About the hoses - as long as the "water" hose (ie the one going down to the brakes) has its end/opening down by the bottom of the tank, forcing air into the tank will make water go out.


You are correct about that.

But I wonder... just what volume of air, at what pressure, would have been contained in those air-lift shocks? Would it have been enough to displace enough water from the reservoir to be effective?

I can only speak from empirical experience with the air shock on my mountain bike. Now, it is only supporting about 150 pounds (figure 2/3 of the total bike+rider weight on the rear wheel) and not the 1500 pounds of the rocket car... but that bike shock really holds just a tiny puff of air. Assuming a linear relationship (150 lbs : 1500 pounds) then the rocket car would have had only ten "tiny puffs of air" to work with. Of course, you don't need much pressure to drive a little bit of water through a couple of leaky garden hoses. But would it have been enough?

In any case, Robert Munafo seems to have cast enough doubt on the veracity of the tale to cause me to think it is fictional. (See attached file.) But nonetheless, entertaining and well written.

tanstaafl.

edit: ewwww.... the formatting of the attached file did not come out as expected. Don't bother trhing to read it -- I will respond to this post with a better formatted file!