Space.com (August 1, 2008)
"A rocket-powered racer will take the skies again for the air show crowd at Oshkosh, Wisc. this weekend, fresh from its public debut on Tuesday.
"Veteran pilot Rick Searfoss piloted the ship — powered by a liquid oxygen and kerosene rocket engine developed by XCOR Aerospace — through a straightforward flight pattern on Tuesday that lasted approximately ten minutes from takeoff to landing.
" 'Everything went exactly as planned, exactly as practiced,' said Granger Whitelaw, co-founder and CEO of the Rocket Racing League. 'It performed exactly as we had laid out for the flight.' "
(From Rocket Racing League, via Space.com, used without permission)
More, form the Rocket Racing League:
"Instead of racing high performance cars around a ground track, the Rocket Racing League® has given birth to racing within a three-dimensional "Raceway in the Sky". The track will be approximately one mile wide, two miles long and one mile high. The raceway will vary in shape and complexity, and consist of gates and obstacles created through a sophisticated avionics package that melds the real world with the virtual, presenting to the pilots and spectators a real-time depiction of the racecourse containing the virtual raceway, navigation metrics and safety aids...."
From what I read in the Space.com article, this is going to be like NASCAR in the sky. Exciting times, these are.
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