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Turbo Boost - Lets build it into a TA, no really...

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2003 11:14 pm
by Sith
That was a joke by the way.

But, have you ever given thought to how a modern car could perform the Turbo Boost jump?

My version would entail fitting small VTOL engines under the front end of the car, giving it the lift, coupled with the forward velocity contained in the rear, should theoretically result in a fairly smooth turbo boost with landing.

Or has someone got a better solution? Discuss, you know you want to.

*god its 4:13 am* zzz

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 8:09 am
by neps
Wow Sith, I haven't seen you post this much here in well... ever? Glad to see you around more, enjoy that caffeine!

How about some engine in the back and in the middle to lift him up? I guess I kinda always assumed that it was much like a Jet Plane, enough forward force to lift the object off the ground.

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 10:31 am
by Sith
Hehe, I dunno what was in my coffee last night. This post is just... *ahem*

Anyway, yeah, it would have to be some kind of engine. Or... maybe some kind of hovercraft technology... hmmm.

"Damn it Jim, I'm a Sith Lord not a technician" ;)

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 11:07 am
by Michael Pajaro
What about a compressed air system? Those jet engines take an awful lot of fuel, while an air system could be recharged while driving.

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 12:18 pm
by Sith
Thats a cool idea Mike. :)

I was bored so I looked up drag physics etc, and I saw this passage:

Stagnation pressure (the maximum possible pressure) can be achieved within a few degrees of nose up rake angle. This stagnation pressure could result in a lift force of over 4000 lbs at 200 mph. That's over twice what is required to lift a typical car off the ground.

Thus if we forced the nose of the car up about 5 degrees, by Mike's air system if you like, the car would take off under its own power.

The only problem is, the car is likely to then barrel roll through the air.

Bugger. Back to the drawing board.

Any ideas how to stop the back end overtaking the front?

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 12:41 pm
by Knight Racer
I think I would go with the compressed air system.The majority of the air guns would have to be in the front.Or another Idea is to have a set of maybe 3 air guns along each side of the car's underside.Each would fire off seperate and you might just land as kitt would.Nose should go up first,middle next and then nose would come down first to the ground.

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 12:57 pm
by Michael Pajaro
If you place the air jets (or whatever) under the front of the car, then you could try to use the underside of the car as a sort of wing to help generate lift. But since KITT does not have a smooth underbelly, and instead has all those pipes and hoses of a typical car, I don't think that would be very stable.

You could place the air jets in the center of the car, or even by each wheel, shooting straight down. It might not look very graceful, but the car would lift into the air, staying parallel to the ground at all times. It would take a lot more force to get the car airborn, but it could work.

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 12:58 pm
by Michael Pajaro
Oh, or we could borrow the Mach 5 design and just have spring-loaded skis under the car!

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 4:49 pm
by cloudkitt
hahahaha, i don't think they were spring-loaded.

I always pictured one jet nextr to each wheel, and maybe a few in the middle. The front tire ones shot harder to make the nose rise higher and after the car was airborne the back jets would ratate to facing directly backwards. As for landing without killing the nose...I guess the front jets could rotate forward a little causing the car to land more like a plane would.

Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 8:26 pm
by Knicks4973
I would use CO2 packs underneath the front and rear wheels. The fronts and rears would be calibrated so that the car would jump through the air straight and land on all 4 wheels at the same time. This would protect the car from damage since all the weight is evenly distrubuted between all 4 wheels.

The same concept could be used for ski mode. One side would lift and the other would stabalize the car from tipping all the way over.

Jared

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2003 3:47 pm
by Miked
I think there's a simpler solution.

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Look at a Harrier jet, or a hovercraft. They had to build the whole object around the idea, just to make it hover.
"Sustained flight is not my strength!"


Continually holding it up is probably out of the question. But to briefly launch it . . .

I'd take a page from the "Lowrider" culture, and use some serious hydraulics. A huge amount of force, pushing a lighter car than their typical "Hoopty" rides . . .
That way, you would still have a functioning automobile, and you might actually be able to land it safely as well. The landing is a serious issue. Talk to Jack Gill about those jump-landings in production cars. Not fun.

Problem:
The 30-foot-high jumps of the show would probably still be out of reach. You might get 5-6 vertical feet if you're really lucky.

But 6 feet of vert, starting with enough horizontal speed, and you'd do it. It would be at least a Rally-Car-type jump, without any ramp. And you do it in something resembling a production car, that is still at least sort of functional otherwise.

.

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 3:15 am
by KARR 2000
Michael once said:"I have got helium in the tires."
Do you think it would help :?:

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 2:41 pm
by Michael SS-R
Michael Pajaro wrote:If you place the air jets (or whatever) under the front of the car, then you could try to use the underside of the car as a sort of wing to help generate lift. But since KITT does not have a smooth underbelly, and instead has all those pipes and hoses of a typical car, I don't think that would be very stable.

You could place the air jets in the center of the car, or even by each wheel, shooting straight down. It might not look very graceful, but the car would lift into the air, staying parallel to the ground at all times. It would take a lot more force to get the car airborn, but it could work.
Yea I would say thats a great theory I mean they would have to have a retro rocket/air jet system on all corners of the car I would think then that KITT's microprocessor could go ahead and basically "balance" the K2000 in the air as they make their flight with more boost going to the front to keep KITT's attitude level.The nose of most cars are very heavy but im quite sure that Knight Industries made KITT have a 50/50 or even more rearward weight to keep the car from flipping nose first tail over. I bet with the right amount of money and the right people on the project Turbo Boost as seen could be possible.

Also Michael you believe that KITT was not smooth bottomed? Thats interesting I know on some of the turboboost shots it appears that KITT may have a smooth belly like a bellypan. Mabye it was only deployed on Turbo Boosts?? The shots of course were from the model they used not the actual cars..

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 4:43 pm
by Michael Pajaro
Just look at KITT when he's skiing... You can see he has all the typical gears and pipes and rods of a typical car. He looks smooth in some shots because of the use of models during filming, but I don't think we should treat that as canon.

Mike

Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 10:43 pm
by Darknight
The classic question, how to make Turboboost a reality. Well, I've always been a huge fan of compressed air, but hydraulics has its place also. It would be good to have hydraulics for the lower jumps, and compressed air for the higher jumps. Turboboost also had an effect at times of just increasing KITT's speed for short bursts. Having a set of compressed air nozzles pointing out the rear would make that a possibility as well.

The suspension had better be better than state of the art. It has to be soft enough not to jar occupants too hard upon landing, and preferably hard enough to keep KITT from bottoming out. Variable stiffness shocks and springs would be required at least, and all the rest of the suspension would need beefing up as well.

DK

Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2003 9:30 pm
by Army_F_Body
The suspension had better be better than state of the art. It has to be soft enough not to jar occupants too hard upon landing, and preferably hard enough to keep KITT from bottoming out. Variable stiffness shocks and springs would be required at least, and all the rest of the suspension would need beefing up as well.
Molecular bonded sub frame connectors maybe :)

Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2003 10:46 pm
by CB2001
Well, if it were a myth, then those crazy guys on the Discovery Channel's show "Myth Busters" would most likely construct a car with a turbo boost system to see if it works. They took a 63 Impala and added some rockets on it to see if the myth of the Rocket Car was true.

Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 2:29 am
by Miked
(This is a fun debate. But if I'm taking all the fun out of it when I try to shoot-down some ideas, just let me know. I'll shut up!)
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Unless Michael Knight wants to wear a stuntman's "jump harness," the big landing are simply out of the question.
First off, the chassis would have to be seriously stiff/strong, from front to rear. But this would be right in character with KITT, so let's assume he already has it.

A monster-truck or prerunner-truck has 20-30" of suspension travel in the wheels, and those guys can do real jumps. They also have "air bumps", which are special 4" compressed-gas bumpstops for extreme impacts.

But a production car is lucky to get 10" of wheel-travel, with a 1" rubber block for a bumpstop.
No amount of stiffer shocks & springs will help KITT, with only 10" to slow the impact down. It's pure physics at that point; An (unharnessed) human just needs more space, to lessen the G-forces. Even you build the car not to break, the driver will break with only 10". And KITT would look pretty goofy with another 20" of daylight under the chassis.

To fix this, you'd need to slow down the car's landing for the last couple of feet somehow.
Maybe you could build the wheels to hang down 30" just for jumping, somehow. They would retract the rest of the time. That might work.

Another helping thing would be to put some kind of "shock absorber" effect into the driver's seat. It wouldn't give you the 20", but it might give you an extra 5" or so.

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I don't know how you could get compressed air to work. It takes a huge-fanned, purpose-built hovercraft, just to stay a couple of feet off the ground.
And that is with nearly airtight rubber sides to hold in the air pressure.
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Some kind of rocket would stand a better chance of working, I think. I'm not sure how they could ever carry enough fuel & rocket-size to do it, though.

.

Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 7:53 am
by neps
Michael had passive restraint laser system, then end all excuse for why he survived all those times. :D

Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2003 1:17 am
by Miked
Yeah. Definitely an "end-all-excuse."
But even a seatbelt won't do enough. A real jump harness basically hangs your ribcage from the ceiling rollbar, on stiff bungee cords. It's different from the usual 4-point harness that racecar drivers wear.
One of those newer "HANS" devices for the neck probably wouldn't be bad, either.

Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2003 12:45 pm
by knightynight
I was just kinda curious, say we could compress air enough or perhaps have some kind of rocket powered lift, would it be feasible to keep these things running or to turn them on again with a lesser force to slow the rate of descent? I'm not a rocket scientist or anything but this sounds like to me like it would aid in the landing. Would it also be feasible to have various other points that contain smaller versions of this lift (compressed gas or rocket, hey maybe even some sort of ionized gas propellant?) throughout the vehicle that would fire whenever KITT needed them in order to maintain control mid-flight??? Anyways those are my thoughts.

Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2003 10:27 pm
by Darknight
You're thinking of retro rockets, and yes, they would certainly help.
I could've used them on my Olds a time or two. :lol:

DK