Lab test went with a smash bang wallop

StrAnGe things happen if you park in a research lab car park. in the 1960s, we were trying to produce a more efficient automatic transmission for cars. in a test car, the manual gear lever and clutch pedal were removed and a small switch labelled ‘Drive, park and reverse’ was mounted on the steering column. the whole thing was controlled by an electronic circuit in the boot. two of the engineers were trying it out in the car park. As they were driving along, the throttle closed and they coasted to a stop. puzzled, they got out to investigate. luckily, they were standing at the side of the car, not in front, when they opened the bonnet. one spotted what was wrong: the throttle linkage had become detached from the carburettor. he reached across to reconnect it, which opened the throttle. As they had left the car in ‘Drive’, it immediately accelerated, changing up through the gears as it was supposed to do, but without a driver at the wheel. it hit several parked cars before it ground to a stop. A similarly disastrous incident occurred at another company. A component of a missile had to be tested to ensure it would survive the rapid acceleration of the launch. A test track was set up heading away from the boundary wall of the car park. three solid fuel rockets were used to accelerate the test vehicle containing the component. Another three rockets were to bring it to a stop before it reached the end of the track. someone thought: ‘What if the braking rockets don’t work?’ so they added a buffer at the end of the track. no one thought: ‘What if the accelerating rockets don’t work?’ on the day of the test, the braking rockets worked perfectly, but only two of the three acceleration rockets did. When the braking rockets fired, they accelerated it back towards the car park. it broke through the wall, scattering bricks in all directions and damaging several cars.

Denis Sharp, Littlehampton, W. Sussex.