McHenry Astro Spiral Jump, Part 2
Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2010 4:58 pm
This is a continuation of the thread Question on James Bond Spiral Jump Stunt
June 2010: We were recently made aware of the 5 year old email exchange. We may post up PDFs of the 4 HVOSM volumes. The original source code of HVOSM76 was available from Federal Highway (FHWA). Not sure if still available from FHWA but we are kicking around posting up the original 'as distributed' source code.
This was an email from January 2005 Q: I was wondering if you have ever released into the public domain your computer program (or the theoretical eqations which can be translated into a program) which was used for the Astro-Spiral Jump in the James Bond Film 'Man With the Golden Gun'? I am a software engineer with an interest in the Astor-Spiral simulation purely in a non-comercial hobby sense and I would love to be able to run it on my home machine. I have already read all the published information I could find including your SAE paper, US patent and the article the 1972 Motor Trend magazine.
A: The computer program used to design the ramps for the stunt was the Highway Vehicle Object Simulation Model (HVOSM).
In additional to what is on that page, here are a few additional things on HVOSM:
UPDATE Mar 2019: Just found a beautiful scan of the HVOSM-76 4 volume research manual!
June 2010: We were recently made aware of the 5 year old email exchange. We may post up PDFs of the 4 HVOSM volumes. The original source code of HVOSM76 was available from Federal Highway (FHWA). Not sure if still available from FHWA but we are kicking around posting up the original 'as distributed' source code.
This was an email from January 2005 Q: I was wondering if you have ever released into the public domain your computer program (or the theoretical eqations which can be translated into a program) which was used for the Astro-Spiral Jump in the James Bond Film 'Man With the Golden Gun'? I am a software engineer with an interest in the Astor-Spiral simulation purely in a non-comercial hobby sense and I would love to be able to run it on my home machine. I have already read all the published information I could find including your SAE paper, US patent and the article the 1972 Motor Trend magazine.
A: The computer program used to design the ramps for the stunt was the Highway Vehicle Object Simulation Model (HVOSM).
In additional to what is on that page, here are a few additional things on HVOSM:
- It is in Fortran ANSI 66.
With a few changes it can easily be made to run on a PC.
Are you familiar with Fortran?
Do you have a Fortran compiler?
Some of the more recent Fortran compilers (Intel, Salford, Lahey) can handle 95% of the ANSI66 Fortran code
UPDATE Mar 2019: Just found a beautiful scan of the HVOSM-76 4 volume research manual!
- HVOSM - 1976 Users Manual 436 pages
- HVOSM - 1976 Programmers Manual 676 pages
- HVOSM - 1976 Engineering Manual - Analysis 196 pages
- HVOSM - 1976 Engineering Manual - Validation 291 pages