JATO Chevy (NAC) was: MORE POWER

[Beatty, Robert]

Since this thread hasnt died yet... i will add my 2 cents to this urban
legend....

I was in the Air Force for 8 years out at Vandenberg AFB in California.
About 2 years before i got in 97, I got a new Sgt. (Folts) for a boss.  He
had spent 17 years testing rocket motors at Edwards AFB and was quite
familar with the base and rockets ect ect.  We found the darwin awards that
year and it was this legend of the JATO chevy.  When he heard the story, he
thought he might ACTUALLY know the guy.  A few years prior, a new troop had
come into Edwards and was working for Sgt Folts, learning the systems they
tested and repairing/maintaing the facilites for rocket testing.  Apparently
this guy was a complete screwup and messed up everything he touched.
Anyways, this guy got it into his head that since they were at the dry lake,
perhaps the AF would let him try to set some sort of land speed record.
Well after many attempts to get permission, he was finally ordered not to
ask any more as any further attempts would also be not only no but HELL NO!
So supposedly, he gave up on the idea.  Well, fast forward a couple years...
this guy gets out of the service after his 4 years and gets hired by a
government contractor on Edwards doing something similar to what he was
doing in the AF.  Now keep in mind, according to Sgt Folts, Stuff like JATO
rockets for the C130 are fairly easy to get on this base and not really
secured anyplace.  (this i can believe as there are somethings the military
goes all out to protect, like nuclear weapons, but other things are just
left anyplace sometimes)  Anyways we read this Darwin award, and Sgt Folts
starts saying, i bet you i knew this guy and proceeds to tell us the
previous info about this idiot he worked with.  

So in all, i cant say one way or the other if it really happend, but it does
appear we had a moron dumb enough to try and the ability to get a JATO as
well.

Rob



-----Original Message-----
From: RyanWeath at aol.com [mailto:RyanWeath at aol.com]
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2001 10:05 AM
To: quattro at audifans.com
Subject: Re:JATO Chevy (NAC) was: MORE POWER 


Ok since we're so far off Audi content, what the heck. . .

Maybe it was chases like this that inspired the creation of the JATO Chevy 
story. . check out the police chase involving a '95 Chevy Impala SS (LT-1 
corvette engine powered) and see it repeatedly outrun all of the chase 
vehicles and even the news helicopter! hah. . start with the bottom video
and 
work your way up, really requires a broadband connection:

http://www.kfor.com/Global/story.asp?S=230768&nav=1RL5

-Ryan Weatherby
'91 CQ 
(former Impala SS owner, no chases like this though)