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From: evans@mhuxt.UUCP (crandall)
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: Jetbelts anyone?
Message-ID: <1105@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 24-Aug-85 21:02:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.1105
Posted: Sat Aug 24 21:02:59 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 13:21:11 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 32

Having been debriefed by friends who went to Oshkosh and having been to a
couple of airshows this Summer my mind has been wandering to some of the
wierder things to fly.

Does anyone know what the current status of the Williams Research Jet Belt
is? Historically Bell Aerospace developed a series of rocket (H2O2 on
platinum) belts in the early to mid 60s. These showed up everywhere -
county fairs (I was in a cub scout troop about 30' away from one when it
flew on what seemed to be more of a column of sound rather than steam),
James Bond movies, Popular Science, etc. They weren't practical with 30
second durations, but this was Buck Rogers. In the late 60s the Army wanted
a manned vehicle that could fly in very tight spaces. Bell mounted a Williams
WR19 turbofan upside down on one a fiberglas corset, attached a large
dual nozzle assembly, fuel tank, mortor deployed parachute (the L/D of one
of these things at 0 thrust is the same as a rock), and flew the thing.
The engine is a very impressive device for the time - it weighed well under
100 pounds, was a turbofan (I can't remember the sfc, but it was much better
than the > 1.0 pound/pound-thrust-hr that is the norm for tiny turbojets),
had twin counter-rotating fans and turbines to take out any torque, and
belted out well over 500 pounds/thrust. The things was flown for awhile
and the rights to all small lift devices (as the military calls them) were
sold to Williams. The last I heard of these things was a report dating from
1975 on the Willaims WASP - a two man turbofan platform with a 700 pound of
thrust variant of the WR19.

Williams is still very much in business (cruise missile engines which tend
to be very exotic and impractical - their bearings are only good for a few
hours), but I haven't heard anything more on the SLDs? Comments?


			Steve Crandall
			ihnp4!mhuxt!evans