Re: driving onto moving object

[Todd Young <tyoung@wamnet.com>]

Jon Moritz wrote:

> This is for the physicists in the group.
> This was just a weird thought I had last night watching tv.
>
> There was a commercial for a nissan something that drove down a runway
> supposedly at high speed and drove into a moving cargo plane.
>
> Assuming I want to try this in a quattro:
> 1) What would be the effect of leaving the center differential locked or
> unlocked during this stunt?
> 2) What would be the difference in performing this stunt with a rear wheel
> drive vs a front wheel drive or quattro?
>
> you have to get the speed of the drive wheels down to near zero in a split
> second or risk driving through the object you want to drive into.  Using a
> manual vs an auto trans might have and effect on how you try this.
>
> just curious
> I've always wanted to try this stunt since I saw another tv program years
> ago where cars drive into a moving semi.  The cars would then back out of
> the semi however I don't remember if the semi was moving at the time.

 You're weird! :-)
Funny I saw the same commercial during "Babylon 5". You would definitely have
a problem with the quattro center diff locked. The front tires would slow
down considerably once they are on the ramp. Once the front tires are on the
ramp, they would only travel as fast as the car moves up the ramp, whereas
the rear tires would have to be traveling the speed of the whole ramp PLUS
the speed that the car moves up the ramp. The TV program you refer to from
the past sounds like "Knightrider" with the black Trans-Am. If you looked
closely, you would see a lot of black marks from the tires of the car on the
road [multiple takes of the same scene]. When they back the car off the ramp,
the speed difference would scrub the tires, and cause the car to be very
unstable, I think that's why they either didn't show the exact moment the car
cleared the ramp, or else show it doing a 180 degree turn and heading off in
the other direction.

--
Todd Young              WAM!NET Inc.
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