FAO Burgerman (again)

I really wanted them to fire up the Afterburner on the Turbine one. I think I may have a go at building one in my garage ;-) Rich

Trust me -- it felt more than fast-enough being strapped to a lab table, suspended just inches above the ground and running on wheels/steering gear off an invalid scooter!

Remember that we only had 10 hours to build those things so they don't really represent the true potential of the concept.

The pulsejet-kart I built prior to the series (and on which the winning design was based) has recently got up to nearly 100Km/H and was still accelerating. There's info at

While there have been many vehicles built from scratch on the Scrapheap show, I think this is the first time that both the vehicles

*and* the engines were built in 10 hours.

It was a hell of a lot of fun and if anyone's interested in building one of these Nick (the other expert) and myself have put together a CDROM with plans, videos, pictures and plenty of explanatory text -- as well as some interesting stuff about what goes on behind the scenes.

Bruce Simpson Expert for The Destroyers

-- you can contact me via

A small group of us had been lobbying RDF for some time to take on the jet-car challenge but I think they were awfully worried about safety and the chance that after 10 hours of building, they might not have anything that was remotely close to working.

Fortunately we convinced them that the risks were minimal and that we knew what we were doing. -- hell, I almost began to believe it myself ;-)

-- you can contact me via

Oh, and for what it's worth, I'm currently in the planning stages of building a vehicle that will have four *huge* pulsejets and with which I plan to set a benchmark speed record for pulsejet-powered land vehicles. I'm expecting about 250-300Km/H but eventually plan to get a lot faster.

There's a picture of me "firing up" a half-sized prototype engine on the front page of my site at

Yeah, I'mcrazy!

Suffice to say that you'll probably be able to hear it from Britain :-)

-- you can contact me via

I feel that the programme actually came of age with this one. A real engineering challenge. Richard Noble was beside himself with excitemnt.

Reckon I could bolt one to the roof of my Ka for a bit of extra go when I overtake? :P

Eyebrows? :)

You ought to see the turbojet Burgerman had running in his house :P.

Bruce Simpson raved thus:

:: On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 23:59:47 -0000, "Abo" wrote: :: ::: Did you see Scrapheap tonight? Pulse jet powered vehicles! Shame ::: they didn't get much speed up though :-( :: :: Trust me -- it felt more than fast-enough being strapped to a lab :: table, suspended just inches above the ground and running on :: wheels/steering gear off an invalid scooter!

Heh, I bet!!!

Abo

Bugger, missed it!

I am pleased to see there are people like this around, I thought I was alone!

Did you see the size of the holset turbo "from a generating set" (!) ? Something that big would have come off something producing upwards of 400hp so about 300kva, and how remarkably shiney and clean it was.....almost freshly rebuilt..!!

Shame they couldnt get the afterburner to work, and then the oil pump failed. bummer.

Tim..

I think Nick's taking his own jet-cart out to Santapod this weekend to give it another try. The AB on that baby works very nicely and it should be most impressive!

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ditto :(

Anyone know if it'll be repeated on terrestial?

Bruce

Great to see you responding here - show was excellent, my kids were glued to it, educational and fun. Oh if only I had the time.....

a

I'm certainly hoping that it gets kids (and grown-up kids) interested and involved in such things and away from their Playstations or Xboxes.

I find it rather sad that the spirit of invention, tinkering and DIY seems to be dying as our cars and other technologies move towards being incredibly complex and containing "no user-servicable parts" -- or at the very least, requiring an armful of specialist and very expensive tools.

In another 10 year's time I doubt that any of our kids will know the sheer joy that comes from having done an engine rebuild -- or even changing your own oil.

-- you can contact me via

Just looked on DigiGuide and it's not repeated on *any* channels in the near future :-(

Hopefully it will be repeated when the current series is up.

Gareth

Dont worry, mine will!!!! (assuming of course i live long enough to have them ;))

Dont worry, EVERYTHING is repeated at least 5 times per week eventually.

was awsome wasnt it. I have an APU in thegarage, must try and get it working ...

interestingly enough, I was looking on the web at minature turbines that give 30lb thrust for only £2000.

Now for the next idea... Build an SR-71A Blackbird with two mini turbines and afterburners.