Using technology to break sound barrier

Abstract

Craig Breedlove attempted to be the first person to drive through the sound barrier with his jet-powered car, Spirit of America, in the fall of 1996. The car, traveling at about 675 mph, lifted into the air, turned on its side, and made a 2-mile U-turn. Breedlove was not injured, but the car was seriously damaged. Mike Tucker of Rocket Science got Breedlove to agree to have the car's aerodynamics simulated with computational dynamics software. The analysts used a technique known as reverse engineering to create a CAD model of the car. Tucker believes that the interaction between the Spirit of America car and the ground is critical to understanding what happened in the accident.