Mack Daddy the pumpkin cannon

MACK DADDY

Now you start to get the picture. This is a serious piece of equipment. This baby is mounted on a truck frame, has it's own hydraulics and compressor. The barrel is forty four feet of ten inch pipe. The air tank is made of several propane tanks welded together. With his steady diet of fresh pumpkins Mack Daddy weighs in at a svelte 20,000 pounds.

The barrel is lifted by a pair of hydraulic pistons. The elevation of the barrel is about 45 degrees for best results. Possibly higher if the wind is behind the cannon. The breach is operated hydraulically. There are dual ten inch valves that are popped open simultaneously to release the high pressure air from the air tank through the barrel behind the unsuspecting pumpkin.

This is the compressor and hydraulic unit. The day I watched the cannon in operation he used a rented compressor to pressurize the air tank because it was faster. The on-board compressor is for when no rental is locally available. You can see the handles used to operate the hydraulic valves that operate the various functions - elevate the gun barrel, open and close the breach, pop the firing valves.

The breach open ready to receive the next pumpkin.

The unsuspecting pumpkin

Loading the pumpkin. They grow pumpkins specially bred for the purpose. The pumpkin is seated firmly in a cradle in the back of the barrel. The pumpkin has to be just the right size and must be oriented with the stem facing forward for best results. Still many pumpkins disintegrate on firing.

Orienting the pumpkin

Seating the pumpkin

The breach is closed

Pressurized - in this case to around 60 pounds per square inch which is high. The operator said the best results were at pressures of around 45 PSI. We are ready to do some pumpkin launching!

This is a very lucky picture. The pumpkin is just about to emerge from the barrel. The condensation you see is gases that have escaped around the pumpkin on its way up the barrel.

And the launch. When the tank is being pressurized it heats up and the gas inside is of course fairly hot. However, when the pressure is released through the barrel, the air cools abruptly and if conditions are right frost and even flakes of snow are produced.

There is a pumpkin in this picture. It is the unsuspecting pumpkin just launched. But where is it?? The answer is in the next picture.

And there it is. The pumpkins Really move out fast.

And again there is a pumpkin in this picture.

And there it is. Note the condensation still coming out of the canon barrel to the top left.

Again there is a pumpkin, the same pumpkin, in this picture.

And there it is.

I can't believe I got these pictures. Yes there is a pumpkin in this picture. All this series of pictures were taken of the same shot and with the same lens without zoom.

And here the pumpkin is now.

And the pumpkin is still going

And there it is now.

The pumpkin has now been in the air ten seconds. (my camera has a fine time stamp).

And there it is after 10 seconds flight.

At eleven seconds and it is still in the picture.

Right there.

The record for this pumpkin cannon is officially 3377.28 feet. .28??? But the only time the shots are measured is in competition. They have regular competition in the fall over on Maryland's eastern shore. On the day I was watching the pumpkins were not landing even in his farm. Or the adjacent farm. They were landing two farms away. They ran the cows out of the field before firing the canon. Although the cannon does not fire very straight at all, so they could be moving the cows where an errant pumpkin ends up. Cows are not emotionally equipped to deal with vegetables falling out of the sky and onto them. Not the fault of the cannon. Pumpkins are not noted for their aerodynamics. Not exactly streamlined. They spin unpredictably. And they have to watch for low flying planes. The shots also go about 3000 feet high and could hit low flying aircraft. I am not sure the NTSB has a category of aircraft shot down by pumpkins.