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Welcome to Jon's NAE™ Project Journal Page 2011

Entries are in ascending order. (For those of you in Rio Linda, start at the bottom.)

November 2004 - Being that the North American Eagle™ has been eight years in the making as of this date, I've decided it's time to begin a journal to record my personal reflections about the events which will take place from here on out with the project's progress. Something to contribute to the record - for our fans, visitors and those who may look back in years to come on this project's development with interest in how we got it done and what happened along the way. After all, there's truth to the saying, "Joy is found not in reaching the destination, but in the journey along the way."

Want to read a story version of this project's progress; the ups and downs of how it all came about? Then use this link to check it out.

[Print Version]

March 9, 2011

A new year and more progress is being made, very purposefully & carefully.

Various small, but important modifications are currently being done to the car - steering component changes & adjustments, construction of an aerodynamic flow divider at the forefront of the front steering wheel on the belly is currently under design, ongoing negotiations with the BLM for a permit, or as an alternative, raising $23,000 to cover the fee to run at a Southern CA desert lake bed, courting a few key sponsors who have shown interest in possibly financially backing our record attempt have all been the efforts of mostly Ed & Keith to move the "monumental process " along closer to our goal.

More importantly, good progress is currently being made to complete the computational fluid dynamics analysis on the car's body to determine how best to cover over with fairing the rear suspension which has, up 'till now, been exposed on our previous low speed tests. Analysis has revealed that a large amount of turbulents develop on the rear suspension beginning at the transonic speed of 570 mph and higher; especially at supersonic speed. Devising the most beneficial and efficient way of building a modular set of fairings which would cover the large beams and allow the most efficient airflow over them in order to minimize unwanted turbulence generated by them, and thereby reduce significant drag, is critical to accomplish before testing resumes.

Once this is done, the car can then be run up into the transonic range, data can be collected on our on-board acquisition system, and then analyzed for comparison with our CFD work. If the two sets of data mesh well, then we'll feel more confident about going for near record speeds and faster. Of course, our data acquisition scientist, Steve Wallace, will continue to collect data for further analysis as we step up the speeds in the transonic range tests.

Thus, we continue to press on with our vision - ever mindful of the fact that our friends across the pond, on both sides of our continent, are doing the same thing. But we are not giving up simply because they've got a more impressive goal, or far superior public relations campaign to impress the press - and thus the public - with. As Yogi Berra is infamous for saying, "It ain't over 'till it's over." Our struggle is greater being the ones without the credentials to lend credibility to our plans. But then, the accomplishment of them will be even sweeter when it happens.

There are two possibilities for successfully getting our next test session to happen. The first is to convince one of our more prominent sponsors to write the check for the expenses required at our current "best bet" venue in Southern California. The second would be to have a majority of our fans donate into a fund for this event. This could be accomplished via our donation button within our site's gear page. While the British managed to motivate their citizens in doing something similar back in '97, our economic circumstances aren't exactly the same today as they were then.

Which of the two options will happen? Only time will tell. Hopefully something will change in the next few months, but I won't hold my breath.

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