A story that has a rocket, a motorcycle, a shed and an engineer close to retirement is worthy of being told in the cinema. What’s more, it would surely be a much more fun, illustrative and different film from what we are seeing on the big screens lately. But the most curious thing is that all this is not science fiction, only science and the protagonist has a first and last name: Graham Sykes.
Thanks to our colleagues at MCN we have learned about this interesting story that begins in 2020 with the idea of Graham Sykes, a 62-year-old engineer who has long been obsessed with developing a vehicle powered by a steam rocket. And that is precisely what is complicated about everything because there is no engine, only superheated water at high pressure to be as fast as possible.
Achieving that, however, is the complicated part. And, as with all rockets, the biggest challenge is to make it work efficiently, in a controlled manner and, on top of that, have the necessary performance. That is why although it is a “shed project” As the Anglo-Saxons say, there is a small team behind all working in the same direction.
In addition to Sykes himself, who is an engineer and also gets on the bike from time to time, there is Phil Wood who is the “official rider”, Jim Dicman, Billy Hudson and Diane, Graham’s wife who in this case is in charge of logistics, finances and on-track support. Between the five of them they have managed to cover stages of the project to achieve the purpose and, the truth is that the process is much more complex than the concept of a steam motorcycle-rocket may suggest.
Getting the rocket motor to work is not easy, but it is pure physics
And first they have to generate the necessary heat, which in this case they do it through a “mother ship” that heats the water using a burner. Then, the heat is transferred to a pressurized tank where there are around 120 liters of water that rises to 250ºC and 580 psi (about 40 atmospheres).
Then comes the fun part and that is when everything is ready, with the water extremely hot and compressed, the pilot presses a button, the valves open and the jet of steam begins to come out, propelling the rocket. Technically what comes out is water, but when it expands directly it becomes steam, which is what accelerates inside the nozzles above the speed of sound and propels the motorcycle.
Bad? There’s no accelerator, there’s no clutch, there’s no transmission… it’s all or nothing. Once the button is pressed there is no turning back. In addition, it consumes about 40 liters of water per second, so the party is over in 2.9 seconds. Of course, what a 2.9 seconds…
Because the performance figures are brutal. They are currently in the fifth evolution of the model that has achieved acceleration from 0 to 18.3 meters in 0.72 seconds, with peak G forces of 6.8. In the eighth of a mile, 201 meters, they achieved a maximum speed of 326 km/h and did so, in a previous version, in 1.96 seconds. The current version achieves this in 3.17.
As we said, as the meters go by things get more complicated, but even so, they have done the 1,000 feet, 305 meters, in 4.53 seconds and the quarter mile, 402 meters, in 5.5039 seconds, being the second fastest motorcycle in history so far. Imagine what it must feel like…
That alone deserves a movie, which could be called “The Real Rocket Man” with the permission of Sir Elton John.
