Patek a auta, DIY...

[Jaroslav Lukesh]

The winner of this year's Darwin Award:

(As always, awarded posthumously): The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a
pile of smoldering metal embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the
road at the apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane
crash, but it was a car. The type of car was unidentifiable at the scene.
Police investigators finally pieced together the mystery. An amateur rocket
scientist had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take Off,
actually a solid-fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy military transport
planes an extra 'push' for taking off from short airfields. He had driven
his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of
road. He attached the JATO unit to the car, jumped in, got up some speed and
fired off the JATO!

The facts as best could be determined are that the operator of the 1967
Impala hit the JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles from
the crash site. This was established by the scorched and melted asphalt at
that location.

The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum thrust within 5
seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 mph and
continuing at full power for an additional 20 -25 seconds. The driver, and
soon-to-be pilot, would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog
fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, causing him to become
irrelevant for the remainder of the event.

However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles
(15-20 seconds) before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes,
blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface, then
becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the cliff face
at a height of 125 feet, leaving a blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock.
Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable.

Epilogue: It has been calculated that this moron attained a ground speed of
approximately 420-mph, though much of his voyage was not actually on the
ground.

You just couldn't make this stuff up, could you?