Laffin-Gas : Blog

David and I went to the Autosport Show, on one of it's 'Trade Days'. As engineers and designers, we are most interested in the Engineering section of the show. That's where we can pick up on ideas, see the latest components and meet people who can be useful to our projects.

A three-page article, about our rocket powered car 'laffin-gas', had just appeared in 'Racecar Engineering' magazine (February edition), so we decided to attend in full team uniform to get maximum attention. David and I, at times, went separate ways in order to investigate as many things as possible for our new car. In previous years I had always attended in anonymous 'civvies' usually a suit with a skirt. I had found that, dressed like that, it was difficult to get the men on the stands to take me seriously or even bother to break off from talking bollocks with their mates to attend to my enquires. This time, in team overalls, and with a much higher profile, I expected things to be different. No chance!!

On one stand, that was promoting it's excellent shock absorbers, I wanted to let them know that the ones we had bought from them for our present car had worked out very well. I also wanted to explore the possibilities for shock absorbers for our new, 400 mph car. There were two men, in company shirts, sitting at a small round table chatting with each other. I went up to them and stood plainly in their line of sight. I was the only other person on their stand. They carried on talking. I waited. They looked at me and carried on talking. I waited a little longer. They carried on talking. At that point I said, in a voice loud enough to be heard over their conversation, "Bollocks to you then". They gave me a quick glance and carried on talking. Needless to say, we won't be using their shock-absorbers on the new car. Would they have done this if I'd been a bloke? I doubt it.

On quite a few stands, that were displaying things of interest to me, I struggled to get attention, and then my enquiries were constantly interrupted by comments like 'What you mean is...' and 'What makes you think this is what you want?'... So I took to having a copy of Racecar Engineering in my hand, open at the article on our car, just to get through the initial barriers and assumptions. In some cases that really helped. In others, the man on the stand would glance at it, not read a single word and start to tell me what kind of a car I was involved with. ' Ah a Top-Fueller' or 'Oh, a Jet-Car' or some other utterly erroneous assumption. Even when I said 'No it's a rocket' they'd tell me it wasn't a rocket and was something else. Me - rocket engineer (and driver) responsible for the only fast rocket powered car presently running anywhere on the planet, him - working for wages on the company stand. Not every man there treated me like an idiot. But most of them did.

As I walked around the engineering part of the show, I noticed almost no women on any of the stands. Oh - except for the numerous eighteen year-old dolly-birds in hot-pants. Where, I wondered, was the beef-cake in hot pants? I'm amazed that an engineering show in the 21st century, should still consider that the only proper role for females is to parade around mostly naked for the gratification of its customers.

I'm no rabid feminist, but this all really got me rather pissed off. No wonder I can't get sponsorship or be taken seriously by industry and government sponsored motorsport organisations. The motorsport industry is utterly and overtly chauvinist. The very fact that there is a need for a 'British Women Racing Drivers Association' proves the matter.

Here am I, responsible for the most radical and innovative vehicle to be produced in years, developing entirely new technology and being utterly ignored by most of the thousands of blokes in grey suits.

I'm sure that, when presented with this little diatribe, the powers-that-be in all the Motorsport Associations will deny these claims vigourously, point at the odd token woman, and say that they go out of their way to be inclusive. That reminds me of the Met denying the charge of 'Institutional Racism' following the death of Stephen Lawrence. Discrimination against women is utterly endemic throughout motorsport. It is so deeply ingrained that it the sport is not even conscious of this fact.

Wake up guys- there are more females than males getting engineering degrees these days. Of, course, the women will still struggle to be taken seriously by this male dominated industry, but in another generation, you guys may actually have to be good at what you do in order to keep your jobs.

If you want a copy of Charles Armstrong-Wilson's excellent article, send us aail - don't forget to include your eturn address in the body of your message.

We finished the season, after a successful series of tests at Sywell Aerodrome, with an aborted attempt at a high-speed run. 30 -40 mph cross-winds meant a quick return to base.

Laffin-gas is sitting out there staring back at us, ready to go. In previous off-seasons we've had lots to do on the car. This time - nothing. Nothing to change, nothing to develop. Nothing to do!

Boredom is a hard mistress. So we started on designing the next car. We always new that 'laffin-gas' would lead to building the definitive Nitrous Hybrid Rocket car. The new one, (designated right now as 'R2') takes all we've learned and applies it. She's going to look very different. A Champ-Car tub at the front, seating the pilot much further forward, and a much longer back-chassis. This one is getting six bio-fuel rockets with horizontal accumulators to hold the gasses for up to a 12 second burn. She'll weigh just a little more than 'laffin-gas' and she'll be almost exact;y the same length, which is a good thing as that means she'll fit in the bus.

About seven months ago Charles Armstrong-Wilson called and asked if he could do an article on our endeavours. He showed up, interviewed and questioned like crazy, took loads of pics and off he went. We'd almost forgotten all about it. Then - hey-presto! The article (now a little out of date) appears in Racecar Engineering. The Autopsort Show Edition, no less. Sometimes the sun does shine!

We've opened up a Facebook thing called 'Fans of laffin gas'. We're sharing the design challenges for R2, and inviting input from anyone who wants to get involved. Lot's of interesting problems to solve. There's a side-on sketch of what she's going to look like on there.

See you all at the track with R1, when it gets quite a bit warmer!!

Lot’s to talk about – I’ll keep it as brief as I can:

First, this bloody website! When it was commissioned (we did a deal in exchange for prominent promotional position on the car), the brief was to make it easy to update and to be able to upload pictures and new text from our own computer. This brief was totally ignored by the designer. We can’t do a thing with it. The result is that this website is now hopelessly out of date and it’s become an embarrassment. We are hoping, over the off-season, to delete the whole thing and start again. We could do with some help on this – any offers?

After two years of struggling to fit fuel systems into a very restricted area of the car, we decided to cut her in half, just forward of the rocket mounts, and insert an extra 1/2 metre into the rails. We’re very pleased with the result. It has enabled us to improve flow-paths, make the car much easier to work on in the pits and allows space for any future changes.

We tried for two further tests up at Sywell at the end of the season, but really strong cross-winds made them impossible. Then the weather and daylight closed in and that was that for the season.

We did take the car down to The University of Hertfordshire a few weeks ago, to show it to their Automotive and Aerospace Engineering students and staff. This was the result of an invitation from Senior Lecturer, Ray Wilkinson, who also operates a well equipped rocket-testing lab at the campus. It was a very productive day and we struck up a very good rapport with the University. The plan is for them to get involved in some testing and development of the rockets. The results of these tests will go into the car in the spring and the effort is to get some really quick runs out of her.

The piston accumulators have been a great success. As we start designing the next car, which will make full use of everything generated from the experimental car we now operate. The accumulator technology now means that everything can lie flat in the car, with straight-line flow-paths from pressure vessels to the rockets.

The cockpit is already together. It’s a brand new Champ Car carbon-fibre ‘tub’ which is built like the proverbial brick ****house! This puts the driver much further forward in the car, with a much longer rear-section, to accommodate the fully horizontal layout. Champ-Car tubs are much bigger than F1 tubs, so the cross-section behind the tub is big enough to fit six rocket systems in, without anything sticking out into the airflow. So six rockets it will be.

We are in preliminary discussion with Herts University to co-operate on the design and build of the car. There are many challenges to overcome, especially running-gear design, which they are ideally equipped to solve.

We’ll be continuing discussion over the next month or so, and then, hopefully, there will be an announcement as to what we aim to accomplish with the six-rocket car.

So that’s where we’re at right now. Roll-on Spring!!

A few months ago, a guy called Tony Lovering got in touch. He wanted to build a rocket-powered radio-controlled model car and was interested in using Nitrous Hybrid technology. He wanted to know if we would be willing to give him some tips to help him on his way. After a good conversation on the phone, we invited Tony to come and see our car and we offered to share the things we had learned and developed for the full-sized manned car that we operate. Tony arrived and we went over the whole project, showing Tony all the bits and pieces involved.

Yesterday, Sunday 13th September, Tony ran his Hybrid Rocket powered car, ‘BLACK KNIGHT’ at the ROSSA UK Speed Championships, held at Shakespeare County Raceway.
(ROSSA: Radio Operated Scale Speed Association).

The ‘BLACK KNIGHT’ achieved a terminal speed of 163.58mph! Rocket powered cars represent a new class for ROSSA, but, having reviewed the ROSSA records, this represents a NEW OUTRIGHT WORLD RECORD for any radio controlled scale vehicle!

We say to Tony: ‘Bloody Well Done’.

Over the months, Tony has been building a single rocket, scaled-down version of our rockets and piston accumulator technology, with a series of trials and tests taking place along the way. After each test, we discussed the results and tried to help out by imparting what we know. Tony had a few failures, but he learned from each test, and his perseverance paid off last Saturday with a spectacular run.

The video of that run can be seen on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYujWn9WNXQ

Tony very kindly sent us an email on the same day:

Thanks for all your help. As you can see from the video there is much more to come

Thanks again

Tony

Tony, you’re very welcome.

This weekend (Saturday 12th September), the car will be on display at Sywell in support of ‘Young Aviators’ Day’. As it has always been part of our mission to get young people interested in engineering and related stuff, we are very happy to be taking part

For over two years, I’ve been threatening to cut the car in half! As our understanding has developed and systems have evolved, the space around the throttles and valves in the chassis has become very crowded. After the last test, we stripped out most of those systems for a general overhaul and clean-up. With rockets out and the chassis sitting bare, we decided that the time for radical surgery had arrived.

The plan was to add half a metre to the area of the chassis where all the ‘worky-bits’ are situated. With the car on stands, leveled and ready, David picked up the cutting tool and prepared to go for it. At that moment, there was a bright flash of lightening and an instant, shattering clap of thunder – no really - a big thunderstorm kicked off right overhead! Apocalyptic eh?

We’ve put in a new triangulated section of chromolly steel, adding just under half a metre. John Shakeshaft brought his mobile equipment and tig-welded the whole thing back together as strong as ever.

Then we had to replace or extend all the control connections, as everything was now too short. Throttle cables, electrical connections, ‘chute cables, brake lines all had to be done. Suffice to say, the job is finished and she’s back in one piece, looking a lot longer!

The extra space has allowed us to re-position the pressure vessels much lower in the chassis, adding to stability and safety and greatly improving the general looks of the car.

Geoff Caswell of ‘Caswell Engineering’ and ‘Flexrite/Chemgine’ is supplying us with all new stainless and PTFE double-braided hosing and connections as well as other 316 stainless fittings to improve the flows and safety of the systems. This is a huge help, as these are the absolute best you can get, and the most expensive!

A rumour has circulated back to us (as they always eventually do) that we blew up a rocket at our last test. We didn’t. In fact we damaged nothing of any importance as the safety systems did the job they were designed to do.

As soon as the new kit from CASWELL is in the car, we’ll be back out. I'll keep you all posted.