Just because the salt flats season is over, it doesn't mean that people aren't still doing their best to go fast.
Ed Schadle, team principal of the North American Eagle team (
http://www.landspeed.com/ a great site that's so heavily burdened with Javascript that it's almost impossible to navigate without a T-1 connection) reports that in spite of some nasty weather at the Alvord Desert test site, numerous things were tested, including one run of 100 percent throttle with afterburner.
For those unfamiliar with the team and its goals, well, they're pretty simple on paper. Take a surplus 1957 F104 Starfighter jet aircraft, yank the wings off, rebuild it from scratch and attempt to go 800 mph with it. Piece o' cake, right? Wrong. There's a lot more than meets the eye to make a 55 year old jet fighter into a land speed record vehicle. First, wings or not, jet fighters are meant to fly and flying is about the last thing you want an LSR vehicle to do. And where do you store the fuel? The tanks weren't in the wings to begin with so that's helpful. Hmmm. These things along with updating the electrical systems and adding state of the art digital sensors, monitors and data loggers are a few of the problems that Ed and his crew have had to overcome.
But there's good news to report. First, most of those issues are behind the team (all-volunteer, I might add) and this past week (10/19-26/2012) a test session was run at Alvord Desert. The weather didn't cooperate too well, but this is what Ed had to say: "All in all, it was a great exercise in patience. We did get in our towing tests and some runs on Friday. We did our runs at 90% throttle, 100% throttle, 100% with minumum afterburner and one at full throttle, full AB. What a ride! With only about 4 useable hours on the lakebed, we accomplished a great deal. We're already making plans for a possible test session in late January at Alvord. If we cannot make January or February, the BLM won't let us back onto the lakebed until August."
I was invited to go with them, but due to some minor "issues" (damned ex-wife) I wasn't able to get away...and it's between 500 and 600 miles from where I live to the desert. I guess I'm spoiled by having a short drive of 120 miles to the salt flats. Maybe I can make it next time.
Here are a coupla photos: One of the NAE and one of their base camp. (Alvord is slightly remote.)
Some additional things worthy of note. There are numerous cars and teams preparing for some very serious assaults on records and "milestones" in this coming year. Of course, the NAE is shooting for 800 mph in an attempt to break the Thrust SSC's record of 763 mph, Richard Noble OBE, is planning to shoot for 1000 mph on a dry lake bed in Africa with RAF Wing Commander Andy Green (a very nice guy, if you should ever have the opportunity to meet him and also OBE) at the controls of the Bloodhound. Gabriel Utley is hoping to run for a 2-wheeled record of 400 mph in the "Angelic Bulldog" motorcycle streamliner (I had a chance to spend some time with Gabe at World of Speed in September when I wasn't tearing what little hair I have left out of my head...and he's another very nice man. It seems that there's a lot of that going around among the LSR community...many more "nice people" than asses.)
George Poteet and Ron Main are still trying to overcome the "One Way" nickname and put together two runs over 450 mph in the Speed Demon streamliner, running a 6 liter motor that pumps out about 2800 hp. Not bad for a Dart block and heads that are based on a Chevy Gen IV motor, huh? Mike and Terry Nish (#888 Frankenstein streamliner) didn't run last month because their 510" aluminum hemi motor wasn't finished in time. They're switching from Chevy Big Blocks to "Chrysler" hemis because of the increased power potential and also cuz they've blown up so many BBCs that it's time to try something else.
Mike Akatiff and Sam Wheeler are also shooting for the 400 mile mark in the bike liners named "Ack Attack" and "E-Z Hook." Ack's liner has run 384, but I think Sam's highest speed is around 300. He'll have a harder row to hoe than Ack. However, the last time the Ack Attack was on the salt, it had a little issue with the Traction Control system (a test run without the body) ended up with the liner upside down trying to force-feed pilot Rocky Robinson a diet of sub-salt clay.
Bobby Moore has a liner capable of 400 (on paper, but since we're racing on salt, he might have a tougher go of it) and Rob Freivogel and Bill "Sparky" Smith have streamliners in varying degrees of completion with yet-to-be specified goals....although I think Rob's another designer/builder/racer with 450 in mind.
Then there's my favorite streamliner. No, not my almost antiquated Monte Carlo, but the Treit and Davenport Target 550 streamliner, with the "target" speed of over 550 mph. We're looking at a low speed test of around 250 before going for all the marbles at over 550. But no test date has been set, although the testing could happen as soon as a sponsor sez, "let's do it!" The only issue there is the sponsor. The right one hasn't been found yet. But we're patient. It's taken over 12 years to get the liner built, so a short (comparatively) delay for sponsorship isn't the end of the world. The one phrase that keeps coming to the front ir mu=i
