Craig
Breedlove floated his long-range plans of hitting 700 mph
and then breaking the sound barrier even before bringing
his car to the Black Rock Desert this week to attempt a
record run of 640 miles an hour.
It would take a speed of more than 750 mph to
break the sound barrier at the Black Rock, experts say.
According to Gary Swenson of Pullayup, Wash.,
such an attempt would be fatal.
"Our team believes a vehicle would be
able to break the sound barrier once, but the driver and
the vehicle wouldn't make it for a second run," said
Swenson, who had hoped to make a record attempt at the
Black Rock but failed to raise sufficient funds.
"There's no way the driver would make it.
I want the record. I want to bring it back to America,
but I want to live to enjoy it. I think they (Breedlove
and record holder Richard Noble of Great Britain) know it
can't be done safely.
"That wave would go under the car and
literally explode underneath the car," said the
veteran drag racer with 15 years experience in driving
jet-powered cars.
Breedlove believes Swenson's comments are
based on insufficient evidence.
"Sure, there's risk involved," he
said. "We
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would have to conduct unmanned tests to see if we
could go supersonic.
"We'd need a log of knowledge and data,
and build one success on another to make a judgment.
There's no way to do it on computers or in a wind
tunnel."
Noble was more outspoken when told of
Swenson's comments.
"I think what you have to understand is
we spent 2 1/2 years researching this," Noble was
quoted as saying. "I hold the record. I've been over
600 mph 11 times. We know exactly what happens at the
sound barrier.
He said his team has conducted 13 supersonic
runs with a 1/25th scale model of Thrust SSC going from 0
to 820 mph in .8 seconds.
"It has proven this car is safe,"
Noble said. "Otherwise we wouldn't be doing this.
It's easy for somebody to come out and say it's unsafe.
You have to have grounds to say that. This is not about
emotion. We've done this on solid facts."
-- Randy Gray
copyright © 1996, Randy Gray
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