It’s amazing that they can keep it on the ground at that speed.
And, what happens if it hits a bump the size of a split pea or something, at Mach 1.4?
It flies like a truck.
Look at it the other way, what happens to bump when it gets hit by several tons travelling at 1000mph?
Not to nitpick, but the Russian Zvezda ejection can be used at speeds of up to 1400 km/h and at altitudes of up to 25 km. The speed of sound at 25 km slows to around 900 km/h due to the lower temperature. So Zvezda can be used at up to mach 1.5. Not saying it would work at 1,000 mph at sea level (because it wouldn’t), but it’s not true that nobody has designed an ejection seat that can function at mach 1.4.
http://wayback.archive.org/web/20130115034951/http://www.zvezda-npp.ru/english/05.htm
I would make the assumption of a parachute being able to operate at Mach 1.5, with this being possible and a person being able to withstand whiplash and any other stresses, would it even be feasable to eject at such speed on land? Lets also assume that you hand over control to a computer that assesses catastrophic failure of the vehicle, this computer would have a faster reaction time than a person but i’m still not sure it would still be enough. A vehicle going at that speed would probably twist making any ejection very risky, plus there’s also debree to consider. Building a survival/crash pod around the driver would be a more straightforward solution.
At Mach 1.4, every seat is an ejection seat.
Regardless, his statement is kind of dumb anyway, what if he needs to eject before the car reaches mach 1.4?
That headline is kinda ominous. I would’ve said “Rocket car my reach 1000 MPH”.
Yeah, I’m guessing it is an easy answer for the people that don’t know much about the systems involved, but it is mostly accurate when you add in the sea level and consider the orientation of the cockpit.
A more realistic answer might be the weight and dimensions of an ejection seat causing design problems. The team likely has every ounce accounted for and reduced to a minimum, and adding a 300 pound seat that will be ineffective through most foreseeable catastrophic scenarios simply isn’t feasible.
Interesting story I came across while I was thinking about this article, an SR-71 breaks apart at Mach 3.2. 916 Starfighter
I wonder what the survivablity of those seats is at that speed… Martin-Baker claims to have deployed without loss of life 7,450 times since 1946, yet only 6 of those occurred at speeds over 700 knots.
The SR-71 ejection seat was designed to be used from ground level to full altitude at Mach 3.2:
http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/1/1-199.php
However, I don’t think the designers ever anticipated full speed at ground level.
It hurls the behemoth into the air, like a flying truck?
But can it drive through a mountain?
The JATO Rocket Car should serve as an example of why this is a bad idea.
Spot on. When things go wrong in an LSR car, they do so in a big hurry and usually end up with the car rolling over rapidly. An ejector seat would just as likely eject into the ground as into the air.
Here is on-board footage of the world’s fastest piston-engined car crashing at Bonneville earlier this year (at “only” 370 MPH):
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