Historical Video's

I chuckle at my wording now as indeed I talked about gas engines and made it sound like the turbine was using gasoline which I didn't intend to make it out to be. I didn't see anything in the article or video to indicate what they were burning but from a logistics standpoint I would guess diesel would have been the most logical fuel since that is what was and still is available all along the same road system other vehicles use.

I don't know what the fuel per hp comparability would be between a diesel engine and a turbine using the same fuel, I imagine such information exists. Years ago when working for a bit for an oil field company that at the time used turbine engines for running frac pumps, they could pack a lot of power into a small package. The problem was the expense of those engines and for example one truck rolled over on a road and automatically they were mandated to send the engine down to a shop that was capable of tearing it all down and examining it due to any potential of it having been stressed as the truck tumbled even though the engine was not running at the time of the accident. That is over 30 years ago and the trucks were probably 10 years old then and still the replacement value on one of those body job trucks rigged up as it was, one million. And those trucks were equipped with used engines taken out of service from an original application rather then newly purchased engines. I have forgotten the stats now, I thought about 1350 hydraulic hp and they used about 110 gallons an hour at full load.

Some of these inventions come along and then disappear without an explanation that the general public will hear. In the case of this truck it seems they sold it or I assume so and yet if it was a one of a kind you would think they would hang onto it or like the Avro destroy it to hide secrets or their failures.

I don't know what to say about CVT transmissions in tractors as I have had nothing to do with a tractor that has one but have been around a few vehicles that have them and those are very questionable as in reliability is not all that great, and not good at all if towing from what I understand. Of course that is probably more about the engineering of the unit rather then the principle. Steering, perhaps and only a guess that the safety factor may come into play if anything went wrong as that mechanical connection isn't there and so all steering is lost as the speeds are much increased over a tractor that spends most of its time in a field. Also cost of production, if they can make something relatively cheap and get a good profit margin out of it such as brakes for example vs introducing an enclose wet brake system that isn't affected by corrosion ( just using that as an example as I have no idea if such a system could handle constant braking without a major failure ). And again with the CVT vs the automatic, they have kept on the automatic track instead and ever increased the amount of gearing as it was three speeds for years, then the four speed overdrive which really was a leap, then the 5/6 speed era, then 8, and now 10 speed.

And there is another aspect which again we don't know and that is what has been invented and kept off the market, instead building similar products to saturate the market and with great markups and come out with new technology when they feel the time is right or to keep up to other manufactures.