And now ... A jet-powered school bus

The maker's motivations: It's cool, and it'll keep kids off drugs. I'm not sure about the mechanism on that last part, but whatever. Jet-powered school bus! (Via Tyghe Trimble)

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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…and the California 200 was yesterday out in the Mojave Desert. No guardrails, crowd right up next to the track like it was the Tour de France. A truck lost control upon landing a jump and plowed into the crowd. Eight dead, a dozen more injured.

I want our world to contain both off-road races and jet-propelled school buses. But what do you wanna bet that this weekend’s body count results in the BLM making it even closer to impossible to have stupid, irresponsible, explosively hazardous, good clean fun in the desert anymore?
jetbusguy

Just to clarify a few things:

It does in fact go 367mph, but this video does not show it.

The engine is from an F4 phantom and it spans the length of the bus.

Almost the entire bus is fabricated, just a few cosmetic parts are from a real bus. A lot of the rear kept melting initially. He had to revise the design because of that.

The creator/operator has other jet vehicles out there including: Truck, motorcycle, outhouse, semi, and impala (seen on mythbusters)

Lasty, don’t do drugs kids!
Ugly Canuck

Get off the drugs and onto the bus.

PS It’d be cooler still, if they painted it “Furthur”:

http://glastonburyorderofdruids.com/Further.html
- Brainspore
  
  Get off the drugs and onto the bus.
  
  It’s not any safer, but it’s a much more awesome way to go.
Brainspore

Also, please tell me that the driver is a redheaded school teacher named Ms. Frizzle.
General Specific

Wow.
Ben

Just for shits and giggles, myself and a friend went to a monster truck show a while ago. The halftime entertainment was a jet-powered jeep (from the creator of the jet-powered barstool!). When asked by the emcee what prompted him to create the jeep, he said, “Well, I couldn’t think of a better way to honor our troops.”
- Boondocker
  
  [blockquote]When asked by the emcee what prompted him to create the jeep, he said, “Well, I couldn’t think of a better way to honor our troops.”[/blockquote]
  
  At once making no sense and perfect sense. That’s hilarious!
  
  I don’t do drugs, and seeing this video has not made my taking drugs more likely. So… the bus works?
Felton

it’ll keep kids off drugs

Unless %100 pure adrenaline counts.
Jack

â€œKids, if you do drugs you can one day see jet engines being shoved into anything…â€
jennybean42

A jet powered school bus. This renders your argument invalid.
Cazmonster

There will never, ever, be a better tool for zombie takedowns.

My search is complete.
Anonymous

Then there was S’cool bus dragster back in 1969.
netsharc

Did any of the “journalism” outlets ever verify that 367mph claim? It doesn’t seem to ever go that fast, here’s a Veyron SS going 417 km/h, which is 258 mph, and it looked a lot faster…
- sporkinum
  
  Concur. I’d guess 150mph tops. That’s batshit crazy fast for a school bus any way. And if it is like most “jet powered” cars.trucks,etc., it was probably using a helicopter turbine instead.
- OldRipbeak
  
  I thought the same thing: that bus can’t be going anywhere near 367 mph.
  - OldRipbeak
    
    Er, after listening to the audio (I muted it the first time), they say the bus is *capable* of 367 mph, not that it is going that fast in the video.
  - Art
    
    You both read my mind.
Anonymous

The graphics of the new carmaggedon game are looking good.
knoxblox

Well, at least the kids don’t have to get up at 5 a.m. now that they can get to school in under five minutes.
Suds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-HD8JKPed0
Boondocker

ALWAYS PREVIEW ARGH
GraemeM

Hey kids, we can get you to school in 30 seconds. However, due to the stock breaks it takes 5 miles to stop! So you’ll have to walk back as it takes them 4 hours to cool.
Rob Cruickshank

See also:
http://jalopnik.com/5221144/drag+racing-cool-bus-crashes-in-texas
dragonfrog

I’ve never understood the theory behind the “by providing kids with really cool activity X, we will keep them off drugs” models – have these people never heard of complementary goods?

Go to any rave and you will see the truth of it – Hugs are better on drugs.
godfathersoul

people who make claims like that have never actually tried taking any drugs.
jackm

BTW I like the new sign-in screen. Looks like the afterburner on a bus… :-P

I suppose that you need lots of brain cells and very little common sense to be able to make on of these work, or at least that’s probably his logic.

(Could you imagine a pot-head trying to install one of these engines?)
- Ted8305
  
  A jet engine is a lot like an elaborate bong. So yeah, I could see some industrious stoners making one.
  
  There would never have been NASCAR if it weren’t for clever moonshiners. Maybe jet bus racing will be the future post-pot-prohibition race of choice.
  - mdh
    
    I’d buy that for a dollar.
    - Ugly Canuck
      
      NO!!
      Not enough….
      
      On another note, a song for this manic bus:
      
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl9bvuAV-Ao
      
      Talk about yer speed freaks….
jfrancis

I like to sit in the back over the axle when it goes over bumps
Anonymous

Well… Speedweek at the Bonneville Salt Flats near Wendover, Utah began yesterday and goes all week. So…
dole

A local town with almost 8000 people recently seized and is reusing a 2008 BMW M3 for their local DARE car, with the reasoning that it’ll keep kids off drugs because they’ll be able to see what kind of cool things can be taken away from them if they do get into drugs.

You know, because the guy obviously paid for the car with his non-drug money, this is absolutely worth the blue book value of the car (~$50k) in drug prevention, and they’ll get year-round use of it at their 2 elementary schools, middle school and high school.
Rhonan

I always look at things like that and wonder what they were smoking when they thought of that, and why aren’t they sharing.
ZippySpincycle

Watching this video made me throw away my heroin.
JArmstrong

Meh… submitterated over a week ago.