Pulse Jet LSR

[jaxenro]

A group of confiscated pulse jet V-1’s were sent to White Sands for testing after the war. I’m thinking some enterprising young idiots got one declared surplus, stripped the wings and added wheels and suspension, and trucked it up to bonneville to run on the salt flats. As they would do 500+ fully loaded who knows what they would do stripped down. Probably less with the drag from the wheels but it would still be a crazy ride

i am starting with this kit and looking for a good 1/32 donor for wheels tires and suspension parts

 

 

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

COOL CONCEPT !!  

[cobraman]

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

[jaxenro]

Any recommendations for a donor kit for wheels and suspension?

something from the 1948 time period in 1/32

[wisdonm]

I'm sure somewhere, some how, someone attached one of these to a Kubelwagen .

[Richard Bartrop]

Any of the Pyro/ Lifelike/Lindberg 1/32 kits would do as  a source for wheels.

[Reegs]

The Krauts would start the engine (50 pulses per second) on the ground but needed a steam powered catapult to get it into the air. Makes me wonder what the poor slob driving the push car would be thinking ...

[jaxenro]

yes but that was to get airborne this one doesn’t have to it just needs a long run to get up to speed

 

heck these are rocket guys maybe a small solid fuel booster in the tail to run for 15 seconds to get it up to speed

 

Edited November 15, 2018 by jaxenro

[jaxenro]

Got an old pyro 32 Chevy for a donoR

thinking something like this

[Lowlife ! !]

 

Good imagination, I like the idea it's crazy...

Looking forward to more on this !

[Ich_Will]

Love it! 

[Deuces]

Make sure you remove the war head....??

[Deathgoblin]

1 hour ago, Deuces said:

Make sure you remove the war head....??

That's the grand finale.    

[Pete J.]

Give some thought to this.  Power has rarely been the issue with an LSR vehicle.  We have had a lot of power for a long time.  At speed, aerodynamics is the issue.  The V1 was symmetrical because it had even pressure on all sides when passing through the air.  On the ground air would build a high pressure area under the car and lift it.  Not a good thing when the primary control for the the vehicle is from the wheels. Some sort of "keep it on the ground" devises would be necessary to not turn it into a very short death ride. This is going to be fun to watch what you come up with. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

9 hours ago, Pete J. said:

Give some thought to this.  Power has rarely been the issue with an LSR vehicle.  We have had a lot of power for a long time.  At speed, aerodynamics is the issue.  The V1 was symmetrical because it had even pressure on all sides when passing through the air.  On the ground air would build a high pressure area under the car and lift it.  Not a good thing when the primary control for the the vehicle is from the wheels. Some sort of "keep it on the ground" devises would be necessary to not turn it into a very short death ride. This is going to be fun to watch what you come up with. 

                        ^^^   

Excellent advice. Aerodynamics of surface vehicles was in its infancy at the time your build represents, but something like a simple air-dam shaped to follow the contour of the nose, to prevent a large high pressure area from forming immediately under it, would be the minimum advisable.

If you have wire wheels, you might also consider modifying them to at least look like disc wheels. The centrifugal force acting on wire wheels at the speeds this thing is theoretically capable of would be better managed by solid wheels that would be far less prone to getting out of balance or loosening spokes to the point of disintegration.

Tires that are up to the speed potential would also be a real-world issue. Again, at least sand the treads smooth. Tires for very high speed runs had the tread shaved off almost entirely before the time when tire companies began constructing special designs. During the immediate post-war era, tires built for Indy cars would have been the leading choice for Bonneville work.

[Richard Bartrop]

They could take inspiration from the 1928 Opel Rak 2, and keep the wings, only use them to stay on the ground.  As for tires, it looks like Eyston's Thunderbolt had tires that were made specially for its record attempt, and possibly the Campbell Bluebird and the Railton Mobil Special, so special high speed tires were already a thing by the end of WW2.  In any case, Dunlop was already making tires that were good for at least 400 mph.  Maybe a sponsorship from one of the tire companies in exchange for tires that were up to the job?

Edited November 21, 2018 by Richard Bartrop

[Ace-Garageguy]

                 ^^^

Again, excellent advice. This is where a plausible backstory for what-if models comes into play. If, for instance, your model represents the efforts of, as you say, some enterprising young idiots tinkering with a V1, you're probably going to want to think in terms of shaved Indy tires...or even production tires. "World's Fastest Indian" rider Burt Munro is supposed to have done 200MPH on shaved street tires.

On the other hand, if it represents the effort of a known name in the going-fast biz, then thinking along the lines of custom-built tires is certainly realistic. Mickey Thompson was very well known when he was trying to get tires for his Challenger I back in the late 1950s. He approached Firestone, and they politely declined. That's when Goodyear stepped up and invested at least $30,000 in testing and development to build a set of tires good for 500MPH. 30 grand was a big chunk of change in 1958.

Likewise, Capt. George Eyston, Donald Campbell, and John Cobb (driving the Railton car) were very well-known go-fast guys of their era. The investment tire builders made on their behalf would not have been extended to a bunch of no-names.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Ace-Garageguy

[Richard Bartrop]

All very good points.  Now I'm imagining an annoyed Reid Railton demanding to know how a set of tires can just disappear.

[jaxenro]

I just knew if I posted the idea someone would step in with the details I needed to make it plausible. 

For wheels I was planning to convert the wires from the kit to discs and sand the tread from the tires

I hadn't given any thought to downforce  but it is an excellent point. I have two wings and a horizontal stabilizer with elevators to play with

[Pete J.]

Primitive engineering. Attach a wing with pivot through the nose of the body.  Then run a control arm from the suspension to the front of the wing pivoting the wing with the vertical motion of the suspension.  As the suspension compresses the front of the wing goes up increasing lift and as the suspension raises the front of the wing would dip creating down force.  Very primitive and it would take a lot of tinkering to get the correct proportion  of wing movement for suspension travel.  Also the faster the vehicle would go the greater the force per amount of suspension travel.  At very high speeds it would probably result in very unstable oscillations but it would look cool and show someone had thought about the problem.  At a less primitive level, the system would include dampers and cockpit controls to adjust the rate of movement for speed.  It could also have a pitot controlled damper rate mechanism.  Kind of a "Steam Punk" system.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Pete J.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Here's an interesting group shot of several of the early LSR cars, to give you a feeling of what was being done about aerodynamics back then. Very obviously, aerodynamics did in fact get a lot of thought.

[mustang1989]

This will definitely be off the charts. Great idea in motion.

[jaxenro]

I was actually thinking of having the rudder connected to the front wheel steering. And using the rear stab near the front with the elevators providing some sort of controllable downforce 

[Dave Ambrose]

On 11/21/2018 at 8:25 AM, Pete J. said:

Primitive engineering. Attach a wing with pivot through the nose of the body.  Then run a control arm from the suspension to the front of the wing pivoting the wing with the vertical motion of the suspension.  As the suspension compresses the front of the wing goes up increasing lift and as the suspension raises the front of the wing would dip creating down force.  Very primitive and it would take a lot of tinkering to get the correct proportion  of wing movement for suspension travel.  Also the faster the vehicle would go the greater the force per amount of suspension travel.  At very high speeds it would probably result in very unstable oscillations but it would look cool and show someone had thought about the problem.  At a less primitive level, the system would include dampers and cockpit controls to adjust the rate of movement for speed.  It could also have a pitot controlled damper rate mechanism.  Kind of a "Steam Punk" system.

The Green Monster used this very system to keep the front end down. It was fairly low gain as the front had to rise noticeably before the wing put it back down. But it worked and he set more than a few records with it. 

[jaxenro]

Where would you place the front wing? Is there any danger of going too far forward and causing it to dig the nose in and flip over tail to nose? I don’t need traction for power just steering. How about even with the front wheels?