Drag boat race - cockpit view

[egneg]

I thought this video was great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7Op6TxUib8

[Ub Hauled]

nice... they are kinda fast aren't they?

[Steven Vaccaro]

What amazed me is how much time it took for the boat to come to a stop after power down.

[egneg]

From what I understand they can deploy a chute if they get in trouble just like a dragster.

[ozzie-crawl]

as far as i understand they come of power slowly to stop the prop acting like a brake, i seen a guy awhile back running a fairly fast rc hydro he had reset his esc and he had switched on the drag brake by mistake, when he come of power the back of the boat jumped that much it flipped

[egneg]

You are right ozzie here is an explanation of the whole process from a friend on a custom paint forum.


all this talk about paintin boats the last few days has brought back a lot of memories so i thought i would show all what i used to do and try my hardest to give you a play by play as to whats going on, this boat has a few different controls then i had but i can pretty much tell ya whats going on by where hes at on the run
:26 start and gauge check
:52 his left thumb pressurizes the air bottle, it does several things, one is fill your mask, two, it charges the air cylinders that hold the capsule shut, and also loads the air shifter for the transmission then with the same thumb he moves down and resets the tach memory so he can tell when to shift then he moves down again to the last button on the left and sets the second set of injectors to the "ready" he wont turn this second set on tell about the 1:00 mark when the motor starts to make all its power at the same time his right thumb is opening up the fuel valve this button is on top of the wheel
:53 his right thumb then moves down to open the first 16 injectors all the way open
1:00 he hits the throttle and you can see the wheel jerk to the left because of the torque of the motor so he starts feed it right wheel to come out of the hole straight, you see at 1:01 hes back to straight for now.....
1:02 his left thumb moves up to push down the ignition advance, this lets the motor make more power when he opens the second set of injectors
1:03 at this point the boat is out of the water and the prop is diggin hard, you have to know give it right wheel to keep going straight cause the prop is tiring to flip the boat over so you turn the rudder into that force.
1:05 he starts to feed the beast with his right thumb back up on the injector switch, it now opens the second set of injectors, you have to hold this button down to keep the injectors open, if for some reason you crashed or the motor blows up you let this button go to slow down the motor so it dont free wheel and have a major explosion! also you can use this to hook the boat back up if you have to, like if it starts to come outa the water, you just let up on it for a instant and let the prop bite again.
at this point you really cant see much when your driving, the force of the going forward so fast and the vibrations of the motor and boat just kinda scramble your eyes for a second and yer brain starts to kinda buzz, from here on out *!***!***!***!** is happening in a hurry!
1:11 at this point the motor is making about 7000 horse power and it trulely feels like some one just punched you right in the heart. The only thing touching the water is the prop, the rudder and the two skags on the sponcins also you see him shift with his left thumb and you can here the motor hesitate for a instant while the trany shifts
1:15 its over and he starts to shut down, he releases the right thumb holding the second set of injectors and with his left thump he kicks the tranny into neutral so if the motor were to explode it would not lock up the prop and make him crash
1:18 he reaches for the drag chute handle in case he needs it
1:20 he shuts off the fuel pump with his right thumb, this also kills the ignition
well all done, now you breath
the noise you here when its slowing down is the tranny gears and prop shaft

If this would have been a race all of that stuff would have happened in less then 5 seconds, but he is just showin what a driver has to do so this really isnt a full speed pass, he maybe went around 180 to maybe 190 mph here, off about 50 or 60 mph from top speed
any ways hope you enjoy and kinda get a feel for what its like

[ozzie-crawl]

thats great egneg, didnt realise just how much goes on in a run

[sjslhill]

Cool video on the U-3 http://www.go3racing.com/