Italian white van man nudges sound barrier An Italian driver faces a €165 fine and three points off his licence for impressively nudging the speed of sound in a Fiat Doblo. The white van speed merchant was clocked gunning it in the small town of Orio, west of Brindisi, in the heel of Italy's boot. Cops were somewhat surprised to record his speed as 1,230 km/h, meaning …
One thousand point three in English is 1,000.3 but in Italian I think it's 1.000,3 so there is scope for confusion, particularly with equipment sold across the single European market. I think the SI formula is "1 000,3" where the decimal indicator is your own choice.
Back in my military days I saw a hilarious incident with a radar speed gun. I was the officer in charge of the section that did all the calibration of electronic measuring equipment. It was a standing order that all electronic measuring equipment had to be recalibrated at least every year. We would then put a little sticker on the equipment with the date of calibration on it.
The Military Police got themselves a new speed gun and promptly caught my Warrant Officer speeding on base. His first question to the Military Police was, "When was that device last calibrated." The MP Corporal looked blank since it had never been calibrated. As soon as my Warrant Officer knew this he confiscated the speed gun.
Funny stories aside, because these speed guns usually work on a doppler effect it is actually very hard go get a frequency shift large enough to cause an error of this magnitude. Even if you happen to hit a moving part in the engine, or moving parts on the wheels, none of these parts can be doing anything close to the speed of sound. This means in this case it is likely to be either a faulty radar, or interference. The latter is very likely if the radar gun in question is X band.
Around thirty years ago some UK plod were getting (and attempting to prosecute on the basis of) similar stupid numbers. It turned out that they were "gunning" people on a stretch of road that paralleled an airfield runway. The high speeds were, of course, down to the jets making their run for takeoff as the cars passed.
Naturally, the police were unaware of the potential for erroneous pings in such situations and had picked the spot "randomly".
It took ages before anyone successfully challenged a prosecution because the five-o were careful not to submit anything *too* outrageous for further action.
"Anyone remember back in 1961, when the US early warning radar system saw the moon rise but thought it was a doomsday salvo from the soviets?"
Or the Russians nearly mistaking the rising sun for a salvo from the Americans in 1983? We owe a lot to Stanislav Petrov:
http://geoffolson.com/page5/page8/page24/page24.html
Noting that the Fiat Dobro is a family van, and not an exotic sports car, I have to think that the story, or the police radar, are in error.
Andy Green, in the Thrust SSC, did drive a motor vehicle at a speed over that of sound... 1227.986 km/h... in Black Rock Desert, not on the highway. However, his vehicle was of specialized construction, having turbofans.
Ah, and even though this happened in the U.S. of A., you Brits can be proud - he's an RAF pilot!
If you ever have an hour to kill in Coventry, go to the Transport Museum - Thrust SSC is there along with the control caravan. They also have a simulator where you get a mild impression of what Andy Green felt. It was a brutally fast car - I guarantee you will grin when you see the speedo numbers flash by as it gets into its stride.
It seems to be general consesus that there must be some error in the claim of such massive speed. However, isn't the point that the person writing the article should have reported on what the mistake was, rather than presenting the quite obvoiusly false information as fact?
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