Thrust driven bikes at El Mirage

[Nortonist 592]

That would be interesting to be in line and have a J-47 fire up right in front of you.  It might be tolerable in November but it would be murder in July!

[stratman59]

That's one way to test your fire suit

Robbie

[crusher]

Mr dakzilla    i was just womdering?What type of motor and stored 15 years? any pictures?

Mike

[grumm441]

Sorry Daks , that probably didn't make a great deal of sense to you. There is a "land speed racing fan"and self appointed historian ( and there is no more appropriate word than "fan") who has a long interest in thrust power and has got himself banned from here several times. He runs a long email list that's kind of like a travelling fight show, . It can be a little bit of fun to get those emails but he doesn't understand the BCC thing so once he has your email so does every spammer in the world....

I gave him my cats email address, and now him and Cohen ( a small grey cat at my work) are face book friends
G

[Dakzila]

Mr dakzilla    i was just womdering?What type of motor and stored 15 years? any pictures?

Mike

We built the bike in 1993 to run exhibitions at air shows. Didn't do our home work and found out that we cound not get affordable insurance to make runs.
We then thought we'd run at NHRA events, exhibitions, NHRA wanted no part of it. So we gave back the borrowed engine and kept the chassis.
So I was just thinking that LSR would be a great venue to run the bike...but maybe not!

I'll post some additional photos next week when I'm back home.  For now look at my profile picture...I know It looks like a regular Kawasaki drag bike bit beneath the fiberglass is a 300 lb thrust jet engine...

Buzz

[turbocox]

I was just wondering, being a stupid , or ignorant Englishman, is there any saltflat event anywhere that allows these "Thurst" vehicles to run, or demo run that isn't on the drag strip?

[Seldom Seen Slim]

Last autumn Mike Charlton rode his jet (thrust) bike at Bonneville during Mike Cook's Top Speed Shootout.  The event was limited to a few vehicles that paid a relatively high entry fee - about an order of magnitude higher than a "regular" event at Bonneville.  The jet bike was there because it was the only venue where he would be allowed the opportunity to run the bike to some high speeds.  He eventually got it to a bit over 200 -- his goal.  And that's when his runs ended (I presume by pre-arrangement:  "Once you hit 200 you're done, okay?"

[crusher]

Mr slim   This is mike charlton.The reason we did not make anymore runs is we ran out of time. we wanted to test the handeling the steering ,brakes and parachutes. we were running at 50 percent of power and no afterburner.we were very happy with what we were able to do at are first trip to the salt.That being said we built are bike to go after the unlimited motorcycle landspeed record.We will be back.Talk to you later.
Mike

[Seldom Seen Slim]

Thanks for the correction and update, Mike.  I wasn't positive that I had everything correct -- but sort of close, at least.

We'll be watching for you at the next Shootout.

[Dakzila]

Mr dakzilla    i was just womdering?What type of motor and stored 15 years? any pictures?

Mike

Mike,

I was able located a couple of shots of the bike in an old album.

A little history:

My partner, Larry Stanton Jr. and me were drag racing bikes at the old Palmdale Raceway in the early '90s. Larry was riding the bike and we were having a lot of fun. Larry was also a pilot and came up with the idea of building a jet powered bike.

We decided to move forward with the project more on an impluse than with common sense  .   We wanted something that really looked like a bike, not like the couple of jet bikes that were around at that time.

Larry also came up with the idea for the engine. The TRS 18 jet engine makes 250 lbs. of thrust and weights less than a 100 pounds!  It was a no brainer... We didn't expect to make any record runs, we just wanted to build something different and have some fun.

We had Trax Dynamics convert our Kawasaki chassis and mount the engine. We used an Indy race car tire on the rear (thanks to Goodyear), a Mickey Thompson drag tire on the front. PMFR rims front and rear (10" on the rear) and four 10" disc brakes, two front and two rear. The body was donated by Acutronix of Phoenix.

The engine is self starting and the electronics are compact, and it throttleable (is that a word?).

Anyway with the lack of funding and the cost of buying spare parts and engines (125K each in the earlier 90s) we shelved the project. Nobody would let us run it anyway!!!

Engine prices have now come down so I was just thinking about putting the bike back together and seeing what it would run.

I'm still thinkng about it..... but want to run my 1000 cc A/G bike next season and see how fast I can make it run.

Couple of photos below.

Buzz

[crusher]

very nice

[grumm441]

very nice

Very very nice.
G

[wobblywalrus]

These bikes might be safer than piston driven cycles if they are driven within the speeds their tires can withstand.  Jets have very few moving parts and they are not stressed at motorcycle speeds.  There are no chains, rods, pistons, etc that can break. 

[landsendlynda]

Oooooh, I can see me on that one!!!      Well, maybe not, but it sure is purdy!!

Lynda

[Blue]

... Several hundred levels of more complicated than sticking a rocket out the back....

Weeeelllllllllll, I apologize for taking this one sentence out of context.  I do agree with everything else that DLA has said in this thread (and many others).

To go 400, 500, or into supersonic speeds is not for the faint of heart or slim of engineering expertise regardless of motive force.  I will certainly grant that supersonic speeds are more easily achieved with thrust power. However I wouldn't call the task "easy", even when compared with running a wheel driven 400 mph car.  If we look at the budgets and expertise that are being thrown at Bloodhound and AI-5, they dwarf most wheel driven efforts.  There are some very expensive 400 mph teams, and to be really honest, they are on similar $/mph ratios as the absolute teams.  Even Al Teague spent decades getting to 400+ and the value of all that labor and development was easily a few million.  I think Turbinator and the first Green Monster had the lowest $/mph ratio of the fast cars.

I realize all of this is fodder for the banned dipstick, I apologize to those who get spammed with his inevitable nonsensical ramblings...