Afterburner

Winner of SPUTUM's Golden Mallet for the excellent job he has done there - before he was there, Erols was a spamhaus, and after he came, Erols became a "model for the rest of the Internet". He also fought the dreaded Spamford Wallace himself!

Transforms from motorcycle to robot and back!

TECHNOBOT: AFTERBURNER

FUNCTION: GUNNER
"Following leaders leads nowhere."

Quick to anger, even quicker to attack. Defiant, uncooperative, nasty tempered. Hates authority. In vehicle mode, uses solid rocket fuel packs to boost speed to 450 mph. Tires secrete adhesive that enables him to drive up most walls. Carries 2 laser-guided incendiary missiles, rapid-fire plasma pulse cannon. In robot mode, uses semi-automatic sonic blaster pistol. Combines with fellow Technobots to form Computron.

• Strength: 7
• Intelligence: 6
• Speed: 6
• Endurance: 6
• Rank: 5
• Courage: 9
• Firepower: 7
• Skill: 7

The most imaginative or the most derivative Technobot of them all, depending on how you look at him. He looked more like a light cycle out of the movie "Tron" or a somewhat shorter version of an "Akira" cycle than anything Harley-Davidson would ever manufacture.

Produced by Triton Labs, the Afterburner is a modification kit for Nintendo's Game Boy Advance (aka GBA).

Many people have expressed disappointment with the GBA's screen - it can be difficult to find a viewing angle where the screen reflects enough light. External lamps are available, which plug into the unit and draw power for a small overhead light. However, these are not an entirely satisfactory solution, producing uneven light on the screen (and, frankly, they look stupid).

The Afterburner kit seeks to remedy this. It is a light that fits inside the GBA, lighting the screen from within so that it looks like the traditional back-lit displays found on the GameGear and Lynx.

This, of course, requires you to void your warranty by taking your GBA apart and physically soldering the kit in place. However, if you've never handled a soldering iron, never fear - some companies will be offering pre-modified GBAs.

The Afterburner draws power the same way as an external light, so the battery power drain is the same as any external lighting solution. It also includes a dimmer dial, so you can use as much or as little extra light as you need.

Update 25th June 2002
I've just finished installing my afterburner! It wasn't quite as nightmarish a procedure as I was starting to fear, having read the Triton Labs forums. Nevertheless it's serious business - it does involve a fair bit of soldering , not mention cutting great chunks of plastic out of the inside of the GBA.

The results are wonderful - an even light over the whole screen (except, in my case, for a tiny bright spot caused by an air bubble in the anti-reflective film). The included potentiometer gives excellent control over the screen brightness. Also, apart from the extra dial, you can't tell that the GBA has been modified at all until you turn it on (which I find incredible after the rather dramatic procedure it's just undergone).

Overall, a big thumbs up, but you might want to get someone else to install it if you're not reasonably handy with a craft knife and a soldering iron.

See http://www.tritonlabs.com for more details. Alternatively, drop me a msg with any questions (if you want to know more about the installation procedure, for example).

Update 2006-04-07 : I think this might have gone out of production. The new GBA SP has a built-in light so it is redundant, really.

An afterburner is an addition to an aircraft's engine. The afterburner consists of fuel nozzles that shoot fuel into the aircraft's already-hot exhaust. The fuel immediately combusts, raising the temperature of the exhaust even more. The gases expand due to the increased temperature to thrust the aircraft further. This is the most commonly used way for aircrafts to achieve supersonic speeds, because few engines alone can provide enough thrust to break the sound barrier. Engines that can sustain supersonic flight without afterburners are called supercruising engines.

This method of thrust is not without its problems. Afterburners work by combustion, which requires oxygen. The oxygen levels of the exhaust are lower than optimal because the exhaust is coming from the engine's combustion reactions which of course also use up oxygen. However, due to the inefficiency problems of the engine itself, there is still plenty of oxygen remaining. This is why afterburners are used at all. That they are easy to implement is yet another advantage.

As pointed out by Transitional Man in supercruise, the same amount of fuel that can sustain afterburning for a minute can sustain regular flight for an hour. Talk about inefficient! Because of this inefficiency, afterburners are not used throughout entire flights. There are two times afterburners are commonly used. The first is during takeoff, when a large acceleration is necessary. This is especially true on an aircraft carrier, which has a very limited runway. The other time is during a dogfight, when speed is one of the most important factors in survival.

Alternative methods of supersonic flight include supercruise, ramjets, and scramjets. Supercruise is simply the name attached to aircrafts capable of sustaining supersonic flight without afterburners. Ramjets work by harnessing the 'ram compression effect' which is the slowing of air as it passes through an aircraft's engine. This is really only effective at speeds greater than 600mph (mach .79) so the aircraft needs an alternative method of thrust to get it to that speed. They are also usually designed to work under very specific conditions. However, ramjets are efficient in that they require no moving parts. They are used primarily in missiles. Scramjets are the same as ramjets except that they do not slow the air to subsonic speeds. This allows scramjets to achieve much higher speeds, up to somewhere between mach 12 (9134mph) and mach 24 (18269mph)! Like ramjets, scramjets are not effective until a certain speed, which The Custodian in scramjet places at mach 3 (2284mph). Unfortunately (or fortunately), a lot of information regarding scramjets is classified.