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The Budweiser Rocket was a 3-wheeled land vehicle powered by a hybrid liquid and solid-fuel rocket engine that is claimed to be the first vehicle to have broken the sound barrier on land (near sea level) driven by Stan Barrett and designed and built by William Fredrick. There is much debate over the validity of the claim, and the Budweiser Rocket is generally not considered as the first vehicle to have broken the sound barrier on land. A cold (un-ignited) rocket engine test at NASA A rocket engine is a heat engine that can be used for spacecraft propulsion as well as terrestrial uses, such as missiles. ...
It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Supersonic. ...
The claim of breaking the sound barrier on land was made on December 17, 1979 after a run on Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards AFB. While it's been claimed that the Budweiser Rocket did briefly break the sound barrier, it could not gain any official titles because standard ground speed record regulations measure an average speed over a distance of either one kilometer or one mile. It should be noted that those claiming that the sound barrier was briefly broken all had a financial interest in making this claim, and no competent independent investigator was either at the run, or has since agreed to this claim. December 17 is the 351st day of the year (352nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ...
This page refers to the year 1979. ...
Edwards Air Force Base is a base located on the border of Kern County and Los Angeles County, California in the Antelope Valley, northeast of Lancaster. ...
The first run of the car at Bonneville Salt Flats showed that the propulsion system was unable to develop enough power to sustain a speed high enough to establish a new official World Land Speed Record. The team decided then that their goal would be to exceed the speed of sound on land, if only briefly, although no official authority would recognize this achievement as a record. Bonneville Salt Flats The Bonneville Salt Flats are a 121 km² (47 mi²) salt flat in northwestern Utah. ...
1970 land speed record being set at Bonneville Salt Flats by Gary Gabelich Land Speed Records from 1898 The information below is for self-propelled wheeled vehicles travelling over open ground. ...
The speed of sound is essentially a function of the air density. In other words sound barrier is not an absolute speed value, but dependent on air conditions. The speed of sound during Barrett's speed run was 731.9 miles per hour.
The measurement of the vehicle's top speed during the run has been disputed primarily because of the methods used to calculate the speed, and its extremely small margin of success.
No independent authority was sanctioning the performance, although the United States Air Force radar tracked the vehicle and recorded the speed at 38 MPH. This was obviously an error, and is generally considered to represent the movement of a truck in the vicinity. The report on the speed achieved was confused, but eventually a figure was produced nearly eight hours after the run. This figure was based on in-car accelerometer data, which were affected by vibration. This data was interpreted by the team as indicating a high degree of probability that the car exceeded the speed of sound at one point in its path by achieving a peak speed of 739.666 miles per hour, or Mach 1.01.
However, according to witnesses, no sonic boom was heard, and no account was made for the excessive drag forces which are now known to affect ground-level sound-barrier attempts at speeds higher than 700 MPH. Since there was neither any independent witness, nor any degree of measurement expertise involved in this assertion, it is not generally held to be appropriate proof of the claim. F/A-18C passing the sound barrier. ...
- Claimed speed: 739.666 miles per hour (Mach 1.01), released by the United States Air Force 8 hours after event
- Eyewitness testimony: no sonic boom was audible
- Recorded radar speed: 38 mph (recorded speed of truck nearby by accident)
- Other recorded data: Accelerometer data from vehicle, photographic images.
- Driver: Stan Barret
- Other top speed claims: 638 mph in earlier attempt
The "Budweiser Rocket" is in the Talladega Superspeedway Museum, Alabama, USA. (circa 2004) Talladega Superspeedway is a motorsports complex located north of Talladega, Alabama. ...
The Thrust SSC is recognized as breaking the sound barrier in 1997, with an average speed of 763.035 mph (1227.99 km/h) on a measured mile. ThrustSSC (SuperSonic Car) is a British designed and built jet propelled car designed by Richard Noble and Ron Ayers, which holds the world land speed record. ...
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