‘Water bullet’ sinks after Idaho test
BY JOHN MILLER
Associated Press
Thursday, December 11, 2008 10:13 AM PST
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| A Huey helicopter tows a ‘MX-311 Water Bullet’ before dropping it from a height of 800 feet into southcentral Idaho’s Arrowrock Reservoir on Wednesday, where it promptly sank. An Idaho inventor who recently changed his name to Lord Maximus Willhammer paid the pilot $2,400 to drop the missile-like projectile as part of an effort to draw attention to his safety harnesses. Willhammer says he hopes eventually to wear one of his harnesses while riding inside one of the ‘smash-landing submersible aircraft.’ |
ARROWROCK RESERVOIR — An Idaho man trying to find investors for a safety harness he developed paid a helicopter pilot $2,400 to tow an unmanned rocket-like aircraft to an elevation of 800 feet and drop it into a reservoir Wednesday, where it promptly sank.
Lord Maximus Willhammer, 38, who grew up in Burley just upstream from where Evel Knievel tried to jump the Snake River Canyon in 1974, called the test a success, at least in part because the ‘‘MX-311 Water Bullet’’ hit the surface of Arrowrock Reservoir without turning on its side or appearing to explode on impact.
Willhammer — he changed his name legally in 2007 from George Bradley Lewis — said one day he’d like to ride inside the craft, cushioned by one of his load-bearing harnesses, which he says are safer than ones now used at construction sites.
He concedes he also just wanted to see what would happen to a 20-foot-long, 900-pound projectile dropped from a height of 2 1/2 football fields into a public waterway.
‘‘You don’t know what’s going to go wrong until you test it,’’ he told The Associated Press just before the drop.
Last year, Willhammer was stopped by Boise County authorities and by the federal Bureau of Reclamation from conducting a similar test at this remote reservoir about 20 miles northeast of Boise, on grounds he needed a permit for an event attended by more than 500 people.
On Wednesday, however, only a dozen people stood on the sunny but chilly shoreline, including a Boise County sheriff’s sergeant who said his office had failed to locate an Idaho law forbidding the drop.
‘‘We really can’t stop him,’’ said Sgt. Larry Lampson, who watched from his patrol truck. ‘‘If there’s a bunch of litter, he’s going to have to clean it up, so I hope it doesn’t break up.’’
Willhammer said he’s spent $100,000 of his own money on the project and hired Jim Ranney, a former U.S. Army pilot who flew missions in Vietnam and whose regular work at a Boise-based helicopter company includes helping NASA test parachutes for Mars rover vehicles.
Water Bullet in tow, Ranney’s chopper ascended over a circular target of orange buoys meant to warn away the few passing boaters, including Sue and Randy Prescott, who had been trolling for landlocked kokanee salmon Wednesday morning when they saw Willhammer’s activities and became curious. They kept their distance during the drop — just in case.
‘‘I don’t want a hole in the top of the boat,’’ Sue Prescott said.
Ideally, Willhammer wanted the Water Bullet to travel straight down, penetrate about 35 feet into the water, then pop back up to the surface with the help of an air bag so he could inspect it for damage.
When Ranney released the projectile, it hit with a splash that sent water 30 feet into the air. But the air bag failed and the aircraft never re-emerged; the Prescotts’ fish finder located it on its side on the reservoir floor, about 45 feet down. By mid-afternoon, Willhammer was contemplating but not relishing the prospect of donning scuba gear to begin a salvage operation in the 44-degree water.
