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Holloman Air Force Base beats own rail vehicle speed record
A bit of railnews that I think is of interest to the Rantburg audience. Edited for brevity.Holloman Air Force Base's test track in New Mexico bested its own 21-year-old world land-speed record for a rail vehicle early Wednesday. The test, which simulates a warhead, launched a 192-pound payload to evaluate a new system on the test track. An upgrade began in 1997 converted the monorail sled, which held the previous speed records, to a double, narrow-gauge track with the rails 26 inches apart. Preliminary numbers calculated a speed of Mach 8.6, equal to about 6,400 mph or 9,410 feet per second, said Lt. Col. James Jolliffe, 846th Test Squadron commander. The previous record was Mach 8, or 6,122 mph, set on Oct05, 1982. Posted by: Dar 2003-05-07 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=13969 |