Move over F1, Indy, NASCAR here comes the fastest racing league yet!
Rocket Racing League
At one end of the track, two racing aircraft are poised less than 50 feet apart at a starting line. They silently exhale mist from vents in the fuselage liquid-oxygen tanks. When the gun sounds, their 1,500-pound-thrust rocket engines ignite, hurling the racers down the runway past the fans and throwing back brilliant 10-foot kerosene flames: 0 to 200 in 15 seconds. At the end of the straightaway, the rocketplanes pull vertical and shoot straight up on pillars of fire. At about 3,000 feet, they pitch over inverted, roll, and, engines now off, dive through an invisible gate to follow a course that twists and turns like a roller-coaster track.
The pilots see the course superimposed on the sky around them by helmet-mounted displays. As the first pair dive silently into the first roller-coaster drop, two more rocketplanes launch. Eventually six pairs of racers are weaving around the serpentine, five-mile course.
At several points the undulating tunnel will sharply ascend, forcing the pilots to re-ignite their engines for the power to get uphill. At least one climb will be designed at a point where the racers are facing away from the spectators, treating them to the full concussive power of rocket thrust, which they will feel in their chests as well as hear. Intermittently lighting the rocket engines, the racers will dash and glide, competing in a four-lap heat lasting about 14 minutes.
On jumbo TV screens set up near the runway, a computer-augmented display will show the rocketplanes and the courses they're flying. No two racers will be following exactly the same course. Instead, each racer will follow its own predetermined path, generated by computer, based on GPS-provided coordinates, and painted on the jumbotrons like the yellow line on television screens that shows football fans where the ball must reach for a first down.
Rocket Racing League
At one end of the track, two racing aircraft are poised less than 50 feet apart at a starting line. They silently exhale mist from vents in the fuselage liquid-oxygen tanks. When the gun sounds, their 1,500-pound-thrust rocket engines ignite, hurling the racers down the runway past the fans and throwing back brilliant 10-foot kerosene flames: 0 to 200 in 15 seconds. At the end of the straightaway, the rocketplanes pull vertical and shoot straight up on pillars of fire. At about 3,000 feet, they pitch over inverted, roll, and, engines now off, dive through an invisible gate to follow a course that twists and turns like a roller-coaster track.
The pilots see the course superimposed on the sky around them by helmet-mounted displays. As the first pair dive silently into the first roller-coaster drop, two more rocketplanes launch. Eventually six pairs of racers are weaving around the serpentine, five-mile course.
At several points the undulating tunnel will sharply ascend, forcing the pilots to re-ignite their engines for the power to get uphill. At least one climb will be designed at a point where the racers are facing away from the spectators, treating them to the full concussive power of rocket thrust, which they will feel in their chests as well as hear. Intermittently lighting the rocket engines, the racers will dash and glide, competing in a four-lap heat lasting about 14 minutes.
On jumbo TV screens set up near the runway, a computer-augmented display will show the rocketplanes and the courses they're flying. No two racers will be following exactly the same course. Instead, each racer will follow its own predetermined path, generated by computer, based on GPS-provided coordinates, and painted on the jumbotrons like the yellow line on television screens that shows football fans where the ball must reach for a first down.