There’s a bio on Evel Knievel where he is very bitter with Bob Truax over the failure of the Snake River jump. He called him an idiot and blamed the failure on him.
From the way it was described, it doesn’t sound as if the 'chute deployment mechanism was a pinnacle of engineering. Duct tape? Come on. But though I was young at the time, ISTR that there were suspicions that Knievel ‘chickened out’ and intentionally deployed the recovery system. Back on the other hand, the 'chute did appear to pop on the ramp. I can’t see anyone intentionally deploying it at that stage.
So what do you think? Did Truax screw the pooch on that? Was he actually the person who designed the recovery system? Why duct tape?
I think the ‘chickened out’ stuff was just wild speculation that took on a life of its own. I remember them sayiing that the day of the actual launch, long before there could be real analysis of what happened.
Also, the early chute deployment just about killed him, because he almost landed in the middle of the Snake River. Evel had to know the risks of deploying the chute over a freaking canyon with a raging river in the middle of it.
So my guess it was either a faulty design, or bad workmanship, or pilot error. Not ‘chickening out’. I don’t recall Evel Knieival as someone who would ever chicken out at just about anything.
You know, after all this time I had sort of forgotten just how popular he was. When I was a kid, he was a superstar. Paid millions to do his jumps, all the kids had lunchboxes with his face on them, there were Evel Knieval toys at Christmas, and we were all jumping our banana-seat bikes over milk crates with plywood leaned up against them.
I read that there’d been a test firing that showed that the automatic system Truax designed wasn’t working right. Truax wanted to spend some time to fix it, but the media circus was already scheduled and Keneval wouldn’t postpone. So Truax threw together a manual system, telling Evel that it wasn’t likely to be reliable. He was right about that.
So it was Truax’ fault that both the original and jerry-rigged versions weren’t good. But it’s not like he didn’t tell Keneval that the chute could ruin everything. It was the pilot that made the deciision to try it anyway, and he should have waited.
Bob Truax didn’t designed the Skycycle or the parachute system. He was responsible for the propulsion system.
There were two unmanned test flights, neither of which made it across the canyon. The first because it wasn’t intended to (it was flown at less than full thrust for its initial flight). The second was a full power test with everything operating as it would for Knievel’s actual flight. However the parachute ejected early, causing the Skycycle to plunge into the canyon, far short of the far side. Truax worked on it and did some ground tests, but also wanted to do another test flight to make sure they had the problem sorted out, but Knievel vetoed another it.
Looks like the 'chute deployed before, or just as, the car left the ramp. How far it would have gone, I don’t know. But a Lincoln (or any production car) is really the wrong shape for such a thing.