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Rocket racing league makes first test flight
A new league that plans to race rocket-powered planes for spectators made the first test flights of the vehicle to be used in its races.
The Rocket Racing League's president, Granger Whitelaw, who won two Indy 500 races as a team owner, made the announcement at Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo, New Mexico, US, which is hosting the Wirefly X Prize Cup this weekend. XCOR Aerospace built the vehicle as part of a partnership with the league.
The three test flights occurred on Thursday, and were very short, just minutes long, Whitelaw said at a press conference on Friday. The league plans to hold some demonstration races in 2008, with dates yet to be set, and begin official races later in 2008 or in 2009.
All the teams will be required to use identical vehicles of the XCOR design, Whitelaw said. (An illustration of the vehicle appears at left.)
The vehicles are basically gliders with rocket engines, according to Jim Bridenstine, who will fly one of the vehicles when races begin. The engines can be turned on and off repeatedly during the race, but cannot be throttled to adjust the thrust.
The vehicles will fly at about 550 kilometres per hour (around 300 knots), Bridenstine told me at the International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on Thursday.
I wondered if this would look anything like the "pod races" in the Star Wars: Episode 1 movie, and I asked Bridenstine. "That's actually the visual we're going for," he told me. "It should be a lot like the pod races."
A new league that plans to race rocket-powered planes for spectators made the first test flights of the vehicle to be used in its races.
The Rocket Racing League's president, Granger Whitelaw, who won two Indy 500 races as a team owner, made the announcement at Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo, New Mexico, US, which is hosting the Wirefly X Prize Cup this weekend. XCOR Aerospace built the vehicle as part of a partnership with the league.
The three test flights occurred on Thursday, and were very short, just minutes long, Whitelaw said at a press conference on Friday. The league plans to hold some demonstration races in 2008, with dates yet to be set, and begin official races later in 2008 or in 2009.
All the teams will be required to use identical vehicles of the XCOR design, Whitelaw said. (An illustration of the vehicle appears at left.)
The vehicles are basically gliders with rocket engines, according to Jim Bridenstine, who will fly one of the vehicles when races begin. The engines can be turned on and off repeatedly during the race, but cannot be throttled to adjust the thrust.
The vehicles will fly at about 550 kilometres per hour (around 300 knots), Bridenstine told me at the International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on Thursday.
I wondered if this would look anything like the "pod races" in the Star Wars: Episode 1 movie, and I asked Bridenstine. "That's actually the visual we're going for," he told me. "It should be a lot like the pod races."
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