THE “OPEL ROCKET CAR”

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 163, 25 June 1928, Page 6

THE “OPEL ROCKET CAR”

Attempts to Establish Records

Jumps Rails and is Smashed

[United Press Assn.—By Cable—Copyright.]

Berlin, June 23. Thousands watched a driverless rocket car of a new type/fitted with wheels for rails, smashed to fragments in the second attempt to make a world record, over a five kilometre stretch of railway between Durgwedei and Celle, Hanover. The only injured thing was a cat, placed in the car to ascertain the effect of the speed pressure on a living being.

The first attempt was most successful, the speed attained being 159 miles an hour. Automatic brakes in the form of rockets shot from the front of the car checked its progress and brought the car to a standstill after two kilometres had been travelled.

More powerful rockets, vertically fired, impelled the car in a second attempt. With a terrific road, amidst sheets of flame and clouds of smoke, it jumped the rail almost immediately, crashed into an embankment and was demolished. The first attempt was most successful. the speed attained being 159 miles an hour. Automatic brakes in the form of rockets shot from the front of the car checked its progress and brought the car to a standstill after two kilometres had been travelled. More powerful rockets, vertically fired, impelled the car in a second attempt. With a terrific roar, amidst sheets of flame and clouds of smoko, it jumped the rail almost immediately, crashed into an embankment and was demolished.

INTENTION BEHIND INVENTION.

TO FLY AT TERRIFIC SPEED. ENCIRCLING GLOBE IN A DAY. The “Opel Rocket Car,” propelled forward by the explosion of rockets placed in the rear of the machine, was demonstrated last month for the first time on the Avus Speedway, Berlin, attaining a speed estimated at 100 miles an hour. Fritz von Opel was at the wheel. The car started with a terrific roar, emitting a sheet of flame and a cloud

of yellow smoke as the successive rockets exploded. The machine gained momentum as one rocket after another all of uniform power, was shot off, the car taking a lunge forward every time a fresh rocket exploded. Von Opel said that the machine was not intended to revolutonise motoring, hut was a practical step toward the solution of the problem of flying at a terrific speed through the highest altitudes of the earth’s atmospheric strata, with tho object of making a flight betwen Europe and America within a few hours or encircling the earth within a day. A motor-driven airplane he said, ceases to be effective at the highest altitudes because of inability to carry a requisite amount of oxygen. This obstacle, he said can be overcome ny the rocket system formula, which he said was discovered in an old Latin manuscript of 1420. Herr von Opel did not try for speed, although he said that during recent trials at Rues-sellsheim-on-the-Main, with a driverless motor-car, a speed of 430 miles per hour was attained for a few seconds.

He is of opinion that there is practically no limit to the speed which could be reached by the new machine, which has the appearance of the irdinary racing car, except that the back part consists of a steel chamber with 12 round openings out of which penetrate the steel pipes from which the rockets are discharged. Fuses are connected with the pipes and are linked up on an auto switchboard. and are controlled from the driver’s seat. The rockets are discharged by means of an electric spark. The drawback to the new invention is that each rocket costs a small fortune.