Rocket Racing League

Cait whom has a blog called suborbitalblog asked me for more thoughts on my reservations about the Rocket Racing League , so here goes.

I understand that the organizers want to create an event that is very exclusive and seem to be modeling their business after Formula 1 and NASCAR autoracing where sponsors pay most of the bills. Great idea, but I'm not convinced the air racing world is ready for this business model without some growth first.

NASCAR wasn't the huge business that it is now when it started, but it grew over time and built up the fan base necessary to get sponsors interested and committed to the sport.

The aircraft will cost around $1 million, the cost to run a team for the full season of racing is around 1 million dollars and the entry fee is 1 million dollars. That's a lot of money to invest without some big sponsorship lined up...

As for the actual racing, the idea is exciting, but the aircraft only have enough fuel to run for four minutes before they turn into a glider, they can glide for up to 10 minutes to get down to the runway to refuel and it takes several minutes to refuel before they can launch again. So most of the time each racer will be gliding or refueling, not going fast and making lots of noise.

With a top speed of around 300 or so miles per hour, they aren't as fast as the sport class at Reno, and when gliding they will be much slower. They will also be flying on a course which keeps the other aircraft separated which is great for safety, but I'm not sure how the fans will perceive passing and the excitement of a battle for the lead. After all, who is in the lead if they are not flying on the same course?

Lastly, the web site indicated each race will last for 90 minutes. This seems to work okay for autoracing, and might work for this as well, but that's a really long time especially when the aircraft aren't going fast most of the time.

I commend them for being creative and innovating where nobody else has gone before, and I hope it works and is as exciting as they promise! They certainly have their act together with a very professional presentation on their website and they have several pilots lined up, so maybe I'm just being a stick in the mud...