Rocket racer finishes test runs
Posted: Thursday, September 04, 2008 6:44 PM by Alan Boyle
Mike D'Angelo / Rocket Racing League ® |
Click for video: Watch the Armadillo-powered
rocket plane take off for a test flight in Oklahoma.
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The Rocket Racing League says it has successfully finished a series of seven test flights for a new type of racing plane that could someday compete on a "racetrack in the sky." Now it's up to the Federal Aviation Administration to decide whether the rocket-powered craft is ready to show off to the public.
As we first reported a week ago, the Armadillo-powered prototype was put through its paces repeatedly at the Oklahoma Spaceport in Burns Flat.
"We are thrilled to have been selected as the facility of choice by the Rocket Racing League for its initial flight test program," Bill Khourie, executive director of the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority, said in a news release issued today.
Khourie said the flights were "incredibly successful" and ranged up to altitudes "in excess of 12,000 feet."
The league's co-founder and chief executive officer, Granger Whitelaw, was quoted as saying the test campaign validated "our rapid prototyping capability in bringing new and innovative rocket-powered vehicles from concept to flight inside of a six-month development period."
Whitelaw told me the results of the tests would figure in the FAA's decision on granting an experimental airworthiness certificate for future exhibition flights. It's doubtful that decision would come in time for next week's Reno Air Races. However, Whitelaw is already looking ahead to a potential demonstration next month in New Mexico - perhaps in conjunction with the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight or the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.
Whitelaw said he's making plans for still more demonstrations, leading up to what he hopes will be a "televised showcase" for the racing planes next spring or summer. He said the league's racing schedule would begin in earnest in late 2009 or 2010, with rocket racers competing against each other on an aerobatic race course.
Meanwhile, XCOR Aerospace, the California-based company that provided the initial engine for the league's prototype plane, isn't standing still. XCOR spokesman Doug Graham told The Lurio Report that his company is performing the remaining tasks covered under its contract with the league.
"Graham said that XCOR remains ready and willing to supply engines to the league if requested," consultant Charles Lurio wrote in the report, "but for now is concentrating work on the Lynx [suborbital spacecraft] and on fulfilling contracts on the books for other customers. Moreover, the demonstration of the racer at the Oshkosh AirVenture show impressed many, and resulted in a wave of interest and investments in the company."
