I agree, Hour One was very very good. The producers have to hype
things up a little bit for a general audience, which probably
embarrassed our people a little bit, but a great deal of the content was
very interesting.
I gather that Don Vesco uses a helicopter engine because it has
tremendous, controllable, reliable power, so he can run it without much
fear of blow-up, and little or no maintenance, but he has to custom-make
all the gearbox and power-delivery equipment, and this must be difficult
on a limited r & d budget. In other words they have to use their own
judgment about what is strong enough and can stand the stresses
involved, but is not too bulky, and is practical to make. And any
little piece can break and cause a hold-up.
I'm sure we all admire Al Teague's achievements with his home-built car,
which I originally thought used essentially a blown-alcohol NHRA-type
Chrysler-clone hemi, but I have recently been told it uses a small
percentage of nitromethane. The safety, stability and reliability of Al
Teague's car are marvellous and set a wonderful example. Cheers,
ArdunBill
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