Anyone remember Ford building the concept nuclear powered car? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... ucleon.jpg I guess the answer to that is ... someone thunked it up- sozz midaz well built it.
can you imagine? ya can't eeven get most to check their dipstick!
The next is a little more related to reality (and aircraft) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chrysler_027.jpg
The Chrysler gas turbine car. A little slow of the get go , like any under powered car ... or helicopter
now....after about fifty years - this is what we get
Yep, nuclear powered cars and robot maids never really materialized here in the US. But then again we never could have imagined back then that some day we could communicate with flightsim friends in the UK at an almost real-time speed. I love the now!
Hm, remember seeing the Rover Jet 1 on a news item at the time. What sticks in the mind was the banshee scream from the engine (and that was at idle ) rising to an unholy shriek when throttled-up. The press were interested in the effect of the exhaust from the side-vents on lady passers by in the highstreets. Good try boys, but, no thanks.
Rover engines did go on to greater heights
Seen here in 1965 is their RTP 90 retro-fitted to an Auster J1 Autocrat . A one-off, it sported a massive 115 HP.
Cheers
Dave M(oly)
I think a variation on the theme turned up as a pump for RN use (Rick would be able to verify). I'm sure the pump we had on one ship was a Rover (it was used for pumping water.. either way I guess.. that is, either in for fire or out to stop a flood) and it sounded like our helicopter had been wound up when it was started
The Rover Gas Turbine water pump is still going strong! The one time I've seen one run we were testing it on YORK's quarterdeck, the banshee wail is awesome, as is the effect if you don't quite secure the pipes properly....
Blimey yes.. I'd forgotten you'd know about them too. When I first heard one run (can't remember if I was on Andromeda or Norfolk).. I was fire party while alongside and couldn't fathom why the helicopter was going. Then I twigged it was the Rover One can only imagine how the cars must have sounded with one fitted
More recently Volvo made a slightly more practical gas turbine car using one of those micro gas turbine generators used on oil rigs to power electric motors and recharge batteries. Gets round the problem of mechanically linking a high speed jet engine and slow speed road wheels which bedevilled cars like Jet 1 or the subsequent P6 looky liky Rover built, but has the benefit of gas turbine technology which apparently will burn any old combustible liquid or liquified product. I seem to recall they also built a rather over styled bus and a truck using the same ideas. At the time they were pitching the car at Californian zero-emission regs which it didn't quite meet, plus the cost of the lithium batteries they used meant it wasn't possible to productionise the prototype, but now lithium batteries are more affordable, and hybrids more widely accepted, I'd love to see the technology developed further. I want a car which sounds like something from Thunderbirds before I die!
Good news is that Jaguar has got a wedge of Government money to develop a similar concept this year, so I might not have to wait very long although I might need a lottery win to buy one...
) rising to an unholy shriek when throttled-up. The press were interested in the effect of the exhaust from the side-vents on lady passers by in the highstreets. Good try boys, but, no thanks. 
When I first heard one run (can't remember if I was on Andromeda or Norfolk).. I was fire party while alongside and couldn't fathom why the helicopter was going. Then I twigged it was the Rover 
smashing idea 
