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But Does it Run Linux? 218

Posted by michael from the price-does-not-include-life-insurance dept.
tb3 writes: "Here is the ultimate superbike, powered by the diesel turbine engine found in helicopters, the Y2K weighs 460 lbs, and does the 1/4 mile in 9.8 seconds at 160 mph. The US military have expressed interest in using the bike in hostage rescue situations. The downside? They only build 5 a year, and one will set you back $150,000."
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But Does it Run Linux? More

But Does it Run Linux?

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  • I want turbine powered CARS! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Forget the SUV with the big Chevy 454 gas engine, or 6.0L Cummings diesel, jet engines are where it's at. They'll burn lower grade fuel, which'll mean cheaper fuel costs, and best of all, hundreds of moving parts drops to a mere few. This increases reliability. But they don't make that nice sound, which is why Indy banned turbine engines from its races. Seeing a quiet car circle the track was boring (the car would have won if not for transmission problems). Of course, with the oil industry, spare parts industry, and repair industry against it, we won't see street legal turbine cars in out lifetime.

  • Re:Check out the specs! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There are some serious idiots here that are making up crap stating that this bike could be used to pick up hostages.

    Now pay attention, 007.

    This lever here pops out wings and diverts engine power from the rear wheel to a ducted fan. Takeoff speed is 55 knots, acheivable in 30 feet from a standstill. Top airspeed is 200 knots. The wingspan is 17.5 feet, so don't do this in confined spaces.

    This button here - CAREFUL with that, 007 - is a rocket launcher. They're unguided, and don't arm until they're 50 feet away.

    This aerodynamic cover is removable if you need to take a passenger, and a grab bar pops up.

    This helmet-mounted sight controls an machine gun that pops out of the front fairing with this button. Yes, very good, 007 - now use this button over here to retract it. The trigger is on the handlebars here.

    The ignition is wired to these security sensors that only allow you to operate the bike. There is no ignition key. It uses face-recognition software and a retina scan to validate your identity. If anyone else attempts to start the bike, poison needles pop out of the seat, and they die within seconds. Don't wear sunglasses when you start the bike.

    Any questions, 007?

  • That's fast! (Score:5)

    by abischof ( 255 ) <alex&spamcop,net> on Saturday May 19, 2001 @06:35PM (#210741) Homepage
    Just for reference, doing the 1/4 mile in 9.8 seconds is faster than a specially modified 777 horsepower Viper [caranddriver.com] (which took 11.4 seconds). And, to give you an idea about how much horsepower that Viper has, consider that a Honda Accord has 150 horsepower [kbb.com].

    Alex Bischoff
  • Yeah, but if you made a tiny turbine for a bike that could only go 100 mph and needed more gears, you'd have a monster high-efficiency vehicle. Turbines can be optimised to run at the single most efficient speed possible :)
  • You don't want a yahoo driver hitting YOU? You should come around here during the summertime then. All the lunatics on their crotch rockets come out of the wood work. Nothing like happily driving along at 60mph (the speed limit here) just minding your own business when 2 or 3 fuckers on crotch rockets just zoom past you in the passing lane easily doing 120mph. What the HELL are these people thinking? You don't even see them coming since they come up upon you so fast and they're so small. There have been many accidents where these idiots end up crashing and the result is instantaneous death at such high speeds. We had a few last summer. Guy gets a new bike and acts like a fucking idiot and wipes out into a divider wall on the freeway.. instant cream corn. Darwin at its finest. Don't even get me started on the morons who buy a nice quiet motorcycle and feel the need to rip the innards out of their muffler to get that really "cool" noisy sound. You know, the one where if my car sounded like that the cops would impound it and write me a ticket for noise pollution. Bah.
  • Nice to know the damn thing actually works... and it figures Leno has one! My turbo was considerably more garden variety - I had an '82 Yamaha Turbo Seca. Not quite as fast but still made a great sound, and was about $147k cheaper. :-)
  • even "production super cars" will be soundly beaten by bikes that cost a fraction of what they do.

    Bikes like the new Suzi GSXR1000 are extremely fast, 150 odd HP, 170Kg. Sub 10s standing start 1/4 mile times are quite common for big bikes. And even smaller 600cc bikes will hit 13/12/11s times.

    I have an Aprilia RS250, even it shames mid-range ferraris and porsches for acceleration to 60 and 100mph.

    cars are just slow slow slow... even the really fast ones are slow compared to bikes - and you can only ever dream about owning those.

    Bikes: Outrageously fast for very little money.
  • I wish that picture would go away. Nothing to do with motorcycle accidents, but that man bit into a blasting cap during a drinking binge on a dare. This dead horse has been beaten since last summer.
  • Makes me wonder at what point in the drivetrain the 10hp of work is being consumed.

    Makes me wonder how long the clutch lasts before it is consumed.
  • Funny story about that. My Dad and some friends were at an LA biker hangout called The Rock Store when Jay rolled up on his jet-bike. My Dad knows Jay through business so they all went up and checked the thing out. Jay said that it got lots of stares as he drove around the city that day, including one unforunate guy in a shiny new BMW who pulled right up behind him to get a look at the bike. Funny thing was, the exhaust from the jet was so hot that it started melting the front end of the guy's car off! Jay said he tried to motion to the guy but the guy just didn't understand it. Sucks for him :)

    --

  • NOT (Score:2)

    by MushMouth ( 5650 )
    He was born in sept of 47 so he is 53, and funny none of the Maine newspaper/tv station web sites have a thing about this, and King is at God status in Maine.

  • Boo (Score:1)

    by Magus311X ( 5823 )
    Wow. I thought my Ducati 888 SP was fast... wow.
    Um... wow. Uh... damn. Wow.

    Drool bucket please!
    -----
  • Damn straight. *MOST* SUVs are built on a car chassis with a car engine. The bloody Lexus SUV is a *CAMRY* with a big shell!

    There's nothing off-road competent about almost every SUV. Many of them are 2WD, which immediately eliminates them as off-road vehicles; and of the 4WD ones, most of them are run off tiny car engines, and have inadequate suspension and clearance.

    Only silly damn buggers buy SUVs.


    --
  • Let's make a deal, LoRyder!

    We'll string you up by your ankles, with your head three feet above concrete, then cut the line.

    If you survive that without being knocked unconscious, I'll quit wearing my helmet.

    Of course, this isn't a realistic test. For reality, you'd need to be dropped from about five feet, with a moving start of about 25mph (the average crash speed).



    --
  • is this a A-team bike or something? hostage situations and folding bumpers - right ...

    you just burn the bad guys down without hurtin' them :)

    Another drawback (besides the noise) is the enormous heat that billows from the outward-facing slash-cut pipes. "I was sitting at a traffic light," Leno says in slightly hushed tones. "I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw this Infinity car bumper kind of fold in on itself. I thought, 'Oh jeez, let's just pull away from here..."'


    Freaker / TuC
  • Man, that's a great Cliff Yablonski imitation.

    -j

  • As someone who rides a great deal, I can tell you that this bike is really good for one thing and one thing only: straight-line speed. Much more important to any motorcycle is its handling and corner speed.

    Quite correct. Street-legal 250cc two-stroke "GP Replicas", that put out about 70 horsepower and way about 280 pounds, are as fast or faster round a racetrack than 750 cc four-stroke sports bikes, which put out around 170 horsepower but weigh about 400 pounds. The greater corner speed made possible by the lighter-weight bike makes all the difference.

    I'd also point out that somebody's already done better than helicopter turbine power.I remember hearing a story about a nutcase who fitted a 1500 horsepower engine from a WWII-vintage Mosquito fighter-bomber into a road-registered motorcycle. I think I'd be wearing nappies if I ever tried to ride a bike like that :)

    Go you big red fire engine!

  • Chrome on aircooled parts is very bad. It actually holds heat in. Black is better. If you want aircooled with fins and such, get a VW flat four powered Trike.

    Take a look at "true" daily driver VW Beetles in locales where it gets hot and you won't see much chrome on the engine. Some of the part time cruisers will have chrome, but only because they don't have to get home at 5PM during a Southeast US heatwave.

    Chris
  • That gives me a chubby.
  • Bah, that's nothing. A good duet of SD-70m [gmemd.com]s will bring 10,000 tons to 100 km/h (60 mph) in less than 10 minutes.

    And it could run Linux [gmemd.com].

    --

  • Silent?

    I'm no expert on tanks or helicopters, but I think they are in the category "really loud things".

    The gas turbines in jet aircraft are 120+ dB, I doubt the ones in tanks or helicopters are whisper-quite.

  • but not generally by the good guys. bad guys find it quite easy to knock off someone stuck in traffic from a sport bike, which can of course run between traffic and over sidewalks, etc.
  • btw, the reason cars that go fast are impressive is because people don't want to drive a motorcycle. A car is a hell of a lot more comfortable, a hell of a lot more safer, much more immune to driving under adverse conditions, and far more simpler to operate safely than a bike.

    Huh? Motorcycles are for *fun*. Sure, some kids drive them as their only vehicles, like I did when I was at university. But saying a car is a whole lot safer than a motorcycle is like saying an ocean liner is a whole lot safer than a scuba tank. Doesn't help you if what you're interested in is a close-up view of the humuhumunukunukuapua'a (Hawaii's state fish).

    My original reply was to a message that was comparing the performance a motorcycle to a car; I was pointing out that for the purposes of performance comparisons, you have to compare bikes to bikes. Use of the term "lame" was what is known as a rhetorical device (adjusted for /.!) Your prejudice against motorcycles has nothing to do with this discussion. Many sports are dangerous, especially if done irresponsibly, including skiing, climbing, diving, and biking (with or without an engine). If you want total safety, stay in bed and make sure you don't live near a fault line. Oh, and cut back on those fatty foods.

  • Only 0.35 secs faster than a stock Yamaha... (Score:5)

    by alienmole ( 15522 ) on Saturday May 19, 2001 @07:02PM (#210762)
    A Viper?? Cars are lame, slow things. A stock Kawasaki ZX-6R [motorcycle.com] 600cc bike will do the 1/4 mile in 10.937 seconds.

    The Yamaha Yzf-ri [zdnet.com] will do 10.15 seconds.

    There are faster bikes out there, especially if you go custom/turbocharged etc. So this rocket bike is fast, but not *that* fast. And if you've ever done more than about 140mph on a bike, you know that a top end of 250mph is kinda academic.

  • I think you meant Colombia. At least i hope so (note my email address)

    --


  • Why the hell do we need to know if it runs Linux??? Its a motorcycle. We're not interested in uptimes, or how many pages it can serve, or dock it into our desktop and download our PIM. Can't we just enjoy the tech?

    Sometimes I think the /. Linux fetish goes too far.

    Anm
  • The engine used for this motorcycle has probably been de-rated. This is not uncommon for turbine engines. I used to fly Cessna Caravan cargo planes which had de-rated verisons of the trusty old Pratt & Whitney PT-6 engine. The Caravan engine produced 600 SHP while the same engine used on other aircraft was rated to 1200 SHP or more.
  • I think this is the bike that has been discussed recently on the Conan O'Brien show - apparantly Jay Leno has a heavily computerized, top of the line bike that has a "Jet Engine" in it. A guest who had seen it said it was a helecopter engine, and sounds like a jet engine whining up. Conan and the guest both mentioned it smells like it uses jet fuel. They also both mentioned the camera that displays a rear view on a monitor.

    Jay Leno makes enough, and is a bike fanatic (owns several, goes on charity rides), so it very well may be the same bike. It was frustrating me that I couldn't find details.

    --
    Evan

  • Re:Hrm.. (Score:4)

    by KFury ( 19522 ) on Saturday May 19, 2001 @07:58PM (#210767) Homepage
    Dude, don't you watch Dark Angel? You jump the motorcycle through a window, and shoot the terrorists before you land, then you calmly radio in for the troop transport as you unlock the front gate.

    Kevin Fox
    --
  • How're you supposed to rescue a hostage with that then? I mean, you've got a hysterical hostage either paralysed with fear or screaming their nuts off.... You've just blown away four Iraqi terrorists and their mates are coming steaming down the hallway...

    Where the fsck do you put them? You can't throw them in the passenger seat and piss off over the horizon 'cos there isn't a passenger seat. Even if there was a passenger seat you have to explain to them that they have to hold on REAL DAMN TIGHT because in 9.8 seconds time you're going to be a quarter mile away?

    So how does this work then?

    Dave

  • I've actually seen 1/4 mile times faster than this with a stock sport bike. The Yamaha ZX-12R will do mid 9 second runs with a good driver. Sure, it may sound impressive compared to cars, but why would anyone pay $150k for a bike that has about the same performance as a $10k street bike? Other than the novelty of having a turbine powered bike, I don't see the point...
  • ... it runs diesel, right?

  • Not to mention "stump pulling torque" is low-end torque. I don't imagine this bike builds up it's 425 ft/lbs until the upper RPM range.

    --
  • Heh, I linked to a 9.6 sec. rotary earlier.

    I'm quite sure a turbo charged, nitrous RX-7 could be pushed down the track in 8 seconds, but it wouldn't be very streetable.

    The little snippet [haltech.com] I found and linked to mentions that the car can be driven quite calmly. I've seen this same car mentioned another time. Then they were saying that the car was driven to its NHRA licensing trials. They just pulled the slicks out of the hatch swapped the tires around and made the run. Swapped the tires back and drove home. (At least I'm pretty sure it was this same car.)

    Oh well, I like my convertible top too much. Don't race convertibles, you'll just get beaten by a coupe with the same mods. But at least I look good doing it.

    --

  • Re:That's fast! (Score:3)

    by Neon Spiral Injector ( 21234 ) on Saturday May 19, 2001 @07:00PM (#210773)
    Bah, Viper. Big heavy beast of a car.

    A better example would be a car that actually runs the 1/4 mile in about the same time (9.62 sec.).

    How about this RX-7 [haltech.com]. It only has 645 HP. It shows what is comes down to is HP to weight ratio. A motor cycle is going to weigh a lot less than any car. And thus require less HP to have the same ET.

    Anyway, at over 100 MPH I just feel a lot safer enclosed. So, I'll just stick with the extra weight surrounding me.

    --
  • Check out some motorcycle accident statistics - once you factor out drunken untrained operators, the biggest cause of car / bike crashes is "car driver didn't see bike". So, the high beam isn't bad at all if you want to ride a motorcycle and avoid premature death.
    What really gets me is the truck / sport utility drivers who put in extra special high & bright beams...
  • That's almost fast enough to see blueshift in the road in front of you... Brings new meaning to the words "Crotch Rocket".
  • This is cool, but it's not as great as they make out.... doing a 9.8 quarter in a motorcycle isn't the smartest thing to do, and for a third of the price or less you can build a rotary to do 8s... I imagine top fuel dragsters would do it a fair bit faster, no?

    For much less money, I'm sure you could buy a 900cc superbike and throw a turbo or two on it and go crazy :-)


    --Gfunk
  • I'm quite sure a turbo charged, nitrous RX-7 could be pushed down the track in 8 seconds, but it wouldn't be very streetable.

    True, true... However in a rx-2... ;-) Also, you should look into the japanese drag scene, all their cars are street legal. Buy a r34 skyline gt-r (or a supra TT) and send it to top secret with $50k and you've got yourself a street legal machine that would spank a diablo gt-r or this bike all up and down the road :)


    --Gfunk
  • Or for probably much less, get a bone stock Hayabusa or ZX-12R, both of which are capable of high 9s in the 1/4 factory stock.

    True, true... I don't know that much about bikes, so I'm not that good at telling you which bike to buy, but I was just suprised this was news... A chopper engine is pretty sick, but a 9 just isn't newsmaking in a bike....

    Of course, it'd probably run a 15second quarter with my fat ass on it anyway ;-)


    --Gfunk
  • The latest Hennessey project viper will hang with this bike. Not even fully dialed-in and tuned, on a bad day (weather-wise), they turned 9.9 in the 1/4 and 0-60 in 2.43 seconds.

    Comparable price, as well.

  • Isn't NOx produced under the high pressure/high temperature conditions of a piston engine? Won't NOx tend to be less in a turbine?

    The total amount of CO/CO2 will depend upon how much fuel the engine needs...if the gearing on it requires more fuel at 30 MPH than a piston engine, it will emit more carbon.

  • Maybe the purpose of using it in "hostage rescue" is not to take the hostage away, but to get the armed rescuer into position.
  • If you need a turbine-powered SUV, shop for an M1 Abrams [army.mil].
  • you would probably be wrong, as IIRC correctly (I used to be in bikes several years ago, and owned a nice Honda) there was a 1000cc honda that was very close to 200Mph.

    Considering that this thing has double the horsepower of that bike, 50mph more seems fairly feasible...
  • Quoting the quarter mile of other vehicles is like comparing apples to oranges.

    If you knew how a turbine worked, you'd know that it doesn't accelerate like a 'normal' engine - with a turbine, the faster you are going, the faster you accelerate - so it accelerates slowly from the start..

    Comparing the low-end acceleration of a turbine to an internal combustion engine just makes you look foolish.
  • Fastest motorcycle speed (from GuinnessWorldRecords.com)

    OK, very nice, but is it street legal?

    Didn't think so.

    The point is that this bike is street legal.
  • My ZZ-R 1100 (ZX-11 in the USA) used to be able to hit 110mph in third gear from 20mph in about 150 metres. Took a few seconds, IIRC.

    The problem with acceleration beyond 100 on a bike is aerodynamics and the sheer bloody NOISE of the airflow over your lid.

    dave
  • This turbine bike also gives off so much heat that as Jay Leno waited at a stoplight, the exhaust from the bike began to melt the front bumper of the Lexus behind him. Wonder why helicopters always have those "heat waves" where the exhaust is? Take that and put it directly behind the bike. True story.
  • Forgot to mention that if this above mentioned bike is fitted with a turbocharger or supercharger, it will reach 220 mph, only 30 less than the turbine bike.
  • A $10,000 Suzuki Hayabusa, with a 1300cc (1.3L) engine, will do the quarter mile in about 10 seconds, and it runs off of regular gasoline. Top speed: Electronically limited to 186 mph (300kph). Without the limiter, it goes to 195 mph. HP: 160. A cheap bike compared to the turbine bike...
  • Not to mention that we could intimidate the shit out of our enemies: "We overpower you in nuclear weapons, speed, and sheer badassness. Kind of reminds me of Hiro's bike from Snow Crash. Or or Raven's, for that matter, though I don't see a "nuclear sidecar" option on the site.

  • I'd like to see a Kawasaki or a Yamaha go from 0-200 in 15 seconds.

  • That's because it's concealed. Get it?

  • ...can you imagine a BEOWULF CLUSTER of these? That'd be some serious power!

  • I doubt the ones in tanks or helicopters are whisper-quite

    At least compared to piston engined tanks like the M60. It's a steady, high pitched whine compared to some *really* loud chugga-chugga-roar.

    From the front, you hear the clanking treads before you hear the turbine on an M1.

    The exhaust is also clear, which is sorta an advantage over an M60, but the heat put out by the turbine makes these things look like the sun on a thermal scope.

    Eric

  • Here's a bunch of pictures of Jays's bike. (Score:4)

    by marcsiry ( 38594 ) on Saturday May 19, 2001 @10:57PM (#210795) Homepage
    Jay Leno hangs out at a local motorcycle joint I frequent (the Rock Store [rock-store.com].) Last October I happened to be there, digital camera in hand, when Jay pulled up on his turbine bike. I snapped about 30 pictures of Jay and his bike, and wrote up what I heard him say about it. It's here:Leno Lands At the Rock Store [labiker.com]
  • Hey, this just needs to be combined with the story on Slashdot recently about tank treads on trucks and you'd have a motorcycle which could do around 150mph and still be easy on the road!

    LK
  • helioare loud because of their props breaking the sound barrier at their tips.

    Incidentally Chrystlar did this in the late fifties early sixties.

    Quite as hell and faster than gossip. And fuel efficient as a metro.
  • ... on LA Biker [labiker.com]. And it's got celebrity pictures!

    Of course, if it's an insanely rare and expensive motorcycle at the Rock Store, the rider is usually Jay Leno, ...


    The first impression this motorcycle makes is that turbine sound, which exits the engine via twin exhaust pipes as big around as my thigh. ... writers have invariably failed to convey the true intensity of the engines sound- and I'm about to follow that precedent. That's due to the visceral nature of the sound- it tears through you like a buzzsaw.
    A good read and lots more pictures than the parent link.

    cheers,
    mike
  • heheh Rear mirrors are replaced by a ccd, can you say webcast, screw the jenny cam, I want a bike cam.

    But how long at 250 MPH until you run out of cat5?
  • Not to mention "stump pulling torque" is low-end torque. I don't imagine this bike builds up it's 425 ft/lbs until the upper RPM range.

    Excerpt from the linked page:

    Power: 320 hp @ 52,000 rpm (286 hp @ rear wheel)

    Torque: 425 ft lbs @ 2,000 rpm

    Looks like they want to measure torque at the low RPM end.
  • just speculating here.. but maybe they hooked up the turbine to a CVT (continuous variable transmission) which would allow the turbine to keep turning at the same speed, changing the transmission rather than the RPM. It would make sense for a turbine..

    //rdj
  • The point is that this bike is street legal.
    No, the point is that it is turbine-powered. Street-legal, for motorcycles, is largely a matter of having lights, mirrors, and turn signals.

    --
  • I heard a piece on this bike on NPR this morning, and they said that indeed this is the bike that Leno has. They had a short interview with him, and Leno argued that he has something that goes this fast, so that at normal speeds it's well within its zone of performance... riiiight
  • In the bike, the rider is integrated into the aerodynamic profile. He sits fetal position, like in many drag bikes, so he's not sitting up and sucking wind. The bike has been clocked over 200mph, the speed at which the radar guns chickened out, and the speedometer read about 240.

  • On another note... (Score:3)

    by wkr ( 72390 ) on Saturday May 19, 2001 @07:12PM (#210829) Homepage
    Ultimate superbike? Hardly.

    As someone who rides a great deal, I can tell you that this bike is really good for one thing and one thing only: straight-line speed. Much more important to any motorcycle is its handling and corner speed. Modern two-stroke GP bikes raced by the likes of Valentino Rossi in the World GP series are not designed around the engine, they are designed around the chassis. Making the engine so much more powerful than the capabilities of the chassis, suspension, and tires would literally burn up a racer's tires, which obviously isn't too good for handling.

    Simply put, the engine is made the fit the chassis to provide maximum handling and speed through the corners, where it counts. While cool, this bike is basically on the same level as turboed or NOS-ed bikes; I would hate to imagine what would happen if you were to give this beast too much throttle while at full lean...
  • The March 2001 issue of Cycle World has a nice (though short) article about Jay Leno's Y2K. According to the article, is the first "production" version. His version even has a rear mounted camera with an LCD in the dash. Cool.

    Lets pull some nice quotes, shall we ...

    "geared to go 266 mph"
    "noises-scary jet noises-begin to emanate from deep within the bowels of the machine"
    "`At idle, it's making 10 horsepower'"
    "You have an engine that's meant to lift a 10,000-pound helicopter puching a 460-pound bike"
    "4 to 7 mpg"

  • Slashdot, in its attempt to define itself in the post-dotcom-crash era, needs a new icon for its recent direction change toward Popular Mechanics genre articles. An icon of a computer motherboard just won't do. I have some ideas, but do not want to offend Slashdot readers residing in the state of Georgia.

  • There was just a story about these bikes on NPR yesterday [npr.org]. But why have a media blitz for something that 99.9% of Americans can't afford? It's like having commercials for helicopters.

  • A very useful hostage escape vehicle... (Score:5)

    by tonywong ( 96839 ) on Saturday May 19, 2001 @06:31PM (#210839) Homepage
    In case those pesky germans decide to kidnap american soldiers, or if the crazy gun freaks hide out on the salt lake flats.

    Otherwise, I think the kidnappers in columbia would get a little suspicious if rescuers started building a really straight and flat road over the goat-trail towards the hideout.
  • Come on, the bike weighs 460 pounds.

    With rider, that's a 600 pound explosive projectile. Moving at 250mph, how is this not useful in any military situation?

  • Hostage Rescue Situations? (Score:4)

    by Cheshire Cat ( 105171 ) on Saturday May 19, 2001 @06:49PM (#210845) Homepage
    How is the military going to use this for hostage rescue? Are they going to start up some elite force like Megaforce? [imdb.com]
  • Yup, that's the one. He took possession of the first one manufactured earlier this year. There was a pretty nice write up about it in the March Cycleworld, page 28. Some choice quotes:
    Stopping, too, requires a bit of know-how. "You've got a lot of lag, both on and off throttle," Leno explains. "If you shut off at 80 mph, you're still going 80 mph. And you have no compression braking at all, so you learn to brake a half-second earlier than you normally would. Whenever I want to stop, I hit the neutral button, then get on the brakes."
    This is, of course, because the engine doesn't have any natural braking ability at all... When you stop applying throttle, the turbine still keeps freespinning, which means you still get propulsion. Yikes!
    Another drawback (besides the noise) is the enormous heat that billows from the outward-facing slash-cut pipes. "I was sitting at a traffic light," Leno says in slightly hushed tones. "I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw this Infinity car bumper kind of fold in on itself. I thought, 'Oh jeez, let's just pull away from here...' "
    Man, I wish MY bike could do that to cage-drivers! And I wish I had the sick cash Leno has to spend on my moto-habit...
  • What's impressive about this bike isn't the top speed as much as the horsepower. A top-of-the-line CBR gets something like 160HP when you drive it out of the dealership... this bad boy gets 320HP. You can get Hondas and Suzukis that will go this fast, but they won't have as much power behind them.

    This is a bike for CowboyNeal.

    --

  • Someone posts this every story. Don't worry, King is fine.

    Since you seem to be a fan, have you read Dreamcatcher yet? I thought it was pretty good, if a bit odd. I found it interesting how exposure to the Greys makes people's teeth fall out a la Tommyknockers.

    The only King book that I've read that I really didn't enjoy is The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. I was like, "wtf, maybe someone needs to retire?" but Hearts in Atlantis and Dreamcatcher put him back on the right track.

    I'd like to see the next book be another collection of short stories or novellas. Skeleton Crew, Night Shift, Different Seasons, Nightmares and Dreamscapes, and Four Past Midnight are some of my favorite books. Not only do they range from interesting to suspenseful to gruesome to downright weird, but they show how much he's improved over the many years... I mean, early stories like The Reaper's Image are great, but the improvement in his writing since that was written is really noticable. Some of my favorite King short stories are Dolan's Cadillac, Jersalem's Lot (not to be confused with the novel Salem's Lot), and The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet. I'd also like to see another appearance of the men's club that is the setting for The Breathing Method and The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands... that place has such a wonderful atmosphere, it makes me wish it were real (outside of King's world).

    Okay, that's enough offtopic ranting from me. You can tell I like King from how I can rattle off the names of the stories like that. I always keep a few at bedside... they have such excellent "replay" value. :-) I just finished rereading The Stand again, and the exposure to Randall Flagg (he of levitating cowboy boots, clocking down the highway amidst a pack of red-eyed wolves) has me itching to reread Eye of the Dragon in a couple weeks.

    --

  • The spec sheet says it has a one-speed transmission. With a turbine? Do you have to burn rubber every time you start? Or is it like driving the old Porsches, where first was hard to reach and not synchromesh, on the grounds that you don't use it much.

  • Why so special? (Score:3)

    by CBoy ( 129544 ) on Saturday May 19, 2001 @07:00PM (#210867) Homepage
    The Suzuki Habusa performs almost as well for about $12k.

    http://www.hyp4r.com/hayabusa/specs_performance. ht m
  • The interesting thing was that there was very little difference in the lap times - the bike hit higher top speeds on the straights but the car had to slow down much less for the corners.

    No surprises here -- four wide tires gives you a LOT more rubber on the road, and it's a lot easier to recover from a four-wheel drift in a car than from a two-wheel drift on a bike.
  • Umm... considering that even "production" super cars like the McLaren F1 don't even go that fast, I find it hard to believe that a bike, with the additional drag induced by the rider, would be able to top out at 250mph. But, I could be wrong....
  • ...if I stuck a lit stick of dynamite up my butt and called myself the space shuttle. I'd probably get hurt less too, as opposed to flying off this monster at the estimated 250mph...
    ----------
  • Great with this I may be able to get to the store before it closes to get more beer for once.I also may be able to get back before someone starts hitting on my GF.

    And becuase it must be said "And what if we built a beowolf cluster of these?!?"

  • Put machine guns on it ... (Score:3)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Saturday May 19, 2001 @07:49PM (#210895)
    ... with micro-missile launchers, vertical rockets to jump, paint it black, put a nice unknown actor on it and you get this [epguides.com] : the Street Hawk.

    Anybody remember that cheesy mid-eighties serie ? :-)

    "A door is what a dog is perpetually the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash

  • I'd much rather see them one these:
    the big brute [v8motorcycles.com]
    powered by a chevy 350 or 400 cid v8. with a 1:1 high gear and a 2.4 final drive, these suckers can break 200 for sure. AND that's one of the most badass engines ever. The sheer sound of a small block with headers and an exhaust that short will have any potential enemy needing a change of pants.

    ---

  • Re:Hey, It's Jay's Bike! (Score:5)

    by nick_davison ( 217681 ) on Saturday May 19, 2001 @08:06PM (#210899)
    It is Jay's bike. They have an article about it [marineturbine.com] on the site.

    Leno owns the first "production" example-serial number 002-of this unique species. The long, slab-sided machine is the handiwork of Louisiana entrepreneur Ted McIntyre. In simple terms, McIntyre slots an ex-Bell Jet Ranger helicopter Allison Rolls Royce gas turbine into a home-built aluminum chassis, adds controls and a seat pad, then sends you on your way. Price? $150,000.

    My favourite line has to be:
    Another drawback (besides the noise) is the enormous heat that billows from the outward-facing slash-cut pipes. "I was sitting at a traffic light," Leno says in slightly hushed tones. "I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw this Infinity car bumper kind of fold in on itself. I thought, 'Oh jeez, let's just pull away from here..."'

  • Turbines such as those used in helicopters usually produce something more like 3,000 hp. I realize it's using diesel instead of jet fuel, but jet fuel is very similar to diesel (similiarly much harder to ignite than gasoline). Although turbine engines are always sweet for lots of power in tiny space (as long as you can figure out a good transmission/clutching system for them - they're not for operating across wide rpm ranges), this can't really be anything much like a helicopter and/or M1 tank engine. I'm curious what they did about exhaust temperatures. Seeing one of these on the street would be eerie because it must be just about completely silent.

    In the 70's (i think it was), turbine powered tractor trailors were experimented with but deemed unsafe on account of a little problem of pedestrians stepping out into streets in front of them because the things were silent.

  • Re:Check out the specs! (Score:5)

    by DavidBerg ( 240666 ) on Saturday May 19, 2001 @08:21PM (#210912)
    The scary thing is that this bike really isn't that impressive. Other than the fact that it runs using a helicopter engine and that it's basically a jet below your nuts, the performance isn't that good.

    Now, coming from my point of view, and experience, people do not realize how fast motorcycles really are. You can go down to the local Suzuki dealership, hand them 11,000 and get a bike that will do 190-195 out of the box. And by the way, it will do under 10 second 1/4 miles.

    There are people that have bikes that do close to 225-230 top end. My bike, with my fat butt on it, has been radared at 215. I spent a lot less than 250k! I have about 30k invested in mine.

    Now to the true topic at hand. What and the hell does this have to do with Slashdot? There are some serious idiots here that are making up crap stating that this bike could be used to pick up hostages. Hmm, let's see, it only has a room for one person on the bike, so is this a trade? Give you the motorcycle operator and replace them with the hostage? Also, has anyone figured out how long of a road you need to do 200+mph on a road for a minute? In that minute you cover around 3.5 miles. Anyone know of a road straight enough or pothole free enough to maintain that speed?

    Topics like this make me wonder if the intellect of the Slashdot editors and readers is really anything greater than grammer school children.

    Dave
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Fastest motorcycle speed (from GuinnessWorldRecords.com)

    Who: Dave Campos
    When: 14-Jul-1990
    Where: Bonneville Salt Flats, United States
    What: 322.15 mph

    Dave Campos (USA), riding a 7-m. (23-ft.) long streamliner called Easyriders, powered by two 1,500 cc. engines, set an AMA and FIM absolute speed record of 518.45 km./h. (322.15 m.p.h.) at Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, USA, on July 14, 1990.
  • A few years ago, Ben Rosen (yes, that Ben Rosen [marketguide.com]) started Rosen Motors, which was once at www.rosenmotors.com [rosenmotors.com] but that now looks like that URL doesn't belong to him anymore.

    He had nifty ideas for gas-turbine-generator/electric-motor hybrid automobiles with high-RPM flywheel regenerators in the trunk, but, you can guess, it didn't pan out as a feasible place for Ben to bet his future. So he downsized the dream and now makes his way selling some of the most efficient fossil-fuel-burning electrical generators the world has ever known, under the name Capstone Turbine [capstoneturbine.com].

    Google spits out a few gobbets, too:
    Speculation [time.com], speculation [columbia.edu], speculation [cyberdivan.com], and capitulation [crest.org].

    --Blair
  • A hog with a copter engine in it?
    We'll call it a chopper.
  • Generally people like to talk shit about the speeds they run on their bikes. If I had a dollar for every person I know who knows the guy with the fastest bike in Indiana I could buy a Hayabusa and trick the hell out of it.

    That said, anyone who has put 30K into a bike damn well better have some speed. I would think that it would have more to do with quicker 0-100 times than top end though.

  • Like so many other [microsoft.com] companies...
  • Yes, they did. I checked the replay at the NPR site because so many people had been questioning this I thought I might need my hearing tested. They didn't say anything about how they would use it, though.
    -----------------
  • I can't really see how this would help in hostage rescue situations? It seems like it wouldn't really help much. You race in, grab the hostage and race out? Not really.. either way.. I didn't see anything about the military on the site.
  • Will the people who buy this bike still be the stupid idiots that ride around on motorcycles without a helmet, leather, or even denim? If it can do the quarter-mile in oh-point-nothing, imagine how long a red smear you'll make on the highway. Or how quickly the asphault will flay off your skin as you bounce along at 250 MPH.

    Speaking of idiots on motorcycles, why the heck do they insist on having their headlights pointed high enough to blind just about anybody? Blinding me with your headlight isn't the way to keep me from hitting you. But I digress...

  • "So, the high beam isn't bad at all if you want to ride a motorcycle and avoid premature death."

    Note I said "blinded." The instance that comes to mind happened late at night on a very empty and very dark road. When all you see is a very bright light in your face that makes you squint, it's kinda hard to tell if I'm going to pass by it or hit it.

    "What really gets me is the truck / sport utility drivers who put in extra special high & bright beams..."

    Some have an excuse: They go off-road. What amazes me is that, even sitting in the cab of a Dodge Ram 1500, I still find motorcycle headlights pointed at my face...

  • I visted the link, saw the pictures and then thought two things.

    Didn't the guys from that lame movie megaforce ride these? Where are the little wing things that they can go fly with.

    And then it occured to me that they must have hidden the rockets or risk a suit from the ACME company and the coyote.

  • The fact that the speedo read 240mph means absolutely nothing. I have had the pleasure of taking a heavily modified Hayabusa that belonged to a good friend of mine (the late Marty Kane of Dragbike.com) at a hair over 200mph clocked. The speedo read over 210mph. It is a widely known fact among riders that speedos, above a certain range, are wildly inaccurate. Hell, my stage 2 GSXR 750 has read over 180 on the speedo several times, but there's not a chance it goes quite that fast.
    Additionally, it takes a hell of a lot to get a bike to nail those extreme speeds (low 200's). Even top fuel bikes, the fastest drag bikes on the planet, rarely break more than 230 (except for that Spiderman nutbag ;), and they are designed for that purpose alone.
    And for those of you that remember, every bike that's come out has always been 'estimated' at far greater speeds than were actually produced in road tests. Don't hold your breath about this bike hitting 250.
    Still, for someone that has been riding and racing for quite a few years, this certainly is one of the most impressive ideas for a sport bike I've ever seen. :)
    Oh, and by the way, there are plenty of radar guns that register speeds above 200mph.

    [McP]KAAOS

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