1993-1996

The 'Boost Palouste' motorcycle was the first manned application for my propulsive engines and led to my land speed record attempt motorcycle. Built as a research and development motorcycle to try out the concept of using a turbine as a sustaining jet motor with rocket boosters. I converted a Rolls Royce Palouste turbine turbo compressor into a unique turbojet by feeding the compressor bleed into a separate "superburner" which could be run at 35PSIG & 1400 C. This in addition to the main jet exhaust yielded fairly respectable performance. I made considerable effort to also lighten the engine finally achieving >2:1 thrust to weight ratio inc. accessories, oil tank, jet pipe, superburner etc. Initially I used my own solid fuel rockets for boost thrust but with the inability to turn em off!  I then progressed to hydrogen peroxide hybrid rockets, the design for these hybrids was proved on this motorcycle before use in the next project.

The bike did suffer from a unique handling problem, the substantial rotor mass in a Palouste engine has the potential to yield hundreds of pounds of gyroscopic pression. The bike had a solid rear end & fairly soft front forks, even on good air strips this caused a small but rapid pitching moment, this pitching in turn caused significant turning forces generated by the bloody great gyro laying underneath me. This would distort the frame which finally resulted in a guaranteed "tank slapper", usually as I approached 200MPH! In its final configuration the bike was actually capable of potentially higher speeds but not with me riding it!  In hind sight because I was so keen to reduce weight I probably made the frame not stiff enough, a more substantial frame may be able to resist these forces. I did however after numerous trials & tweaks achieve a 200MPH peek with an official ACU record at 184MPH for the flying 1/4 mile average, which back in 1996 was pretty respectable.