A new season, a new thread, with a more suitable title. I'm kind of glad that they revisited their first-ever myth, the JATO Rocket Car, one more time and finally got a definitive result. The catastrophic failure in the 2007 revisit was a heck of a disappointment, and it always seemed unfair that they failed to get a real answer. Here they finally managed to pull it off. I'm not in the least surprised by the results, though. I mean, of course a car is not going to turn into a viable missile just because you give it rocket thrust. It doesn't have the necessary lift. Indeed, cars' aerodynamics generally give them the opposite of lift, pushing them down so they hold onto the road. Maybe if they'd launched it upside-down it would've gotten a little more air, but it still wouldn't have had any stabilizers or anything. The results we got were pretty much predictable and inevitable. But certainly impressive to watch and to see the aftermath of. I like the remote-steering system they came up with, and I'm wondering why it took them so long to have the idea of using a monitor to give the remote controller a driver's-eye view. Recently when I was working through the limited selection of MB episodes on Netflix, I found myself wondering why they didn't do their RC that way. Here, they did everything I kept thinking they should do, duplicating the driving experience as closely as feasible. Although I expected that trying to control one moving vehicle while being in another one would confuse Adam (or anyone), and I was right. The mobile bunker dump truck is really cool, and seems like something they should keep around for future use. I bet they'll keep the portable bombproof control bunker too. They really have come a long way in the past decade. They keep getting more elaborate equipment. There was also a clip-show special before the premiere. I recorded it but haven't watched it yet.
The clip show wasn't a clip show, rather it was a rerun of their very first episode, with pop-up notes like "Adam still had those shoes!" - it was fun, but if you've seen ep 1 recently (I did on DVD a few weeeks ago), you're not missing anything. When the rocket car cleared the ramp and nosed over, my first thought was that their nose weight was too much and they should have left it off. But then I realized that only would have let it nose-up and pinwheel, so never mind. You're right, that thing wasn't going to "fly" no matter what.
Actually, I feel kinda bad for Jamie - he had to drive the car through the TV monitor, so he didn't actually get to see the event "in person." I was thinking it would have been cooler for him to have driven it from a chopper like the first time, so he could see.
^Jamie only drove the car in the test run. In the actual experiment, my understanding is that Jamie was behind the wheel of the dump truck and Adam was operating the RC system. (Which was basically a full-on telepresence rig, so maybe we should call it a car waldo.)
Now, I don't know much about vintage cars (or much of anything it seems), but it was obvious that white Impala was in great condition, so I found it rather painful to see them stripping the vehicle of its pristine cherry red interior to house the structural frame and Grant's robotics. Sincerely, Bill
^I'm not much of a car person, but even I thought that Impala was gorgeous and I hated to see it torn up like that. I wondered why they couldn't find more of a junker to use. But it was kind of awesome how, as Jamie said, his structural bracing remained largely intact even when the rest of the car was practically turned to confetti. And although he only mentioned that with regard to the first Impala, I noticed it was true in both crashes.
It was almost comical the way the ramp "shredded" from the RATO thrust. Didn't I see that in a Wile E. Coyote short? Sincerely, Bill
^I was too busy laughing at how the car flipped over when it flew off the ramp. That was even more ACMEriffic.
I think they did. There was a line in the narration something like "It flew a total of X distance, but interrupted by a lot of bouncing and twisting."
Traditionally, the previous episode is repeated just before the newest one. If they have opted to maintain that pattern, you should be able to catch it at 8 PM (EDT) Wednesday. Sincerely, Bill
I don't know why but I love that blast shield truck, a lot. Its probably got a lot to do with geeky fun stuff you can say like raise shields and lower shields. I really hope they put that truck to more use in the future.
^I love the way the cab shields are attached to the hopper in back, so they can lift them off to allow access to the cab. Very clever. Except it's a shame they couldn't actually use the "rolling bunker" in motion as they intended. Hopefully they'll find other myths that will let them use it properly.
The first rocket car only failed after the passenger side front wheel fell off. If you watch the video of it, the loss of that wheel was what caused it to flip.
But what they were testing was whether hitting the bump in the road (represented by the sandbags) would cause it to take flight. And it didn't. It drove right over them and kept going at ground level, and the myth was busted at that point. So whatever happened to the car afterward was beside the point.
Yeah I'm not sure why anyone really thought the car would fly into the side of the mountain. You'd have to put a couple of warp engines on the thing, and even then it would still probably roll and crash into the ground immediately after launch. Heck, they usually have trouble even getting smooth and aerodynamic rockets to fly straight on this show, so a big bulky car wouldn't stand a chance.