing and punching the accelerator.

Butch, just a guess but I'm reminded of an old song from days gone by----don't remember the singer or title, certainly somebody will---there's a line where the biker crashes or something, and the biker babe gets her lipstick "smeared all over the highway"...something like that I suppose.

Ben, there's always some discomfort associated with doing something unnatural. Even the first time you eat crat, no matter how well received. The one experience I never wanted and always managed to avoid was a night carrier launch in heavy seas and overcast. That be dicey bidness, even for Maverick. Best that can happen is you finish the mission and do it again some night. Worst is the CATapult guy shoots you into the drink while the deck is angled down. What a bummer. If you're quick you can write a short book called, "The Night I Simulated A BB From My Good Friend Eddie's BB Gun Down At Swenson's Pond". Or maybe "I hate CATapults".

Anyway, take it from someone who's been inverted in a helicopter, no matter how CHITI(OK) it seems, it's always smellier over the hill. Oh yeah, then there was the night the 'boss' filled my chart bag with wine barf. New charts too.

Dan

POTYHC

www.Endless.Permutations

I think its called a "cold Cat shot" when the catapult speed is not right, the plane banks port coming off the angle deck and the pilot & bn punch out at a 45* down angle. Nothing was recovered, the one I saw whilst catching some rays in a gun tub. Damn sad.

My little brother spent 9 months on a carrier out in the Mediterranean. He had some stories to tell about those night-time launches.

As for helicopters, back in my days at Sikorsky we had one test pilot that would fly on just about anything short of a master-caution light.

As part of his "sign-off" on the helicopter if he liked it on his test-flight, he would come in beside one of our buildings doing about 140 knots roughly 20 yards off the ground and bank it so the rotor wash buffeted the building as he was arcing away. Whenever he was test-flying, we'd all hang around inside waiting for that fly-by.

We did mostly H60s down in Troy, so you can imagine how that felt/sounded inside the building.

We did a few of the 53s too, and watching 'em do a hammerhead stall and drop back out of it on a 53 was truly a sight to behold.

I think some of our pilots were about half crazy, but the only time I ever climbed into one of those birds while it was moving was when it was being taxi'd around by a little tug-car.

In Troy, we were Sikorsky's crash repair center, so most of our birds were what was left over from stuff you fellas tore up raking 'em through hell and back.

We had one H60 that was shot down over a rain-forest by small-arms and crashed into the canopy, then when they tried to air-lift it out, it got snagged and they had to cut the line, and drop it back into the canopy again, and down to the jungle floor, before they could finally hoist it out again. We "repaired" that one from a serial# plate and about a 15" section of I-beam in the floor -- everything else was mangled so bad we trashed it.

The 53 that was so pretty to watch was a bit of an emotional bird for all of us. It was a USMC super stallion that had the whole tail section blown off, and then crash-landed tail-down into a desert somewhere. The marines and a good bit of very high brass had their doubts that one would ever fly again, but about 9 months later that jarhead flight crew was all smiles after they came to test-fly it.

I really miss those days sometimes. It wasn't just a "job" like I have now with the power company, but more of a big family. And there was a lot of pride all around, almost like being a parent, every time we watched one of our crash-damage birds fly off into the horizon.

N.S. Sherlock,

Worst launch I saw was an F4 just before lauch had some type of control problem and the ailerons suddenly
moved into a full to port configuration as the steam was put to the cat. About two hundred feet from the
angle deck the bird was inverted and the pilot freaked and punched out directly into the sea. If you want to
hear a scary set of sounds, be on a carrier when it is put hard to port at 33 knots. Sounds like the hounds from
hell are ripping her apart. Nothing was recovered. Hard turn to port was an attempt to keep the pilot out of
the wake. The bubbles in the wake make it like a water version of quicksand. Forget surviving.

I always gave the pilots a lot of respect. They stepped into the jaws of death everytime they launched.
I know they did it for the thrill, but they also did it for us.

Dan-if you miss it or have to di-di from the bomb crater LZ, then that's why we have the "Dustoff elevator" (hoist and jungle penetrator).

Yeah, I know all 'bout those things! Tell me true, did ya discharge the static electricity for Snake pilots? Or no. Personally I wouldn't touch the damn things until they hit the ground.

Dan

POTYHC

www.DancinDan.TheElectricMan

Ya learned good Dan-I didn't trust the "key the FM and the static is discharged" line in the -10. Let it hit the ground.

Ever see a newbie on the slingload hookup under a Chinook get knocked ass over teakettle from the static?

I've seen shithook "lightning" before, thank you. Let the static wick hit the ground, thank you. I've also seen an early model Hind lose a tail boom when attempting to "Flight follow" and F model Snake on the old E/W German border.

Someone puts out a video of flight deck "bloopers" which I've seen about a bazillion times. My favorites are the F-8 Cat shot into the oncoming wave, where the plane and pilot go under water for several seconds, then emerge flying. You can actually see the position lights as it travels through the wave. No freaking way can that happen. But it did. My other favorite is the cold cat shot where the pilot manages to get the F-8 to "hover" on 'burner. Then, there is the (A-6, I think) where the pilot and bn eject when the A-6 goes into an uncontrollable flight condition on takeoff, but once they eject, the aircraft straightens itself out and starts circling the carrier.

The saddest one, though, is the series of videos on the F-100 "Saber Dance." You just know the pilot is going to try to save the bird, and he is just a dead man who doesn't know it yet.