The Changi Airport Race
I'm not sure how many of you have heard about the Changi Airport Race but over the weekend, there was this publicity stunt where a Porsche Carrera GT3 raced against a B747-200F down the runway (actually the Porsche chickened out and used a taxiway, but let's not be pedantic).
From the start I already knew that the car was going to win. Seriously, anyone with an idea of acceleration, breakaway thrust, and inertia would realise that by the time the huge plane actually got moving, the car would be halfway to Mars. It's like that age-old brain teaser: if there was a 10m race between a man, a speedboat, a car and a plane, who's going to win?
Nevertheless, I had actually considered going down, but like I told mappleleaf, initially I thought that the 747 was going to execute an RTO (essentially that's like an e-brake on the runway) and that was what I wanted to see. So when she told me that the plan was for the plane to takeoff and do a circuit to land, there seemed absolutely no point in going down to watch a race where the result was plainly obvious.
I know this thing is sponsored by Changi Airport, but seriously, who was the guy who came up with the lame-ass idea of getting (of all planes) a B747 to race with the Porsche? Even if you had to get an airliner, isn't it better to use a twin-jet with a higher thrust-to-weight ratio, like the A320 at 0.3272, or the B777-300ER at 0.304? Compare this with the B747 at 0.2575. [All figures are from generic configurations] Did the 747 even execute a standing takeoff? Did they even use full takeoff thrust or was it still on derate?
If you really want to pull off one of these car vs jet races, for goodness sake, do it properly like these guys:
Porsche 911 996 Turbo vs Yamaha R1 vs Soko J-22 Orao
(2 × 5000 lbf thrust on full AB, t/w ratio 0.71)
Bugatti Veyron vs Eurofighter Typhoon
(2 × 20,000 lbf thrust on full AB, t/w ratio 1.16)
In the Veyron vs Typhoon race, it's not just a simple drag race: the car runs down 1 mile to the other end of the runway, turns around and runs back; the jet takes off, flies 1 mile up into the air, pulls a Reverse Half-Cuban into the clouds and comes back to cross the finish line. I think if it were a drag race, with that kind of performance, it'd really just be too easy for the jet.
§ Technorati tags:
darwin award;
driving;
flying
From the start I already knew that the car was going to win. Seriously, anyone with an idea of acceleration, breakaway thrust, and inertia would realise that by the time the huge plane actually got moving, the car would be halfway to Mars. It's like that age-old brain teaser: if there was a 10m race between a man, a speedboat, a car and a plane, who's going to win?
Nevertheless, I had actually considered going down, but like I told mappleleaf, initially I thought that the 747 was going to execute an RTO (essentially that's like an e-brake on the runway) and that was what I wanted to see. So when she told me that the plan was for the plane to takeoff and do a circuit to land, there seemed absolutely no point in going down to watch a race where the result was plainly obvious.
I know this thing is sponsored by Changi Airport, but seriously, who was the guy who came up with the lame-ass idea of getting (of all planes) a B747 to race with the Porsche? Even if you had to get an airliner, isn't it better to use a twin-jet with a higher thrust-to-weight ratio, like the A320 at 0.3272, or the B777-300ER at 0.304? Compare this with the B747 at 0.2575. [All figures are from generic configurations] Did the 747 even execute a standing takeoff? Did they even use full takeoff thrust or was it still on derate?
If you really want to pull off one of these car vs jet races, for goodness sake, do it properly like these guys:
Click to viewPorsche 911 996 Turbo vs Yamaha R1 vs Soko J-22 Orao
(2 × 5000 lbf thrust on full AB, t/w ratio 0.71)
Bugatti Veyron vs Eurofighter Typhoon
(2 × 20,000 lbf thrust on full AB, t/w ratio 1.16)
In the Veyron vs Typhoon race, it's not just a simple drag race: the car runs down 1 mile to the other end of the runway, turns around and runs back; the jet takes off, flies 1 mile up into the air, pulls a Reverse Half-Cuban into the clouds and comes back to cross the finish line. I think if it were a drag race, with that kind of performance, it'd really just be too easy for the jet.
§ Technorati tags:
darwin award;
driving;
flying