Darwin Awards

[John Brewer]

This isn't the least bit EFI related but it is definitely DIY intensive.
This comes to us courtesy of my dad.

>     *     *     *
>     You all know about the Darwin Awards - it's the annual honor given to
>     the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing
>     themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way.  Last years' winner
>     was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled over on
>     top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.
>
>     And this year's nominee is:
>
>     The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal
>     embedded into 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.  The lab
>     finally figured out what is was and what had happened.
>
>     It seems that a guy 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.  Then he attached the JATO
>     unit to his 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 JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles
>     from the crash site.  This was established by the prominent scorched
>     and melted asphalt at that location.  The JATO, if operating properly,
>     would have reached maximum thrust within five seconds, causing the
>     Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 MPH, continuing at full
>     power for an additional 20-25 seconds.  The driver, soon to be pilot,
>     most likely would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for
>     dog-fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, basically causing him
>     to become insignificant 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 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; however, small
>     fragments of bone, teeth and hair were extracted from the crater, and
>     fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of debris
>     believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.
>

John Brewer

______________________________________________________________________
|    Huntsville, Alabama, USA.  Birthplace of the Saturn V Rocket    |
|      and home of NASA George C, Marshall Space Flight Center,      |
|     U.S. Army Missile Command, U.S. Strategic Defence Command,     |
|___________High-Tech Industry Center of the SouthEast.______________|


"Any man who would trade liberty for security deserves neither." -  Ben
Franklin