I'm in Savannah for my last co-op rotation and I find out that one of the guys who works there full time has a 200+ mph bike. I come to find out that this thing is actually more of a jet engine on wheels than a motorcycle. From what the driver and owner of the bike tells me, the bike weighs ~400lbs without fuel and rider and has a maximum thrust of 14000 lbs, with afterburners he has gotten 18000 lbs of thrust

Here are the pics I took when I got to witness a test run, I've never been so close to a jet engine before and when he dumps fuel into the exhaust to create a fire ball (for show) it almost knocked the breath out of me.

Here is the bike naked without its aerodynamic shroud.

First of all, I was extremely concerned that this chain would snap and the bike runs straight into his house....but since he wasn't concerned I didn't say anything
The air hose is a 200psi hose used to start the engine, once then engine reaches 10% thenit can sustain itself.

The rider's assistant is practicing how to start the bike since they have now removed the Fuel management Unit.


Here is a shot of the bike in action, notice how red the exhaust gets, it turned white later on but don't have a picture.


I took videos but I can get them off of my phone But his website is http://www.ballisticeagle.com/ and he has plenty more info there.

and lastly as an interesting fact:
The engine is from a UAV drone and only has an operating life of 10Hrs. After that he has to obtain a whole new engine!

 

How is everyone around there remaining calm? I'd be pissing my pants.

 

Lol, I was thinking that too but since they all seemed like they know what they're doing I wasn't really too concerned either. Although w/o the Fuel management Unit he could have literally blown up the engine without warning....

 

and that would be where the fun begins esp if a blade was to crack and come outside of the engine casing. There is nothing to stop that like on a commercial engine.

My father has worked on some of the smaller limited life engines for these projects and most of the time its the bearings that seize and hearing one on a test bench just about made me go deaf

 

Looks scary more than fun! Where did the 14,000 number come from? That would be one hell of a lot of thrust from such a small motor. A GE F404 engine produces about that kind of thrust and a pair of them power an F18. They also weigh in at nearly 2300lb each. Are you sure the number wasn't 1,400lb?

Even with 1,400lb of thrust that bike would really scare me!

 

Was this thing ever dynoed?

 

Yeah, it sucked. It only put down 0 rwhp for some reason

 

widow maker.

 

haha.


Its not a jet engine though, its turbine correct?

 

So this is good for going really fast in a straight line?