America’s Navy Tests Its Missiles in the World’s Biggest Potato Gun

Ballistics testing for the military is an expensive proposition . A tater cannon , popular in at - home ballistics testing , is cheap . A novel examination gadget developed by the Navy — a super - sized variant of the spud gun — provides a down - cost alternative by simply shooting stuff and nonsense out of a few piping .

Developed at the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake , CA , the Variable Energy Research Accelerator ( VERA ) is a transonic wallop gun for habit in ordnance development research lab . It ’s progress to found springy or inert missile and bomb components attransonic speed — just below the speed of sound . It ’s much less costly than other methods , likerocket sled - testing , which can necessitate modify structural portion to match on the sledge .

The gun has a 40 - understructure long barrel and a 19 - column inch diameter bore , which is very utile for shooting oddly - mold rocket . According the YouTube videos ’s posterInigo93 ,

It ’s what ’s known in the potato gun creation as a hybrid . It utilize both compress air and burning to go . Basically , throw some tight air and fuel into a chamber and illumine a match . ‘ Tis very interchangeable to the inner works of an internal burning engine . I just use propane instead of gasolene and my “ Walter Piston ” is n’t attached to a crank shaft .

VERA can elicit projectiles weigh up to 200 pounds with as much as 2.25 megajoules of energy — that ’s shooting a 100 - pound load at 1000 feet per second gear . The speed , on the downhearted side for muzzle velocities , let the gun to minimise acceleration forces to less than 600 Gs , enable testers to speed loads more swimmingly than with conventional pulverisation or compressed air methods .

There is no Good Book yet on whether or not it will be entered in this year’sPunkin Chunkincontest . [ Makezine , The Firing Line , Science Forums , National Defense Industrial Association ( NDIA ) ]

Hostinger Coupon Code 15% Off