Well the summer is flying by but a lot of neat things have happened for the project recently. Garron Frantzen, a friend of the projects lent the project a rolling gantry in order to lift the car or heavy components. I put it to work the very next day lifting the car up onto its work tables. Using it I built the brackets that hold the safety capsule onto the car. Here is a shot of what that looks like. I put the car back up on its’ rolling tables as working on it while it is on the ground was hard on my back.

Garron helps out on the car and the jump rocket when he is in the area as he is always on the move but he also works on all sorts of innovative projects of his own. Here is Garron with his 400 horse power helicopter gas turbine outboard boat motor. He mounted it on a large cigarette racing boat named “Radical” and he will be testing it soon. He also has a gas turbine motorcycle which he ran at Bonneville and has worked on a gyro stabilized two wheel car of the type futurist Syd Mead and Alex Tremulis predicted.

I have been working on the new model of Sonic Wind LSRV and it will be completed soon. I should have photos up by the next update. I also welded into the chassis most of the Titanium sphere brackets I built last month.

I started working a couple of days a month with Master Chief Mike Glenn and all the Navy guys that rebuild historic aircraft at Edwards Air Force base. Most of those guys are retired Navy “Airedale” personnel and spend one week a month working on historical aircraft in order to have them placed in museums.

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Well, it is summer again as I continue to work on Sonic Wind LSRV. I don’t have any set build timetable and tend to build with what I can find in raw materials when I stumble over them surplus or can afford them when paying retail. I have a general overall view of the car in my head but the tiny details are always in flux as ideas evolve and I find better materials.

Recently, I acquired a bit of aluminum 6061 and 7075 sheet which I needed to build the bodywork. So I constructed about ½ of the body work. I built as much as I could and went as far as I could stretch the aluminum. Here are some photos of what the car body looks like now. I know it looks complete but I am sure it will still be quite a while before she will be completed and ready to run.

A friend came by to see it and as he watched me building this 55 foot long rocket car while working in the dirt he said…”Your story is like the World’s Fastest Indian only on steroids.” Denise saw all the body panels on the car and said…”It is starting to look big and scary.” I think it looks purposeful and powerful.

I recently acquired the 2 power cylinders I will need to suspend the front and rear ends of the car as well as the cylinder I will use to drive the movable vertical air dam structure. A big “Thank You” goes out to Carlos Guzman of Norton Sales in North Hollywood, California for supplying those to the project.

They are of fighter jet aircraft quality, constructed of exotic metals, super light and would have been quite expensive if I had to buy them. So now I will begin building the front and rear suspensions of the car.

The car will have a multi-phase suspension sort of like an off road racing car or truck. The wheels will be independently suspended and mounted on a single swing arm that will also be suspended by the aircraft cylinders. This gives a two stage shock absorbing interface between car chassis loads and track induced impacts. The idea here is as forces exceed the first shock absorbing system a second one comes into play to back up the first and take up residual forces. It is similar to a motocross motorcycle as a MotoX bike can go just about anywhere and jump over just about anything. Sonic Wind LSRV’s suspension will be built using similar ideas.

Most LSR car designs have suspensions similar to those used on high speed road cars or road race automobiles such as dragsters, Le Mans cars, F1 or Indy cars. I never understood that way of thinking as LSR vehicles run on a dried mud playa or salt flats course which has very different suspension needs than a road course. Something like a quick action MotoX bike or off road truck suspension is more what is needed here.

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Happy summer everyone and to all who have served in the armed forces I say Thank you for your service! Memorial Day had just passed and I try to always honor the fallen and thank the people currently in service or the people who have served for their contribution to my nation’s freedom.

This month was spent finishing up the laced parachute load cable that weaves through the chassis of Sonic Wind LSRV. I think that in an emergency situation it will come in handy to take the extra time to build a system like this into the car. What it essentially does is put the parachute opening and pulling shock loads very close to the Cg of the car so there is very little destabilizing lever moment from the chutes moving around in the wind stream. Weaving the cables makes the loads snuggle the chassis like a shoe lace snuggles a foot. Here are a couple of photos of the completed system.

Next I began building the combination hold down/load structures that will hold the forward six Titanium pressure vessel spheres into the chassis. I had to hand dress out each pressure sphere with a grinder and various grits of sandpaper in order to take out every little nick and scratch. These scratches and nicks will be weak points when the sphere is under high pressure and could lead to failure. Most of these spheres will be filled with Helium gas to about 2,200 psi. (Which is standard K bottle filling pressure) and they have a burst pressure of 6,000 psi. But I am simply not taking any chances with any of my equipment and want everything to be done to the best of my ability. Building a hand built supersonic rocket car is like building a Stradivarius violin and every piece has to be hand selected and hand worked in order to get the best results. Results I would trust my life and others to.

Some of these Titanium spheres, whom were destined for project Gemini spacecraft, are over a half of a century old and have been sitting under piles of heavy metal scrap at various salvage yards for many, many years. A couple of them I personally dug out of the mud where they were abandoned nearly twenty years ago. So even though they are made of Titanium and are very tough they have to be handled with tender loving care. That work done, here are a couple of photographs of the spheres and the hold down/ load brackets now under construction. The brackets are being fabricated from various wall thickness 4130 chrome moly tube and MIG welded together

The purpose of these brackets is to not only to anchor the spheres rigidly into the chassis but to use the tremendous strength of the spheres as load structures in the chassis in order to make it even more rigid overall. They are mounted forward because their static weight will contribute to the forward movement of the vehicle’s Cg during a run.

Michael Hughes and I have been having a ton of fun lately testing his steam rocket engine. It is a real runner and I am proud of him as I watch him working hard and teaching himself to become the premier steam rocket builder in the country. We performed two static steam rocket engine tests this month: One firing horizontally at about half thrust and you can see the video of that firing on You Tube at “Steam Rocket Test. mpg” It was shot by “Stroker” John Nijssen a local street and race car engine builder who comes by now and then to hang out with Mike. Stroker John builds big power V-8s, check out his website at www.strokerengine.com.

Mike’s little blue Ford Ranger pick up truck which was used for the engine test is about two inches shorter now as the impact of the steam rocket against it crushed both of the bumper mounts. The test stand had a flexible load of 4,000 lbs using 4- 1,000 lb. load springs at the front of it as sort of a primitive load cell. The rocket engine test stand was mounted to the truck rigidly and staked down with stakes going down three feet into the Earth. Then the entire ensemble was wedged against a cargo container with an aluminum plate as a wedge so there would be no movement, or so we thought. There was to be but a slight moving of the engine in the stand against the springs. But BLAM! As the engine came on it slammed those springs shut like a screen door banging in a hurricane and then proceeded to crush the truck. This was unexpected as this was to be only a half thrust test. So that motor really kicks even much more than we thought it would!

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Happy May Sports fans!

I wanted to show you all the work that was done on the chassis this month and to make it clearer here are a few photographs.

The underside treatment of the car has to be handled in a very special way using various metal materials such as Aluminum and Steel sheeting and this is why. The front ring wheels will be spinning in excess of 10,000 RPM when the vehicle is traveling in excess of Mach 1.

Even though we will be running on the Bonneville Salt Flats there is always the chance of kicking up an old bolt or race car part left by some other vehicle in the past which may be buried just below the surface of the salt. That piece of material will instantly become a projectile with near bullet velocities. The blow from this projectile will be a glancing blow and not a direct shot but a ricochet bullet is no less dangerous than a direct hit by a bullet in my book.

I know about this personally because I was hit with a ricochet .22 short bullet round right between the eyes back in 1972. This is a true story and I did survive but that incident may account for some of my less than average behavior.

For this reason the area directly behind the front wheels is sheeted with 16 gauge steel sheet. The sheet is bolted onto L shaped mild steel brackets every three inches with a ¼ inch diameter grade 8 Allen head bolt. The bolts lock into locking nuts that are sealed into the vehicle with red RTV Silicone for corrosion control and then Loctited together. Literally, I installed by hand nearly 400 of these bolts and nuts in order to secure all the sheets.

If a projectile should pass through the steel sheet protecting the vehicle underside it will probably hit one of the steel chassis members or maybe even one of the Titanium spheres used to contain the high pressure gasses for the rocket engine. This intrusion should not present too much of a problem if it were to occur because of the materials I use.

These Titanium spheres are strong and tough and would deflect even a direct hit from a NATO 7.95mm round or an American standard .223 round. Like I said they are really tough. These spheres are the parts of satellites and spacecraft that nearly always survive the fiery reentry into the atmosphere. If a space vehicle crashes into the atmosphere from orbit it will be a red hot Titanium sphere that takes out your house and sets it on fire. I guarantee it. These spheres are rated for a burst pressure of 6,000 PSI. We will be running them at about 2,200 PSI so I can save time building pressure in them in order to run the rocket engine. I will be able to cascade standard pressure bottles to get the Titanium spheres up to pressure and won’t need the aid of say a Haskel pump in order to increase pressure.

During a land speed record attempt two runs in opposite directions are averaged in order to determine a new land speed record. You are only allowed one hour to complete the second run from the time the vehicle passes out of the measured mile on the preceding run. So shortening the time needed to build pressures in the pressure vessels is crucial to setting a land speed record.

The five smaller Titanium sphere tanks are located in the very nose of the vehicle along with the front wheels and swing arm, steering box, the batteries and laser pointer in order to keep the Cg ahead of the CP in the vehicle as the fuel is expelled during the rocket burn. Sonic Wind LSRV actually becomes more stable as the run progresses in time because of weight transfer. This is an example of my “Zen Design philosophy” which I use in all my creations.

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This last month has been an unusual one to say the least. Besides all the television work I have been involved in I also made the time to start bolting the bottom Aluminum and steel sheets to the underside of the Sonic Wind LSRV chassis. This is being done with hundreds of Allen head bolts which will be sealed into their retaining nuts with Locktite. I also painted the new section of chassis and sealed up every seam with red high temperature RTV Silicone to keep pulverized salt from getting in between all the steel pieces. It was quite a job but I am glad it is done as I am really concentrating on corrosion control and resistance as I build the chassis. Here are a couple shots of the work.

The El Ranchito Rokette has been lucky to have some very distinguished visitors in the last month. First Ky Michaelson, AKA the “Original Rocketman” stopped by with Captain Ed Ballinger and Ky’s girlfriend Tina Oberfoell. To all us real rocket guys Ky is the original rocket man no matter what anyone else claims as he has been building rocket powered machines long before anyone. Ky a mentor of mine has taught me a lot through the years. Ky wanted to see how Sonic Wind LSRV was coming along and was also down in Hollywood working on a possible television show of his own.

Now, Captain Ed Ballinger is the undisputed, absolute fastest and quickest man in drag racing of all time. He was the driver of the Conklin Comet a car that Ky built which was a hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) fueled rocket dragster that set and still holds the fastest speed and quickest elapsed time ever set on an official drag strip. No dragster to this very day has ever gone faster or quicker no matter what you have read or heard.

Craig Breedlove and Kitty O’Neil (Ky also built Kitty’s car) have run faster in the measured quarter mile on a dry lakebed but Captain Ed was the fastest on an actual drag strip. Go to Ky’s website at www.the-rocketman.com to learn more about Ky and Captain Ed Ballinger. Capt. Ed really needs his own website to do his life real justice. Here are some shots of everyone just hanging out at the ranch. It was great to see everyone again, they all looked great.  As always you can go to our Sonic Wind Archives site set up by Ed Torsello and see more photos on any subject covered in the text on this site. The archive site is www.sonicwind.com

Later on in the month I was visited by another famous racing Captain, Captain Jack McClure. Capt. Jack is actually a sea Captain based in Florida who takes people out on his huge fishing boat to deep sea fish. But what he is really famous for is driving the first and most famous rocket powered go cart of all time.

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This month has been very different for me and Michael Hughes, who lives and works at El Ranchito Rokette which translates into “The Little Rocket Ranch.” The projects we are working on are really building momentum but there was much more happening there recently also.

First, during the last month I shot a television segment for the Discovery Channel that aired on Discovery Planet as well as two pilots for TV shows that are in the works. That was very unusual work for me as well as extremely time consuming. I was literally followed around by production crews and cameras for days on end with the director constantly saying…”That is great Waldo but could you say it again with more energy?” More energy…more energy and more energy, I heard that term five hundred times. I guess I am a bit more of a serious, solemn man than an energetic, bouncing, raving TV madman.

One production company had me climb to the top of Granite Mountain in Apple Valley not once but twice for the camera shots. It really was a lot of work when I look back at it. But I also have a new respect for the creativity of production company people as they worked very hard, long hours and they have a great work ethic. I have to thank Rob and Jake for showing me how it all works. No matter what happens with all this I learned a lot from them.

Strangely enough, last month I was offered “host” character jobs on two television shows if you can believe that. They are programs on the OLN network which broadcasts mainly in Canada. I dig Canada and Canadians but I turned the programs down because I felt the production of these programs would cut deeply into the time I have to finish building the Sonic Wind LSRV.

I had close friends and family tell me that I must be out of my ever living mind not to jump on these opportunities because of the personal exposure and money that was being offered me to do them. But I guess they don’t know me as well as they think they do.

I am willing to do TV shows in order to promote the Sonic Wind LSRV project but not just to do TV shows as I don’t see myself as any sort of a celebrity or game show host at all. I just build rocket cars and work on fantastic vehicles. That is all I do or have ever wanted to do. If a TV program will help me promote the Sonic Wind LSRV rocket car well then I will do it but if it doesn’t I really am not interested in using my precious time doing it.

If I was twenty years old and had another thirty years of time to screw around with I would do TV shows for the bread and the hell of it but at 56 years old my time to build this incredible machine is precious to me, actually “priceless” as far as I am concerned. The way I see it, if I am lucky, God smiles on me and I stay strong I probably have a good 15 years of heavy lifting and wrench swinging that I can count on to build the things that I want to build before my creator takes me home. So nowadays I have to spend my time wisely.

Then again, there is another TV program that is in the works as well as a few other production companies that have shown interest in me and my projects and if these things pan out they would probably be neat things to do. I am seriously considering doing these other TV programs because they would be interesting and educational as well as help promote the Sonic Wind LSRV project. I don’t want to talk anymore about them as I don’t want to jinx it all but if it happens I will keep you all updated as things develop.

Alright enough fame and fortune fantasy for this month now lets’ get to the fun stuff, building rocket cars….When the Popular Mechanics article came out in the December 2011 issue, the writer John Pearly Huffman wrote that I was building a 2,000 mile per hour rocket car. That statement turned the World on its side and me and Sonic Wind LSRV became the focus of hundreds of articles and blogs around the world. Then FOX News kicked in and it all got even larger by a factor of ten. There were so many blogs and articles written discussing my project that I couldn’t read them all. Many of the blogs were written in countries with languages I couldn’t even understand. Suffice it to say Sonic Wind LSRV and I went global.

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I was lucky to get a lot of work into the Sonic Wind LSRV this month even though I had a lot of other things to attend to. I took the thirty foot long chassis center section and finished up the entire base welding. It is a sort of a “ladder within a ladder” construction of my own design. Michael Hughes and I put over two hundred MIG welds into the chassis main structure to finish it up.

It already had over a hundred arc welds in the main structure which I had recently put in a few months ago. Needless to say there is a lot of steel in this bi-ladder structure. I grabbed it and picked up one end of it to feel its’ mass and it weighs about 700 lbs. by my guess and I am usually good at judging weight by lifting something. Then I climbed on top of it after suspending it from each end. I jumped up and down on it at the middle of it to get a feel for what kind of center flex it would develop. I weigh 204 lbs. and jumping up and down at the center of it like a Gorilla, the maximum deflection was about ½ an inch and that is even before the fuel tanks and pressure vessels get bonded into the structure. This is going to work out just fine. Let’s call it Gorilla engineering.

Having a sculptor’s past I have an affinity for working with certain materials and working with steel, is one of my favorite things. One reason is because it is heavy in weight and it takes real muscle to move it around but also when a structure is completed it has a presence and feel of durability and power to it. I can’t explain it but I am willing to bet iron workers and ship builders feel the same way.

Here is a metal sculpture I built nearly twenty years ago from steel plate and copper sheet. It was twelve feet tall, weighed half a ton and depicted a pregnant woman in abstract. I called it “Mother Desert” and it was commissioned by the Mojave Institute of the Arts who paid for its design and construction. It was built to promote the concept that the Mojave Desert is a Mother of creation. I love the Mojave Desert myself and can’t see myself living anywhere else.

Sonic Wind LSRV does not have a steel space frame like a regular racing automobile because it is a pure bi propellant liquid rocket vehicle. Most liquid flight rockets use the strength of the pressurized fuel tanks to give them rigidity. As such, Sonic Wind LSRV will employ some very similar principles. The tanks will add to the overall strength of the chassis but the total vehicle integrity won’t rely on simply the tank strengths alone like a flight rocket does. That is the reason for the steel bi-ladder chassis. It takes the surface impact loads and transfers them to the tank mounting points and then feed those loads into the rigid, pressurized tanks. The Liquid Oxygen tank does not carry any loads because it will shrink when filled with cryogenic LOX so it is designed to float suspended by springs in the chassis structure.

I am using mild steel for the entire chassis construction as there is a certain amount of flexibility using mild steel as well as an ability to make faster repairs and modifications when they are needed.

In the photo I am welding the chassis in a red skull welding helmet given to me many years ago by my daughter and son-in-law Stephanie and Harley Barden. I added the Aluminum “hair” top cover to the helmet to shield out sparks to the top of the head because sometimes when welding for long periods of time, I would smell something burning and usually it was me!

Other metals I am using in the chassis are 4130 chrome moly steel tube and plate, high grade Titanium, 304 and 302 stainless steel and three different alloys of Aluminum.

I am currently entertaining the idea of building the entire skin from aluminum while using stainless steel in the areas where there may be heat concerns. Stainless steel is actually better for heat resistance than Titanium, many engineers don’t know that. Titanium is stronger and lighter than stainless steel but it is also tremendously expensive and hard to work with.

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Happy New Year everyone! I know I say this every year but I have a feeling 2012 is going to be quite an interesting year. Call me the eternal optimist. Well, 2011 wasn’t so bad after all. This last year we have had the Sonic Wind LSRV project featured in 4 different magazines with five major articles and there are a couple of other things in the works that I am very excited about. I will have to not say too much about these future events until they either do or don’t happen as only time will tell and I don’t want to disappoint anyone, especially myself.

This month I worked on Sonic Wind LSRV’s safety capsule which the driver (currently me) is encased in. It is based on a hardened steel, rounded end capped cylinder that will be wrapped in composite material for strength and abrasion resistance. The driver is suspended in a Kevlar web hammock that is stretched over a 4130 chrome moly steel tube frame. The capsule will be wrapped in fiberglass for added strength and it has its’ own twin supersonic parachutes to slow it to a stop. In the advent of an explosion it will be tossed from the car and deploy its own chutes. Here is a photo of the safety capsule structure under construction.

I have seen capsules designed for a couple of the other LSR cars under construction and they are rectangular in shape. I would like you guys to reconsider that because if the capsule gets tossed and a corner of that box shape catches the ground at speed it will tumble in a bouncing and erratic way. In that scenario the G forces encountered by the driver will probably be excessive to what his body can endure and administered at many different planes relative to the body. No, you want a smooth rounded cylindrical shape for your capsule. One that is more conducive to rolling and sliding as opposed to tumbling and bouncing.

I will use two small supersonic parachutes anchored to the back of our capsule that are on different length Kevlar lines so the capsule will have rear end drag pull from two different directions. This will keep the capsule from rolling and tumbling as much as it would if it were attached to only one parachute.

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