The Rocket Racing League is a proposed racing league that would use rocket powered aircraft. The formation of the league was announced by Granger Whitelaw, and Peter Diamandis, founder of the Ansari X-Prize, on October 3, 2005, in partnership with the Reno Air Races. According to Diamandis, the purpose of the league is to "inspire people of all ages to once again look up into the sky and find inspiration and excitement."
Projected to be an hour a...
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The Rocket Racing League is a proposed racing league that would use rocket powered aircraft. The formation of the league was announced by Granger Whitelaw, and Peter Diamandis, founder of the Ansari X-Prize, on October 3, 2005, in partnership with the Reno Air Races. According to Diamandis, the purpose of the league is to "inspire people of all ages to once again look up into the sky and find inspiration and excitement."
Projected to be an hour and one half in length, the races would be between proposed Rocket Racer planes that use liquid oxygen and either kerosene or ethanol fuel with a burn time of four minutes. The rocketplanes are expected to cost less than US$1 million each. The planes are based on the a fixed-gear Velocity SE modified by XCOR Aerospace and the retractible gear Velocity XL modified by Armadillo Aerospace for the purpose of rocket racing. The Velocity airframe is derived from a commercially-available kit plane that traces its design heritage to the Rutan Long-EZ,...
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