Skip to main content

Late for school?

An American man has built a jet powered school bus capable of maximum speeds of 587km/h. Explaining that as a school child he found his daily trips in a slow moving school bus frustrating, the man used a surplus engine from a supersonic F4 Phantom jet and a secondhand school bus as the basis for his project.
February 22, 2012 Read time: 1 min
An American man has built a jet powered school bus capable of maximum speeds of 587km/h. Explaining that as a school child he found his daily trips in a slow moving school bus frustrating, the man used a surplus engine from a supersonic F4 Phantom jet and a secondhand school bus as the basis for his project. Custom-built, the turbine powered bus now features few standard components from the original school bus. The man said that he and his associates built the bus to entertain the crowds at drag strip events as well as to deter children from experimenting with drugs and he uses the slogan; "Jets are hot, drugs are not". With its engine on full afterburner the bus is capable of shooting flames over 24m long from its tailpipe, which would certainly deter persistent tailgaters. Fuel economy is somewhat on the low side however, with the bus using 568litres of aviation fuel for each 400m drag strip speed run.

Related Content

  • Asphalt milling and paving with 3D control
    February 16, 2012
    Milling and paving repair operations for airport runways require particularly high tolerances, an obvious market for 3D control solutions writes Mike Woof. Airport runways require some of the most accurate quality standards and tightest tolerances of any asphalt or concrete surface. This is one area where the high precision capabilities of 3D systems offer clear advantages.
  • Attitude is key to sustainability, says Volvo CE’s Thomas Bitter
    June 27, 2018
    Whether you are in the global Volvo Ocean Race or working on-site locally, sustainability is about attitude as much as technology. David Arminas reports. Technology, sustainability and safety. We ignore these often related themes at our peril. This was the key point made by Volvo Group chief executive Martin Lundstedt during his brief opening presentation at the start of the Building Tomorrow Conference in Spain last October. The conference took place within the harbour of Alicante that was bustling wit
  • Young Driver Risk
    April 16, 2018
    Police in the US state of Ohio recently found themselves in a high-speed pursuit involving a vehicle taken without its owner’s consent. The chase lasted for around one hour and the vehicle hit speeds of up to 160km/h during the pursuit, which covered a distance of around 72km in all between Cleveland and Milan. Officers managed to box the car in and bring it to a halt, without anyone being injured. The driver was a 10-year-old boy who took his mother’s car, the second time that the lad had done this in just
  • Roo'd Awakening and BMW Drivers
    June 29, 2018
    A rider amongst a group of cyclists on a training run in Australia had a rather unpleasant experience. The man was cycling along a road with his team mates when a young kangaroo jumped out from the road side and collided with him, knocking him from his bicycle. Although he was riding at speed at the time, he was not seriously hurt and as one of his team mates filmed the incident, will have video footage to better remember the incident by. The feelings of the kangaroo over the incident were not recorded.