In our child and teen years every now and again when watching American movies some of us experienced small twinges of envy towards the overseas children. They were taken to and from school on big yellow buses with bright little lights and signs making all the cars stop when children were getting off. The kids didn’t have to bump along on public transport packed with sometimes inadequate passengers. It seems like a lot of people in the USA are still fond of school buses and dedicate their whole lives to them. Everyone does it in his own way. Paul Stender decided to create a jet-powered dragster based on a yellow school bus.
School Time is a rather precise name for a project like that. 10-metre bus based on International units was almost fully custom-built as the standard chassis wouldn’t have been able to sustain off-scale loads. Its creators state that original elements compose only 5 percent of this special bus — its front part, minor chassis units and of course the door and the stop sign arm. The interior part of the bus was completely devastated, an engine compartment was created at the rear end of the bus and fitted with a jet engine from a Phantom fighter jet, and two more places were arranged in the driver’s cabin for those passengers who would dare to have a ride at 580 km/h speed.
It’s really an impressive sight. Perhaps, it’s one of the largest wheeled vehicles able to accelerate up to such speed. School Time is almost 3-metre high, 10-metre long and has the aerodynamic characteristics of a brick. Today this bus is a regular guest of various shows bringing joy to the audience by its 25-metre flames shooting out of the exhaust. The irony of it is that it is coming out on the side of a fire escape.
Specifications:
Base: International (School Bus)
Length: 10 metres
Engine: General Electric J79
Horsepower: 42 000 hp
Thrust: 7.1 tonne
Top speed: 580 km/h
Brakes: 3 parachute brakes
