That there Hammond jet car

Looking at the photos here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5372890.stm

(enlarge the piccie of the crashed car)

I notice several things:

1) The car looks largely intact (so not much energy absorbed?)
2) The rollover hoop appears to be gone...
3) If that was doing 300MPH, it didn't half stop quick.

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Having seen the 25 yr old car do exhibition runs at Santa Pod on numerous
occasions, I find it highly unlikely that it would ever do 300mph, without
something like a 2 mile run to do it in.

k

 

It slid and rolled wothout hitting any solid objects. You'd not want
it to break up in that scenario.

They had to cut him out.

Yerrs. You're not wrong there.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Pip

I'm not so sure, I've sure I've seen (film of) dragsters breaking up in
similar situations, leaving the "safety cell" intact.

Good point.

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Of course it wasn't doing 300mph - thats just newspaper hype. The accounts
that I have read say that the parachute had been deployed so he was already
slowing down before he left the track. There are also accounts that report
a burst tyre. The most likely scenario is that a tyre went whilst he was
braking, resulting in the swerve onto the grass. The damage to Hammond was
probably done due to the rapid deceleration during the crash - when the
skull slows quicker than the brain inside, resulting in the brain hitting
the skull and bruising to the brain. The subsequent swelling of the brain
is life-threatening because of the pressure within the skull. If that is
the only problem and he survives the first few days (which appears to be the
case) then he will probably make an almost complete recovery.

 

I'm sad to announce he's told the BBC that because of this unfortunate
incident he's giving up on his dangerous TV career and has decided to
move in with me.

 

Given your trackrecord with bikes, that's going to make his life
safer...how?

 

Law of averages, innit? BGN will get his share of accidents so he'll be safer.

 

Hi,

The overhead photo shows a few interesting things
for the goulish among us.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5372890.stm


The curved tracks start well off the centre of the
runway, to the left (from the drivers viewpoint
when things were going well).

We could speculate that the car had initially turned left
and that a spin to the right ocurred later.

It appears that the car did a half spin on the black bit.
Just below the box captioned "Car reaches speeds..."
the two tracks of what seem to be the two rear wheels
can be clearly seen. These tracks merge indicating that
the rear axle began to travel in a direction exactly
parallel to its length.

Rough measurements of the picture indicate that the
two divots at the edge of the runway are about 1 wheelbase
apart.

This all sugests that the car was pointing pretty much
backwards and travelling almost straight sideways
when it hit the grass. It will have still been spinning
though since there is nothing to stop it. There is a small
second track that could have come from the other rear tyre
just before the grass.

[The car may have rolled when it hit the grass - who knows,
but it seems likely enough.] Initial thought - See later.

The tracks of the two ends of the car can possibly be traced
through the damage to the grass. The two tracks
(front and rear) once again converge which suggests
that the car continued to spin as before (about a
vertical axis) alternately hitting one
end then the other end on the ground.

The indentations apparently made by the front and rear
of the car follow converging paths suggesting that the
car was travelling straight backwards in a direction at
approximately 90 degress to the runway at the point where the
caption "cut from car by" (in particular the word "by")
overlays the image.

Finally the car came to rest after having carried out
what amounts to a neat handbrake parking manoeuver
after an almost perfect 360 spin pointing in the original
direction. Overshot the kerb by about 100 feet though

I at first assumed that the car must have rolled a
number of times after tripping up on the grass verge
however there is evidence that in fact the car did not roll.


There is a continuous track from the rear wheel area which
extends for about 1/4 the total over-grass distance from
about 1/4 distance from the runway to 1/2 distance from
the runway. Near the start of this track two seperate
tracks can be seen possibly one from each rear wheel.
These rear wheel marks strongly suggest to me that
the car cannot have been rolling at this time.
Since there was nothing to stop it rolling once it
has started I would think that the car did not in
fact roll at all.


It appears that the car did not roll end over end
since the fromt and rear are relatively intact.

The box "Witness says car..." indicates the first strike
on the ground of the front end of the airborne
car.

All that appears to me to be self consistent and not a bad
guess.

Now observe on the top left of the image a lighter (white)
curved line on the runway that is parallel to the
extended track of the car projected back along the track.

It can be seen just above the last letter of
"Car reaches speeds" where it apparenty intersects
the centre line. This line extends out of the image
to the top left.

An extension of the line is visible just below the
horizontal line that is part of the uppermost caption
and at this point the line is about the same distance
from the front wheel black track as the distance between
the two rear wheel black tracks.

It seems a possibility that this white (lets call it)
track has been caused by a tyreless wheel or some other
part of the car scraping on the ground.

One of the photos that I have seen on the web shows a
wheel with 1/2 a tyre on it, the top half sort of half.
I can't find it right now.

It's track is to the right (drivers perspective)
or the black front wheel track.


So:-
Front right tyre explodes, car turns a bit left,
car turns a lot right and spins down the road.
As the car begins to have a large siedways velocity
component the tyres start to leave big black marks.

On the grass, spin continues, rear stays pretty
close to the ground after a short hop
but the front flaps up and
down a lot perhaps due to the damaged front left
corner. No rolls - or stoppies)

Pointless speculation since there are videos
but fun never the less.

It would be possible to estimate the turning radius
of the black tracks (google earth for the runway
width or estimate the car lenth) which if we were
to assume a figure for the grip available, say 1G
(no aerodynamic aids so not too shabby)
we could get an estimate
for the speed. Maybe I will do that later, unless
someone beats me to it 'cos I will have to look
it all up since I forget.

Oh maybe not - centripetal force = mrww ?? ( * 1/2 ?)
Oh maybe yes - Google to the fore.


Very luck man - so far.

 

[snippy]

Whoever coined the phrase, "A picture says more than a thousand words,"
certainly wasn't far off the mark.

 

<BANG>


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That should indicate to you that you're doing something wrong.

I.e. having friends that watch Richard & Judy.

 

<snip>

Impressive, but you have *way* too much time on your hands


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I thought that when I saw the aerial shots

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I was told Clarkson would be driving. I'm only giving the rifleman
half-pay for this.

 

On 23 Sep 2006 03:23:20 -0700, said

<huge snips, deep breath>

On Thursday one of the news progs flew a helicopter over the runway,
saying it was the only way to see the accident site "properly". The
white curved line you mention appeared, from a brief view, to start
with what looked like a gouge into the runway surface.

The first bloke on the scene did say the car was upside down.

Presumably if he recovers fully, the footage will be shown on Top Gear
anyway...

 

Couldn't have put it better.

However it did make me go back to the picture and study it closer.

I reckon the car was side on, backwards, front wheels hitting first. One big
spin in the air, front wheels down first, with a arse-tit moment at the end
leaving it facing the correct direction. Interestingly, there is a big white
mark at the start of the movement, this could be from a front wheel puncture
and metal to concrete. One wheel is missing from the final picture, could it
be the front wheel came off creating this situation? There is only one front
wheel skid throughout the spin, with lots of white marking where the other
wheel should have been.

That's only 120 words....

 

Snowleopard? He'z just ziz guy, you know?

And that Hamsters head was partially buried in soil. Which if the car
never rolled is a *damn* impressive rooster tail!

 

I'd get your eyes tested.

 

ginge? He'z just ziz guy, you know?

Its XanaNews I tell you, FFS, it should be ZenaNews anyway.

<drools over Zena memories...>