The One-Mile Pumpkin Barrier

Tag : Compressed Air Can
"Matt [Parker] competed here [Nassau, Delaware] with us but henever made that distance with us."

Parker's epic performance took place in his hometown, Morton,Illinois. (In 1978, the State Governor proclaimed Morton to be ThePumpkin Capital of the World.)

"Whoosh... A giant blast of air expels a pumpkin from an 80foot-long tube. Traveling at nearly the speed of sound, the pumpkinfollows a graceful arc towards the horizon. It will land with asplat nearly a mile away.," the Morton Times-News reported in 2001, adding: The chuck that shook up the Morton Pumpkin Festival was made by the Aludium Q-36 Pumpkin Modulator , a giant contraption that looks like the results of cross breedinga howitzer with parts borrowed from the International SpaceStation.

One hundred feet long and tipping the scale at 36,000 pounds, theQ-36 is really a giant pea shooter. An 80-foot long tube isconnected to a 1,800-gallon compressed air tank. "We can run up toa maximum pressure of 125 PSI," says Matt Parker, one of thedesigners of the Q-36. Matt punches numbers into a calculator andannounces, "At atmospheric pressure that would be 18,000 cubic feetof air." That is the amount of air in a 2,250-square-foot house -all of it just to blow a 10 pound pumpkin out of an 80-foot tube."Muzzle velocity is 1,000 feet per second," says Matt. Again thecalculator springs into action. "It's traveling 681 miles per hourwhen it leaves the tube, but it loses velocity quickly."

Matt Parker is co-owner of Parker Fabrication, a family-ownedmachine shop in Morton's new industrial park. In addition toParker, the crew of the Q-36 consists of Chuck Heerde, James Knepp,Rod Litwiller and Steve Young.

"The guys have had a lot of fun with it," says Bonnie Parker,Matt's mother. Bonnie is the office staff of the family business.She also is the chief cheerleader for the pumpkin-chuckers andserves as the archivist of the Q-36's exploits. Framed newspaperarticles detailing the Q-36's world record shot adorn her officewall. In addition to the local papers, her collection includes apicture from the front page of the Wall Street Journal and anarticle from the London Times.

The entire Parker family takes their punkin' chuckin' seriously."We don't have grandchildren, so this pumpkin chucker is our baby,"explains Bonnie. When asked about the cost to build such acontraption, Pat Parker, Matt's father, is quick to point out,"It's not about sponsorship or advertising or money. It's aboutpeople putting their ideas together to solve a problem. A lot morepeople contributed to this than the five who have their names onthe official entry form."
[Above extracts courtesy Morton Times-News.] Q-36's main rival, the air cannon Second Amendment is owned by S &G Erectors, of Howell, Michigan. Last November it took part in thePunkin Chonkin contest for the fourth time.

"We were in competition with 106 machines, each utilizing variousmethods of propelling a pumpkin, such as centrifugal force,torsion, human powered, catapults, trebuchets and the ultimate, aircannons," says its website.

"The event had some 40,000 to 50,000 spectators and was covered byCNN, AT&T Dish, The History Channel, Costa Mantis, a documentaryfilm producer from California, and several local TV channels...

"Our world record of 4,434 feet is still intact and we will workout the bugs, trying for that ultimate shot of one mile. Numeroustimes in practice, we achieved shots over 5,000 feet, just short ofthe 5,280 that we need to be the first to shoot the mile."

Towering over most contestants was the Big Ten-Inch air cannon ,with an aluminum barrel 10 inches in diameter and 100 feet long.You can read about it here .