"Mad Mike" Hughes' last ride....

[Steve Helmick]

Mike was trying to prove the Earth was flat, but had a problem with his rocket and crashed. No Bueno.  Steve

https://www.washingtonpost.com/scien...e-hughes-dead/

[Brett Buck]

Mike was trying to prove the Earth was flat, but had a problem with his rocket and crashed. No Bueno.

  Chief engineer: Gary Weaver

[wwwarbird]

  Chief engineer: Gary Weaver

 I watched the video from yesterday, I thought it might have been Barney Rubble. 

[Air Ministry .]

" Mike was trying to prove the Earth was flat, but had a problem with his rocket and crashed. "

He Couldve gone over the edge if it kept going .

[Steve Helmick]

  Chief engineer: Gary Weaver

Gary moved to somewhere around Phoenix, AZ, IIRC. Not sure where "Mad Mike" resided, but I guess it's entirely possible that they teamed up. Not that far from AZ to Barstow, anyway. Do you suppose California (or the FAA) issued a permit for the fatal ride?  Steve 

[Brett Buck]

Gary moved to somewhere around Phoenix, AZ, IIRC. Not sure where "Mad Mike" resided, but I guess it's entirely possible that they teamed up. Not that far from AZ to Barstow, anyway. Do you suppose California (or the FAA) issued a permit for the fatal ride?  Steve

     I think he said he was moving back to Tennessee. Shortly after he enquired about (and failed) to devise a system to stabilize a "model airplane" what would fly for several hundred miles in a straight line. Think about that one for a minute....

The FAA did not issue a permit for Mad Mike, but I am not sure that they have to. Mad Mike was at least somehow associated with some Australian production of the Discovery channel, although he would have probably tried it anyway.

    Brett

[Dave Hull]

So let me get this straight:  you can't see, understand, or accept the basic scientific proof that the earth is round? And so, based on that brilliant use (waste?) of brain cells, you decide that (a) you are smart enough and sufficiently scientifically inclined to attempt to design a flying machine, a rocket of all things; and (b) you are so convinced of your internal infallibility that perhaps 7 billion people are wrong, and 23 guys, most of whom live in Barstow(?) are right and you think nothing of strapping your body to the machine. You are infallible. What could go wrong?

Or, are these flat earth clowns just looking for attention. Contrarian just for the purpose of making their life meaningful (in Barstow?).

If so, you don't have to risk your life to talk long, loud, and irrationally about a planer planet. Just move your lips. Oh wait, no one wants to hear how quaint you are any more? So you gotta risk blowing yourself up to garner any listeners? You'd sell your soul to be on TV? You'd finally be somebody? Sad.

Darwinian, but he probably already had kids. Hopefully brain damage is not genetically propagated.

Or maybe he is laughing in heaven right now, at what he must consider the best "con" of his life. At least, a con for the other 22 remaining flat-earthers (in Barstow.)

R.I.P. crazy dude

[Brad LaPointe]

Yeah the early leader for this years Darwin awards .

Brad

[mike londke]

     I think he said he was moving back to Tennessee. Shortly after he enquired about (and failed) to devise a system to stabilize a "model airplane" what would fly for several hundred miles in a straight line. Think about that one for a minute....

The FAA did not issue a permit for Mad Mike, but I am not sure that they have to. Mad Mike was at least somehow associated with some Australian production of the Discovery channel, although he would have probably tried it anyway.

    Brett

He's back here in TN. He listed a bunch of combat equipment on Stuka Stunt a while ago. I offered to buy it all, even to pick it up. I posted at couple of replies and PM'd him several times. I heard nothing back. He lives 20 minutes from me and he's never flown with us despite many invitations.

[Brett Buck]

So let me get this straight:  you can't see, understand, or accept the basic scientific proof that the earth is round? And so, based on that brilliant use (waste?) of brain cells, you decide that (a) you are smart enough and sufficiently scientifically inclined to attempt to design a flying machine, a rocket of all things; and (b) you are so convinced of your internal infallibility that perhaps 7 billion people are wrong, and 23 guys, most of whom live in Barstow(?) are right and you think nothing of strapping your body to the machine. You are infallible. What could go wrong?

Or, are these flat earth clowns just looking for attention. Contrarian just for the purpose of making their life meaningful (in Barstow?).

If so, you don't have to risk your life to talk long, loud, and irrationally about a planer planet. Just move your lips. Oh wait, no one wants to hear how quaint you are any more? So you gotta risk blowing yourself up to garner any listeners? You'd sell your soul to be on TV? You'd finally be somebody? Sad.

Darwinian, but he probably already had kids. Hopefully brain damage is not genetically propagated.

Or maybe he is laughing in heaven right now, at what he must consider the best "con" of his life. At least, a con for the other 22 remaining flat-earthers (in Barstow.)

   Apparently he was trying to fund his rocket experiments long before he was involved with the "Flat Earth" people. The general consensus I have heard was that he was scamming the flat-earthers (and now the discovery channel) for the money, but also had a grasp on reality that was just as tenuous as Lawn Chair Larry and others before him.

   I would also note that a lot of the "flat-eathers" don't actually believe that the earth is flat, any more than the Church of the Sub Genius believes that J. R. "Bob" Dobbs is the manifestation of a supreme being who has mastered the art of "slack". The history of flat-earthers is so convoluted that even I get a headache trying to figure it out, so I won't try. Most of them do it strictly as contrarians, some do it for their epically ridiculous YouTube videos, some are so convinced that everything "the man" tells you is a lie, even the stuff that doesn't matter, that reality means something very different to them than it does for you.

    They're classic cranks, you can't expect to try to figure them out or make sense of it. 

     Brett

[Brett Buck]

He's back here in TN. He listed a bunch of combat equipment on Stuka Stunt a while ago. I offered to buy it all, even to pick it up. I posted at couple of replies and PM'd him several times. I heard nothing back. He lives 20 minutes from me and he's never flown with us despite many invitations.

   Some of the stuff he did was pretty impressive, but that doesn't surprise me at all. Face it, we are all pretty nutty to one degree or another, so someone has to be out at the 6-sigma level.

   It all seemed harmlessly nutty until he said he was dissolving ammonium perchlorate in buckets of methanol, or something like that, just to supersaturate it with acetylene. If you hear a large explosion, Port Chicago or Oklahoma City-sized, that's why.

     Brett

[Brent Williams]

Whoa!

[Terrence Durrill]

              I thought Mini-Mike Bloomberg was "Mad Mike" ............. oh well, live and learn !                             

[Chris McMillin]

No ejection/extraction seat? I wonder how the chutes were rigged? No back ups is never a good way to operate something that gets you higher than 20 feet. It wasn't like he was going to belly it in if something went wrong!
Chris...

[Brett Buck]

No ejection/extraction seat? I wonder how the chutes were rigged? No back ups is never a good way to operate something that gets you higher than 20 feet. It wasn't like he was going to belly it in if something went wrong!
Chris...

  It appeared to be almost the same issue that Bob Truax had with the Evel Knievel "Skycycle" and generally similar technology (steam rocket, rear-ejection chute). The Skycycle also dumped the main chute due to launch acceleration, but there was a backup.

   Ejector seat? Ejector lawn chair, maybe. The Sky Cycle could have worked (and did, when replicated) and Truax, while not my #1 rocket science hero, knew enough about it to get most of it right, one test flight would have resolved the issue. Mad Mike, no way. Plus, there's no way to know if it would have been sufficient to handle a nose-down landing without hurting/killing him even if it worked as planned.

   Getting parachutes to reliably deploy is a non-trivial problem, it plagues model rocketry, particularly HPR, by far the least reliable part of the system.

    Brett

[GERALD WIMMER]

Hello The set up also reminded me of the  steam powered Skycycle X2 flown by Evel Knievel back in 1974 and the chute failure which according to wiki says:

"A later analysis showed that a design flaw in a mechanical parachute retention cover, which did not properly take base drag into account, caused the premature parachute deployment. Following the failed jump, Truax blamed Knievel for the failure and vice versa. Later, Truax accepted full responsibility for the failure"


I presume base drag was the launch ramp rubbing on the cover?

At least Eddie Braun recreated the Skycycle X2 and successfully completed the stunt/flight over Snake River Canyon in 2016

Regards Gerald

[Chris McMillin]

  It appeared to be almost the same issue that Bob Truax had with the Evel Knievel "Skycycle" and generally similar technology (steam rocket, rear-ejection chute). The Skycycle also dumped the main chute due to launch acceleration, but there was a backup.

   Ejector seat? Ejector lawn chair, maybe. The Sky Cycle could have worked (and did, when replicated) and Truax, while not my #1 rocket science hero, knew enough about it to get most of it right, one test flight would have resolved the issue. Mad Mike, no way. Plus, there's no way to know if it would have been sufficient to handle a nose-down landing without hurting/killing him even if it worked as planned.

   Getting parachutes to reliably deploy is a non-trivial problem, it plagues model rocketry, particularly HPR, by far the least reliable part of the system.

    Brett

Thanks Brett,
Oh man, your expertise in the field makes the whole thing sound sketchy when you say there was a question of him living if it all went to plan!
The ballistic period is where I thought he could get out, the vertical dive part looked pretty spooky and forces got high fast.
Interesting about recovery chutes being the least reliable part of the rocket models. I wouldn't have thought that.
Chris...

[Richard Entwhistle 823412]

The "A+" ride at Disneyland for sure. "The chute should be coming out any secon"


Richard

[Norm Faith Jr.]

  Chief engineer: Gary Weaver

Hey Brett, I was trying to remember that guy's name (Gary Weaver) the other day. Wonder where he's been? He sure came up with "some stuff." 
Norm ...Ah! Just saw that he might be back in TN.

[Brett Buck]

I presume base drag was the launch ramp rubbing on the cover?

  No, "base drag" in a rocket is the drag caused by the flat base of the rocket, as air rushes past, it creates an area of low pressure, with recirculation. On atmospheric rockets, it's typically a very significant factor in the performance, maybe 20-30% of the total drag*.

 I am skeptical of that explanation, from Truax, because the cover blew off before it even got to the end of the ramp. Maybe, the entrained air caused enough local pressure drop to cause a similar effect, but normally its a function of the rocket airspeed VS the base pressure rise from the exhaust, so you would expect it to be higher the faster it was going, not right off the pad. The rear closure clearly failed almost immediately, but it looked like it was just from acceleration, like they either got it WAY wrong on the load analysis, or, it wasn't properly latched (however they latched it). Of course, we all watched it live, and I and my rocket buddies knew *immediately* that it was going to have a problem.

    Brett

*This is odd, base drag came up in another context (FAI) just the other day - base drag is the reason that it's extraordinarily difficult for US modelers to be successful in FAI spacemodeling. It's more-or-less rigged for the Eastern Europeans, primarily because they have access to engines with somewhat smaller diameters for a given impulse. These engines are about .4" in diameter and not available in the USA legally.  Estes and Apogee mini-engines (available in the USA) are 1/2" diameter. This alone would make them uncompetitive because even 1/10" difference in the diameter is enough to cause the base drag to be much higher, crippling the performance  - .196 square inches VS .126. There's a little more to it, but that would be enough.

   How would you like to compete in a world championship with models you built, and shipped across to Romania, without having any way to test fly them first, or in fact, have never seen the engine you were going to use? They do pretty good, even with that sort of handicap.

     

[Dan McEntee]

  I was waiting for someone to draw the parallel to Evil Knevel's Snake River jump. As I remember it, Knevel had to hold onto a lever that actuated the parachute, in the event he was incapacitated in some way, he would let go of the lever and the chute would deploy. When they were interviewing him after the jump, I remember him saying that he underestimated the forces during launch and lost his grip on the lever. I remember the back and forth between him and Truax. I don't remember anything about the guy that recreated the jump, I'll have to check that out. looking at the Mad Mike video, it looked like something caused a lot of drag as it left the launch rail. It didn't seem to be going very fast at first and veered off to the right, then accelerated. I wonder if he was even conscious at the time. I do remember him during his limousine jumping days, though. Sad ending any way you look at it.
  Type at you later,
  Dan McEntee

[Brett Buck]

Hey Brett, I was trying to remember that guy's name (Gary Weaver) the other day. Wonder where he's been? He sure came up with "some stuff."

   As above, he was an interesting guy, and he wasn't just some dummy. He showed some NACA/NASA papers he read when he was doing the Dynajet stuff, and it looked like he more-or-less understood them, on some level. So he had apparently had no on-topic education or knowledge, but he could research things and learn from it, which means he wasn't stupid. He accomplished some interesting things. And he wasn't obnoxious, unlike some of our more obvious examples.

  Maybe closer to a "crank", but even then, most cranks are also insufferable, and I never found him that way.  I have to admit I am fascinated with guys like him. However, I would probably prefer not to have him as a next-door neighbor.

    Brett

[Steve Fitton]

The difficulty recovering rockets has a non linear increase in difficulty as size and mass increases.  The rule of thumb for me was that up to 4 inches in diameter was *pretty easy* bigger than that became exponentially harder, and a recovery with no damage at all the exception.  Large rockets require electronics to sense apogee and release drogues and mains in sequence.

This was the second manned flight for Mike.  The first had a survivable recovery but he found that 20 FPS under a parachute was a BIG hit on landing and he spent some time in hospital.  The accident vehicle supposedly had improvements that clearly were not tested beforehand.

[Norm Faith Jr.]

   As above, he was an interesting guy, and he wasn't just some dummy. He showed some NACA/NASA papers he read when he was doing the Dynajet stuff, and it looked like he more-or-less understood them, on some level. So he had apparently had no on-topic education or knowledge, but he could research things and learn from it, which means he wasn't stupid. He accomplished some interesting things. And he wasn't obnoxious, unlike some of our more obvious examples.

  Maybe closer to a "crank", but even then, most cranks are also insufferable, and I never found him that way.  I have to admit I am fascinated with guys like him. However, I would probably prefer not to have him as a next-door neighbor.

    Brett

I remember the so called go-kart (or "air-kart") he made as a kid, he had pictures too...I believed it had a type of lawn mower engine and a prop he carved from a 2X4. I guess I enjoyed his posts, because in my youth, I did similar things that I was lucky not to of been killed, seriously injured, or arrested. My vertical take-off TD.049 rocket ship or my home made soldering gun. "Scary moments" for the neighbors and my Dad.