The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal
embeddedinto the side of a cliff rising above the road at the
apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane
crash, but it was a car.The type of car was unidentifiable at
the scene. The lab finally figured out what it was and what had happened.
It seems that a guy had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet
Assisted Take Off, or a solid fuel rocket) that is used to give
heavy military transport planes an extra "push" for taking off
from short airfields. He had driven his Chevy Impala out into
the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. Then he
attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got up some speed
and fired off the JATO! The facts as best as could be determined are that the operator
of the 1967 Impala hit the JATO ignition at a distance of
approximately 3.0 miles from the crash site. This was
determined by the prominent scorched and melted asphalt at that
location. The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached
maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach
speeds well in excess of 350 miles per hour and continuing full
power for an additional 20-25 seconds. The driver, soon to be
pilot, most likely would have experienced G-forces usually
reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners,
basically causing him to become insignificant for the remainder
of the event. However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for
about 2.5 miles (15-20) seconds before the driver applied and
completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving
thick rubber marks on the road surface, then becoming airborne
for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the cliff face at a
height of 125 feet leaving a blackened crater 3 feet deep in
the rock. Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable; however,
small fragments of bone, teeth and hair were extracted from the
crater and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece
of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel. Now, I've got a Citroen Xantia TurboDiesel.......