Landracing Forum
El Mirage => El Mirage General Chat => Topic started by: edweldon on January 20, 2012, 09:00:48 PM
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I ran into this old flic from WWII aircraft history today. Might be familiar to some of you. But it felt eerily familiar to those who experienced racing on the dry lakes and especially to anyone who has raced at Muroc; me included.
http://www.aircraftowner.com/videos/view/americas-first-jet-flight-october-1942_1617.html
Here's the related commentary from the source email to a group of us car enthusiasts:
"This is a video of the first US jet, way back in Oct 1942. It is a classic piece of film I certainly never knew existed. I wasn't even aware that America HAD a jet that early in the war: 10 months after Pearl Harbor! You will enjoy this great clip of history. .
"America's first jet flight, Oct 1942.
"THIS IS AN INCREDIBLE PIECE OF AVIATION HISTORY. This is a very interesting little piece of historical film. It covers America 's entry into the Jet Age with the Bell P59A.Note: My favorite part is about the installation of a $2 doorbell ringer to the dash of the P59A to provide vibration so the gauges wouldn't stick. Ya' gotta' love it" .
Ed Weldon
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Ed, that's a great video. How would you like to spend some time in that passenger seat? I passed this on to some friends of mine whom are absolute plane freaks and they had never seen it. Wayno
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I found this COOL youtube video of prewar races at the Drylakes thought it would fit here. (I did some searches didn't find it here any where).
Where is Harper Lake? Is it part of El Mirage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5ENn_hxv64&feature=related
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Richard, this is from May 9, 2009 Rod and Custom magazine:
Lakes racing was the result of several things happening at the same time. Young car owners were meeting each other, organizing into clubs, and racing. According to Leslie, George Wight, eventually the owner of Bell Auto Parts, began encouraging racers from L.A. and Orange County to run their cars at the Muroc dry lake, which was good for business. Because of its size, Muroc was the earliest popular site (it was eventually taken over when the military established Edwards Air Force Base there), followed by Harper, Rosamond, and later El Mirage.
Here are some cool racing pics from Harper lakes:
http://public.fotki.com/SRCruzzin/misc-photos/harper-dry-lake/
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I like the George Beck V8 Roadster NO ROLL CAGE just looks Dangerous
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I always thought Harper Dry Lake is on the west side of Muroc along Rosamond Blvd; but mapquest shows it as Rosamond Lake.
During the war large ships were painted on the lake bed surface and then bombs were dropped on them for practice...Making it usless for speed runs.........JD
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Wikipedia:
Harper Lake is a dry lake located in the Mojave Desert near the small community of Lockhart in northwestern San Bernardino County of Southern California. The lake is accessible from Harper Lake Road, which runs north off of State Route 58 midway between Boron and Barstow.
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Harper Lake Rd passes along the right edge the ?industrial complex? ?solar farm?
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=35.061758,-117.286263&spn=0.149222,0.252686&t=h&z=12 (http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=35.061758,-117.286263&spn=0.149222,0.252686&t=h&z=12)
Mike
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Harper Lake Rd passes along the right edge the ?industrial complex? ?solar farm?
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=35.061758,-117.286263&spn=0.149222,0.252686&t=h&z=12 (http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=35.061758,-117.286263&spn=0.149222,0.252686&t=h&z=12)
Mike
Linda and I saw the Harper Lake sign on the way to Vegas 2 years ago, traveling on hy 58 just past 395 junction.
Stopped by on way home. Nice pond area on edge of lake [ zoom in on green spot were road goes on to lake]
Of course its inviromently protected now but I can imagine racers were jumping in there in the summer time its a good sized
pond and looked about 3 ft deep in places.
Cable across road barring access to dry lake at that point but cars had been driving around it. I have a 4 wheel drive Extera but edge of lake looked soft as beach sand and deep tracks in it. We were buy ourselves and didn't want to chanch getting stuck, but lake bed didn't look that great from were I was.
There was a 20 acre lot for sale right on the edge of lake bed at that point [no price though]
We saw that big solar place and went by there, panels had a curved shape to them and pipes [ water]? connecting them all. Area looked about a half mile sq. or more.
There was a giant abandoned building conplex at far west end of lake but there were no trespassing signs so having no backup, didn't go over there. But there was nobody around. Must have been mineing something?
JL222
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I had the great opportunity to work at Edwards AFB during the '80's and '90's, doing flight test work for 2 major aircraft companies. As you traveled about the base, there were several significant aircraft mounted on "sticks" at various points. A P59 was one of the stick planes and near headquarters was an engine inside a display case from one of the P59's. Since the museum has opened, I believe some were moved there. Edwards is an incredible place of history for us aircraft guys and us hot rodders. I was fortunate enough to work there AND attend all the Muroc reunions. The AF took Harper and Rosamond dry lakes to use as emergency strips should Edwards not be able to accept the troubled aircraft. Both the Xb-70 and B1A crashed in the Harper area and small scrap deemed unimportant to the Air force investigations can still be found at Harper.
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And one of the X15s made an emergency landing at Rosamond with full fuel load; it broke in half and the rear fuselage did an earth-mover slide at high speed. They did allow radio control airplanes on the North side of the road that went across the Northern part of the lake in the 60s. The road went from the city/town of Rosamond to the South end of the Main Base. I lived in Rosamond when I worked at Edwards directly under one of the supersonic corridors, and we got about 30 sonic booms per day. Single pane windows could get blown out. When they fired the F1 (Saturn) engine for the first time on the side of the hill across Muroc from the main base, it caused a big sonic boom at our house (17 miles away with some hills in between). I can't imagine what it was like at the base.