Faster Than A Speeding Bullet, More Powerful Than A Locomotive, Able To Leap Wide Canyons At A Single Bound...Almost.
Faster Than A Speeding Bullet, More Powerful Than A Locomotive, Able To Leap Wide Canyons At A Single Bound...Almost.
FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET, MORE POWERFUL THAN A LOCOMOTIVE, ABLE TO LEAP WIDE CANYONS AT A SINGLE BOUND...almost.
IT MAY BE months, or as long as years before the speculation about what really happened at the Snake River Canyon simmers down. Evel Knievel failed in his attempt to jump the canyon in his X-2 steam-powered Skycycle. The craft's small drogue chute deployed on the takeoff ramp and pulled the main chute out, ending Knievel's flight long before he ever reached the other side of the canyon.
A 15 to 20-mph head wind pushed Evel back toward the takeoff side of the canyon, where he landed on a rock ledge some seven feet above the surface of the Snake River. He covered about one-fifth of his intended flight distance.
It is believed that, had the wind been blowing with the same force in the opposite direction, Evel would have been carried to a landing on the other side of the canyon, thus succeeding in surmounting the Snake, although not exactly according to ptan.
A crowd, whose size has been most authoritatively estimated at 15,000, came to watch their hero. Understate ment: The people were rowdy. There were chopper gangs, naked women, streakers, enough beer to make Milwau kee famous and plenty of drug traffic to keep the spectators busy until Evel ar rived at three in the afternoon. Then the crowd could wait no longer. They swarmed over the chain link fence and into the restricted press area, which was a lousy place from which to watch the event, anyway. Once they realized that the grass-you'll pardon the expres sion-wasn't any greener, the throng retreated back behind the fences until after takeoff.
In spite of the motley appearanceôf many of the spectators, I was pleasantly surprised by their attitude. There was no death wish hovering over them. They came to see success. But success to them was not necessarily the completion of the jump. Success was attained when Evel pushed the button that rocketed him up into the sky. They came to see a display of intestinal fortitude, and they got exactly what they wanted. The fact that the jump was not successful did not bother them once they knew that Evel had gotten out of the Skycycle safely. Their cheers, as word came from the bottom of the canyon, made you feel good.
I have heard, as I'm sure many of you have, that the spectators did every thing from pelt Evel with rocks as he parachuted down into the canyon, to chant "Die, die, die," just before takeoff. None of it is t~ ie. Apparently, for some of the media, a human being strap ping himself into a rocket-which failed miserably in two previous unmanned tests-and pushing his own launch but ton, was not spectacular enough. But ÷ was for those who have exhibited enough of t in their lifetimes to under stand bravery.
No one knows for sure exactly what caused the chutes to deploy early. And I doubt that anyone will ever know for sure. But after seeing how incredibly fast the Skycycle took off, how high it finally got before the main chute ended its flight, and how brutally it landed on the rock ledges on the bank of the river, I don't see how anyone can say that it wasn't a serious attempt.
There was no spectator rip-off. If anyone got ripped-off it was a man named Evel Knievel. After nearly five years of living with the rocket, the jump, and the fact that for him there might not be a Monday morning, Sep tember 9, 1974, Evel did not get to jurr~ the canyon he set out to conquer. For doer like Evel Knievel, that really has to hurt.
