Railplanes

[McColm]

Hello,
This idea of railplanes isn't new. My method is to use existing track,N, HO/OO or if you use a larger scale or even better your own private track. I'm sure Network Rail would be delighted and even lend you some of theirs.
Aircraft engines have been mounted to bogie's and used to test the engine or as  power plant to pull carriages. Petrol, diesel, wood, coal, solar panel and nuclear have all been used. Not too sure about the use of sails. That might be another whiff altogether.
Jet engines have been used to power special adapted carts/wagons for the testing of ejector seats.
Size
A second radii or third radii curves are ideal provided that the railplane is no longer than a standard MKIII coach. You'll need to weight it down otherwise its bound to come off the track. this is ideal to all whiffers, as your failed whiff can be uterlised-minus the wings and might have to shorten the tail due to clearance of any bridges N scale ideal for 1/144 civil air liners, E/HO/OO 1/72 or 1/76 which ever is closest. O 1/48 and G well we are talking big. own power supply or R/C.
the propeller could turn/rotate by using the current from the track, lighting by pickups on the bogie's.I will eventually build a suitable test track to try out this idea. Just need to invest in a digital camera.

[Jschmus]

As it happens, sails have been used to power rail vehicles:

http://douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/sail/sail.htm

[PR19_Kit]

In 1966 the New York Centrail railroad bolted the twin J-47 engine pod from a B-47 onto the roof of one of their Budd RDC cars and added a 'streamlined' nose fairing. The result managed 184 mph but I'm darned if I'D have liked to be onboard at the time!

[rickshaw]

Must ha' been on the straight and on a carefully graded and smooth piece of track!

[McColm]

How to slow down from high-speed, must be a nightmare for the engineers. you can't put the brakes on as they will burnout, or melt?
Do they switch the engine off?

[Rheged]

How to slow down from high-speed, must be a nightmare for the engineers. you can't put the brakes on as they will burnout, or melt?
Do they switch the engine off?

Reverse thrust?

[McColm]

unless the passengers are strapped in, the reverse thrust will have them flying down the corridors.

[Mossie]

Not sure this quite on your lines of thinking, but in Convair Advanced Designs there's a fantastic drawing of a proposal to use a high speed rail car to launch flying boats.  This was a real study by Consolidated, not sure how serious it was.

[The Wooksta!]

Several of the large and ludicrous Napkinwaffe projects were to be launched from rail tracks, the Sangar being one of them.

[Rheged]

Not sure this quite on your lines of thinking, but in Convair Advanced Designs there's a fantastic drawing of a proposal to use a high speed rail car to launch flying boats.  This was a real study by Consolidated, not sure how serious it was.

AAAGH!  I have a surreal picture of a Spruce Goose, Martin Mars or Saro Princess  hurtling into the air from their launching rail.  It's either very Gerry Anderson, or somebody's been indulging in that funny sherbet again........

[Mossie]

Maybe a bit of both!  I haven't got the book to hand at the moment but I think it was the XPB3Y Corregidor.  It had a dedicated launch car with a cutout matching the hull shape.  IIRC it was designed to take advantage of the types short take off characteristics.  I don't think there were plans for it to land on the car, but I might be wrong.

As an aside, that book is well worth getting.  Plenty of projects from relatively sane to downright barking, covering autogiro flying boats with retractable rotor, nuclear powered mach 4 flying boats, flying wings as well as more mainstream stuff like alternative hull shapes, civvy versions of military aircraft etc.

[jcf]

The Budd jet railcar ran on normal track, which was the point as it was primarily an experiment to see if the tracks could take high-speed trains.

http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/1999/2/1999_2_63.shtml

[martinbayer]

Russia had the ER22 turbojet train (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbojet_train), and before that Germany had the
Schienenzeppelin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schienenzeppelin).

Martin

[PR19_Kit]

What shocked me about the NYC jet Budd RDC car was that they used the standard bogies, but with the drive shafts disconnected.

That bogie design used very short throw secondary suspension springs, and the ride must have been appalling at speed. Not only that, but with their standard wheel profiles and primary suspension the vehicle was probably running at THREE times its critical instability speed at 184 mph! Quite why it didn't derail itself into the ditch amazes me.

[Mossie]

Maybe a bit of both!  I haven't got the book to hand at the moment but I think it was the XPB3Y Corregidor.  It had a dedicated launch car with a cutout matching the hull shape.  IIRC it was designed to take advantage of the types short take off characteristics.  I don't think there were plans for it to land on the car, but I might be wrong.

As an aside, that book is well worth getting.  Plenty of projects from relatively sane to downright barking, covering autogiro flying boats with retractable rotor, nuclear powered mach 4 flying boats, flying wings as well as more mainstream stuff like alternative hull shapes, civvy versions of military aircraft etc.

Checked the book, not the XP4Y (got the designation wrong) but a design for a large four engined flying boat.  I was getting mixed up with the converti-gyroplane version.  Not much else on it unfortunately.