Remember the thread awhile back about the JATO powered Implala myth? A friend of mine found this online. These are supposedly true stories from police & Fire dept.
"The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded into 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 - actually
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 JATO
ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles from the crash site. This was established 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 mph and continuing at 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. "
