Who knows their rockets?

Pity measurements aren't given, as that would give define which series of Spectre it is. More than likely, it's a DSpec.2 or 4

Tom

What would you need to know?

Diameter & length

Tom

Oh yes!! That's what we need to liven things up a little at evening crank ups!

Imagine a few hundred gallons of C&T Stoff sloshing about in carboys as they bounce up and down on the motorway & just think of the deafening hissing noise in the engine pen next to you - the whine of a gas turbine? Exploding turbine rotors? Pah! This toy could actually melt you.

regards,

Kim Siddorn

Teach a child to be polite and courteous and you create an adult that can't merge a car into faster traffic.

Yeah but think of the toasted marshmallows! :-)

Tom

I did. It bought tears to my eyes.

John

Speaking of rockets ........

Rocket sled zips down Holloman AFB test track at 6,589 mph.

A rail-mounted sled at the Holloman High Speed Test Track hit a top speed of nearly nine times the speed of sound, shattering the old land speed record set at Holloman in 2003 by 136 mph, an Air Force spokesman said early today.

The new record came at about 9:20 p.m. Thursday, as the rocket sled carrying a payload designed by Sandia National Laboratories zipped down the track at

6,589 mph -- 95 mph faster than engineers had anticipated, according to the Virginian-Pilot of Hampton Roads, Va.

"This world record is made possible by the world-class people and technology we have here at the Holloman High Speed Test Track," said Lt. Col. Angie Suplisson, commander of the 846th Test Squadron, in a statement issued shortly after the test.

The classified payload that was being tested for the Navy detonated at the north end of the track after travelling 3.61 miles in about 6 seconds, the Air Force said.

The detonation and the speed of the sled sent multiple sonic booms throughout the Tularosa Basin, according to an Air Force release.

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7:45am 1/31/08 -- Land Speed Record Could Fall in N.M.: Warhead test at Holloman track expected to fire sled at 6,494 mph tonight.

The current land speed record of Mach 8.6 (6,453 mph) was set at the Holloman High Speed Test Track on April 30, 2003, but that is expected to fall tonight when Holloman's 846th Test Squadron fires a sled at 6,494 mph, nearly nine times the speed of sound, in a warhead test for a Navy customer, the Alamogordo Daily News reported.

The track's first such record was set back on Dec. 10, 1954, when Col. John P. Stapp -- the "fastest man on Earth" -- strapped himself to a rocket sled, David Minto, the 846th's technical director, said in a media briefing Wednesday.

Stapp, whose research led to seatbelts, ejection seats and other marvels we now take for granted, was the last person in the United States to undergo high G-force testing, Minto told reporters.

"The Russians continued human testing for a long time afterward, because they used prisoners and they didn't care," said Minto, in a nostalgic look backward at the Cold War.

Minto called Holloman's High Speed Test Track "the world's premier rocket sled track," the Daily News reported.

"We're the fastest, the longest, the straightest 10 miles long," Minto said. "If you want to go over about Mach 3, you have to come here."

Minto said that despite a posted speed limit of 10 times the speed of sound, the test track's theoretical top limit is about Mach 12, but said a major constraint to new records is how much money customers want to spend, the paper reported.

"Nobody wants to buy that many rocket motors," said Minto, who said the six engines to be used in tonight's test cost about $250,000 apiece.