ZR1 Vette vs Jet – Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Races A U.S. Navy Fighter Jet

MT Editor at Large Arthur St. Antoine pits Chevy’s awesome “Blue Devil” — the Corvette ZR1 — against its toughest adversary yet: a Blue Angels F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet.

I’m arthur saint-antoine with motor trend magazine and i’m here in pensacola florida today with the 2009 chevrolet corvette zr1 codename blue devil the fastest most powerful and a roughly 117 thousand dollars by far the most expensive production automobile general motors has ever built that’s right more than $100,000 for a chevrolet but even at that

Price you could consider the zr1 something of a bargain that’s because this incredible corvette loves fried ferrari for breakfast it lunches on smoked lamborghini dinner baked porsche this year i want has even been known to snack on nissan gtr s makes you wonder can anything keep up with much less intimidate chevrolet is awesome utterly unbelievable blue

Devil how about a blue angel just saying the name blue angels gets the heart racing now the oldest active flight demonstration squadron in the world the blues were created in 1946 to attract new recruits to the united states navy by showcasing the talents of some of the finest pilots on the planet each year the team performs some 70 air shows for more than

15 million spectators and what the sixth demo pilots do with their glistening boeing f-18 hornets strike fighter jets borders on the unbelievable the show’s haiji aerobatic maneuvers which include loops barrel rolls minimum radius turns inverted flight place intense demands on pilots and aircraft alike and if you think it all looks terribly dangerous well

You’re right in the blue angels 63 year history nearly 10% of its pilots have died in training or airshow accidents make no mistake this is literally one of the most breathtaking shows on earth maybe this will help explain just how challenging flying for the blue angels really is if my shoulder were one hornet flying information my hand would be another that’s

Right these guys often fly just three feet apart and at more than 400 miles per hour the right stuff this is righteous stuff now it’s time to meet my adversary the man who will attempt to outgun me and my blue devil meet the man in charge of narrating the shows from the ground and giving vip rides in blue angel 7 the team’s only two-seat f-18 lieutenant

Ben walborn callsign baxter okay baxter this is the corvette zr1 the fastest car general motors has ever built in fact this is one of the fastest cars on the planet 638 supercharged v8 horsepower it’ll do 0 to 60 in 3.3 seconds does the quarter-mile in just over 11 seconds at 130 miles an hour it’s very very quick what do you got what i have here today is

A twin-engine tactical fighter boeing f-18 hornet with about 32,000 pounds of thrust coming out the back end out so that’s quite a bit well the cr1 will go over 200 miles an hour how fast is your hornet go this morning here can do about mach 1.8 which is roughly about 1,400 miles an hour okay well that’s pretty fast how much does it cost this one is by about

25 million dollars 24 25 million that’s more than simon cowell makes in a whole week well do you think your blue angel has the stuff to beat my blue devil we’ll take a look at it we’ll try we’ll see all right let’s find out good our matchup is simplicity itself from a standing start we’ll run a straight one-mile drag race first one across the finish line wins

The runways here at naval air station pensacola our 8,000 feet long that means i’ll have enough time to accelerate the blue devil up to the mile marker at which point i’ll probably be doing around 180 miles an hour then jump on the giant carbon ceramic binders and bring myself to a safe stop baxter and the blue angel will be in a parallel runway about 500 feet

Away hard to say how fast he’ll be going at the mile marker but definitely he’ll be airborne well before then now i get the sense the baxters feeling pretty cocky about his jet right now on the other hand it’s gonna take that horn in awhile to spool up and my zero one well it is just blindingly quick offline i make a good enough start well enough conjecture

Let’s do this thing a good start will be critical for my chances baxter has 32,000 pounds after burner fed thrust on his side but i’ve got the electrifying acceleration of 638 supercharged horsepower my zr1 can read 60 miles an hour in just 3.3 seconds and blazes through the quarter mile in just over 11 seconds 30 miles per hour hopefully the twin general

Electric turbo fans and baxter’s hornet will still be spooling up as i rock it into the lead and besides i could get lucky maybe baxter will accidentally leave his jets tail hook down or something ready three two one well that wasn’t close all right fine i’d be lying if i said i actually expected the blue devil to be able to beat the 25 million

Dollar blue angel in a drag race but i thought at least well i’d leave for a while instead lieutenant walborn is fa-18 we’re already pulling ahead by around 80 miles per hour i was barely at the half mile marker when he crossed the finish line and stood the hornet on his tail for a vertical climb big show-off by the time i finally crossed the finish line myself

Doing 172 miles per hour lieutenant walborn was somewhere up in the clouds heat past the finish line going about 345 miles per hour i’m sure i creamed him on gas mileage all right baxter it wasn’t a contest blue angel destroyed i gave it everything i had but that f-18 is just too fast how did it feel for you in the cockpit pretty good that thing gets up and

Goes pretty good once you put 32,000 pounds of thrust went out the back end now were you able to see the zr1 of all during the race yes i did i saw i peeked over right away and kind of got a little bit of a lead on me initially and then i just kind of caught up in the body yeah a lot of my last a little longer than again well i’ll tell you i think the only

Two jobs that people really might end each other for our jet pilot and test car drivers it may be playboy photographer right now the two of us maybe have the best jobs in the world you’d like to do a little trading places today and maybe try my vehicle i try your jet sounds good let’s go all right let’s try it out all right bye now lieutenant walborn is an

Old hand at breaking the sound barrier in the sky but how would he feel piloting 638 supercharged motown horsepower across the ground only one way to find out strap mr. blue angel in behind the wheel and take the blue devil out for a full throttle blast okay back to we’re in the zr1 now you get a chance to try the blue devil coming from the blue angel all

Right ever driven in a corvette before well this is the ultimate corvette okay so this would be a memorable experience okay give it a shot all right we’ll see what we shall do obviously respectful of high powered machinery lieutenant walborn builds up to speed carefully in no time though he’s gone into sierra one past 130 miles per hour and loving of course i’m

Probably getting in his way a bit by watching his every move so i decided to climb out and let lieutenant walborn fly solo naturally right away transforms into a teenager with dad’s car keys at this point in this career lieutenant walborn has accumulated more than 1,400 flight hours and now about 20 minutes of seat time at the wheel of one of the world’s

Most awesome ground bound rockets now it’s my turn in the ready room i begin suiting up for the ride of a lifetime a no-holds-barred flight in a blue angels fa-18 hornet as crew chief austen armstrong belts me into the rear ejection seat of blue angel 7 he offers a few friendly words of advice basically don’t touch anything during hard airshow maneuvers blue

Angels pilots regular experienced forces many times the force of gravity often over 7 g which makes a 200-pound man feel like he weighs more than 1400 pounds and can squeeze the blood out of his skull as if were caught in the jaws of a giant invisible lemonade press key to surviving a flight in an airborne centrifuge like the f-18 hornet is mastering the so

Called hick maneuver basically to keep from passing out during high g aerobatics you have to squeeze your legs and grunt like hell to keep the blood up in your brain where it belongs done right it sounds something like or in my case well you’ll see it’s gonna break me and take off we’re going only five and a half of course mr. blue angel is only getting warmed

Up how about an for an inverted negative g pushover negative one then once you get your bearings you go ahead push for a little bit of a stick you think of two two and then comes a moment i’ve waited my whole life for time to break the sound barrier and that while sipping champagne in the now-defunct concord but the way it’s supposed to be done strapped into

The ejection seat of a military fighter jet just a few hundred feet above five miles an hour 375 400 not see i bought number start to come up 425 450 475 500 knots like now i need a bike number about point eight there we go point nine four 585 knots there we go for any boats on the water right now we’re rocking with a sonic boom but in the cockpit i don’t

Feel anything just naturally baxter isn’t gonna let me get away without a little extra pressure blue angels styling time for a minimum radius turn coming to land one more brutal turn past seven g just for good measure did you even hear a hick from lieutenant walborn i didn’t i don’t think the guy is even sweating nice job whoo now i know how it feels to ride

In a washing machine set on a spin cycle somehow i’ve managed not to pass out reuven during several terms of well over seven my lunch is even still wearable my brain though is now etched with a memory i’ll never ever forget how do these guys do this day in and day out and with other aircraft just a few feet away oh yeah there are blue angels and what does

Our blue devil versus blue angel race prove you ass oh please if you have to ask you obviously don’t understand the deep-seated darwinian forces that compel boys of all ages to play at any opportunity with fast and expensive toys what’s clear after racing the corvette zr1 against the boeing f-18 hornet however is if the us of a builds two of the world’s most

Monumental and unforgettable speed machines doesn’t matter which flavor you prefer this is american engineering and it’s best read very very blue

Transcribed from video
ZR1 Vette vs Jet! – Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Races A U.S. Navy Fighter Jet By MotorTrend Channel