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Want To See What 500 MPH Looks Like?

boloboffin

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http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b0e_1184523167

We don't have a Liveleak tag that I know of, or I would embed it in the thread. That's a link to a video of a Chinese train moving at 500 mph. The first few seconds are inside the train itself, but then it cuts to shots of the train moving past stations. The train is hurtling along, but details of the train can clearly and easily be seen.
 
That's 500 kilometres per hour, I think - about 311 mph. Still interesting, though, and impressive for a train.
 
boloboffin said:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b0e_1184523167

We don't have a Liveleak tag that I know of, or I would embed it in the thread. That's a link to a video of a Chinese train moving at 500 mph. The first few seconds are inside the train itself, but then it cuts to shots of the train moving past stations. The train is hurtling along, but details of the train can clearly and easily be seen.
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It's only traveling at 500 km/h, which is a little over 300 MPH.

Here's a Boeing 757-200 traveling at 400 MPH at 100ft:



-Gumboot
 
ponderingturtle said:
That does depend on definitions. It was not the first land vehical to do so, just the first one with 4 wheels to make the turn around and reverse run in the one hour time needed for an offical record.
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Which vehicle are you talking about?
 
I can still read the tail numbers on the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels when they do high-speed passes (I'm guessing 600 mph or so) at the annual Chicago Air and Water Show.

The F-16 and F-18, btw, are much smaller than a 757.
 
Spins said:
Which vehicle are you talking about?
Click to expand...

Well I remember hearing that at the time, and searching the internet it seems that the Budweiser rocket car was measured at speeds higher than Mach 1.

But it did not follow the official rules for an official land speed record, such as only having three wheels so it is not considered a car, and measuring with radar instead of time over a measured mile and not making a return run in a hour.

So it did not set the first supersonic land speed record, but it was the first land vehicle to move supersonic on the ground.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Well I remember hearing that at the time, and searching the internet it seems that the Budweiser rocket car was measured at speeds higher than Mach 1.

But it did not follow the official rules for an official land speed record, such as only having three wheels so it is not considered a car, and measuring with radar instead of time over a measured mile and not making a return run in a hour.

So it did not set the first supersonic land speed record, but it was the first land vehicle to move supersonic on the ground.
Click to expand...
I'm highly skeptical of the claim that the Budweiser rocket broke the sound barrier. No sonic boom was heard by anyone who was there and no independent investigator was either at the run, or has since agreed to the claim that the vehicle broke the sound barrier. You can read more about it here.
 
Spins said:
I'm highly skeptical of the claim that the Budweiser rocket broke the sound barrier. No sonic boom was heard by anyone who was there and no independent investigator was either at the run, or has since agreed to the claim that the vehicle broke the sound barrier. You can read more about it here.
Click to expand...

Well as that varies with altitude and weather they might not have broken it in that location. I thought I remember hearing about a more recent one, but as the one I remember hearing about was three wheeled and rocket powered it changes does fit.

So are we talking local speed of sound or the speed associated with mach 1?
 
Great link, its interesting to read the views of Chuck Yeager and the counter argument against his view on that site.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Well as that varies with altitude and weather they might not have broken it in that location. I thought I remember hearing about a more recent one, but as the one I remember hearing about was three wheeled and rocket powered it changes does fit.

So are we talking local speed of sound or the speed associated with mach 1?
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By definition, Mach speed is the local speed of sound (Mach numberWP - yes, Wikipedia, I know.)

ETA: The term sound barrier is also somewhat of a misnomer. It arises from aviation engineers and scientists in the post-war period not really understanding transonic flight characteristics; some thought that there was some sort of "barrier" that would tear apart aircraft at Mach 1. This viewpoint was reinforced by some accidents with experimental aircraft prior to Yeager's flight in the X-1. Actual hard data was somewhat lacking since the technology of the day couldn't build supersonic wind tunnels (or, of course, calculate air flows). (The bullet shape of the X-1, by the way, was based on the reasoning that bullets were known to go supersonic, and were stable.)
 
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Spins said:
I'm highly skeptical of the claim that the Budweiser rocket broke the sound barrier. No sonic boom was heard by anyone who was there and no independent investigator was either at the run, or has since agreed to the claim that the vehicle broke the sound barrier. You can read more about it here.
Click to expand...

Good article, I remember wacthing it live on TV (well it might have been tape delayed) I saw the one post about 622 MPH, that was the best it could reach before they put a side winder rocket motor on top, that was supposed to get them over the hump. I remember them hitting the 739 but there was some discussion because with the weather that day it was assumed they would break the sound barrier at 733 that day and they never broke the barrier. I remember them interviewing Stan Barret, and he had no interest in making a second run, it had to have been pretty scary.
 
I like to put it in these types of terms:

500 mph = 8.3 miles/minute (remember 60 mph is 1 mile/minute)
It's one mile in 7 seconds
 
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