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14-730: An earlier prototype was designed, named the Skycycle X-1, by Doug Malewicki and retired U.S. Navy engineer Robert Truax . It was tested in November 1973 and dove in the Snake River. The Skycycle X-2 was designed by Truax, and ridden by Knievel in his attempt to jump the Snake River approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) west of Shoshone Falls near the city of Twin Falls, Idaho , on September 8, 1974. The parachute deployed during

28-477: A hanging design (more stable and smaller tracks) with the 1960s' idea of personal rapid transit (PRT) -- cars that individual commuters take directly to their destination (hence "personal"), but computer-driven and available to others after they exit (hence "transit"). Another key PRT idea that Skytran follows is exiting the main track for boarding, so that the cars behind do not need to wait as they do with mass transit vehicles. In 2019, Israeli media said that Skytran

42-612: A promotional commercial for the Audi RS5 . The commercial depicts the RS5 being driven by a professional driver and jumping the canyon off a jump ramp. "Each time I was hurt, they all said, ‘that guy is lucky that he’s not dead.' And they were right. But I wanted to get up and try it again." Aircraft with the same name: Douglas Malewicki Douglas "Doug" Malewicki is an American aerospace engineer and inventor of Polish descent. Many of his inventions concern flying vehicles, but

56-716: The Nuclear War card game and has sold it independently from 1965. Rick Loomis of Flying Buffalo , for whom the game was one of the influences on his own Nuclear Destruction play-by-mail game , noticed that people were confusing the two games with each other, so after tracking Malewicki down, he added the game to his own catalogue and started publishing Nuclear War through Flying Buffalo in 1972. Expansions included " Nuclear Proliferation ", " Nuclear Escalation " and "Weapons of Mass Destruction". An aeronautical engineer by training, Malewicki spent much of his career working for American aeronautics and space companies including

70-521: The Apollo program Moon landing vehicles, the stealth bomber and Cessna aircraft including their first private jet airplane. He was a model rocket enthusiast, becoming famous early in his career for the Malewicki equations that predicted the altitude and coast time of a model rocket flight. According to Malewicki's daughter, he was the inspiration for the original one-eyed monster, called Mike, on

84-471: The Guinness fuel economy records for street-legal vehicles driven at freeway speeds — an example of green vehicles . He studied and developed various engineering solutions for highly-aerodynamic human-powered vehicles such as recumbent bicycles . Malewicki developed the following vehicles and rides: Malewicki was also involved in the development and invention of the following: Malewicki designed

98-586: The pardon of Richard Nixon by President Gerald Ford . A memorial to Knievel is located near the Perrine Bridge , which crosses the Snake River about 1.6 miles (2.6 km) west of the jump site. The monument was dedicated in September 1985, at a small ceremony attended by Knievel. Since the 1974 launch, seven daredevils have expressed interest in recreating the jump, including Knievel's two sons Robbie and Kelly. Robbie announced he would recreate

112-576: The X-2 was registered as an airplane rather than a motorcycle. Three Skycycle X-2s were built for Knievel. The first two were used for test flights. Unable to fund further tests, Knievel used the third for the canyon jump. In 2007, the Skycycle X-2-1 was offered for sale for $ 5 million. The X-2-2 is owned by the Knievel estate and periodically exhibited along with a museum of Knievel artifacts. In

126-464: The aerial photographs show the X-2 cleared the canyon. However, the winds blew the rocket back to the launch side, crashing at the bottom of the canyon, barely missing the river. Knievel stated that if the X-2 had landed in the water, he would have drowned, as he did not have the ability to release himself from the harness. In order to obtain permission from the State of Idaho to perform the canyon jump,

140-474: The era before cable networks, the Sunday afternoon jump was covered live by Top Rank on paid closed-circuit television in several hundred theaters and arenas, promoted by Bob Arum with an average price of ten dollars. Taped coverage by ABC was shown on Wide World of Sports later in the month. The ticket price at the launch site was twenty-five dollars. The jump was pushed out of the newspaper headlines by

154-563: The jump in 2010, but the project went no further upon his death. Stuntman Eddie Braun worked with Kelly Knievel (son of Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel) and Scott Truax (son of Robert Truex) to recreate the jump using a replica of the Skycycle X-2. Braun successfully flew his rocket, named Evel Spirit, across the Snake River Canyon on September 16, 2016. On July 18, 2012, Audi of America recreated Knievel's Snake River jump in

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168-399: The launch, causing the stunt to fail. A later analysis showed that a design flaw in a mechanical parachute retention cover that did not properly take base drag into account caused the premature parachute deployment. Following the failed jump, Truax and Knievel blamed each other for the failure. Later, Truax accepted full responsibility for the failure. Although the parachute deployed early,

182-482: The range is quite diverse. He is also the concept creator and inventor of Skytran PRT ( personal rapid transit ). Malewicki spent 25 years advancing the Skytran concept of ultra-light computer-controlled cars hanging below aluminum maglev (magnetic levitation) tracks that could be supported above roads just by utility poles or the sides of buildings. Skytran basically combines maglev (which allows high speeds) and

196-560: Was being considered as a transportation solution for bringing baggage and passengers from the new Ramon Airport to the city of Eilat, 20 kilometres (12 mi) away. Skytran was advanced in Israel from 2002 and was proposed at the Knesset in 2011. In 2011, it was revealed that a model of Skytran was being developed with Israel Aerospace Industries . Malewicki developed the 157 and 156-miles-per-gallon "California Commuter" cars that hold

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