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July 9, 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Thursday morning saw the NAE™ being towed north to the middle section of the lake bed where a good 4.25 mile stretch of surface was found the day before. Despite the 1.5 hours it took to arrive at the course's beginning point, set the day before by Jon Higley, the team found the conditions much better than in the south, and worth the effort.

Two runs were made in the 350 mph range with the deployment of the high speed chute test a success. At the same time, data acquisition and real-time monitoring of the onboard sensors, by way of the towers interspersed along the 4 mile run course using Tropos' GPS ethernet system, one of our sponsors, was also a great success according to the data acquisition scientist Steve Wallace. Between runs, a recovery team practiced their turn around routine and found that the total time from start to finish took only 40 minutes; leaving extra time for fueling when record runs are made.

Two representatives from INTEL, Alan and Bryce, were present to conduct a tests with their highly reliable solid state drives on the NAE™.

Two guests - Vicki Cruse & Per Wimmer - were given the opportunity to sit in the cockpit and conduct an engine run of the NAE™. Vicki Cruse, the 2007 World Women's Acrobatic Champion, sat in the cockpit first. Later in the afternoon, Vicki had to leave and she flew off in her plane. Before departing the area, she gave the team a few acrobatic manuevers before waggling her wings to say "good-bye".

Per Wimmer, an adventurer from Denmark who will be the first Dane into outerspace on SpaceShip Two's ship, also had a turn in the cockpit after it returned to the shelter at base camp on the desert. Per had made the trip to witness our test session and learn what the project was doing. He successfully got the engine up to idle. Other guests who came to watch the tests were Mark Moore, Dave Stevenson, and Dorn. Two of our Eagle's Lair members were also present: Don Bartram came from New Mexico, and Elliott Wittler from California helped the team with work & food.

With testing over, the team began breaking down the NAE's running suspension and preparing it for loading into its travel trailer before heading off to dinner in Gerlach.

Before the car can be loaded into the trailer, the mid-wheels must be removed and stored. To remove them, the wheel well doors must be opened. When this is done after several runs on the desert playa, a massive amount of dust has accumulated inside, revealing just how soft the playa is at this time.

On Television

We continue to talk with a half dozen television production companies interested in doing a documentary on our upcoming test session.

The North American Eagle™ has been featured in over eight television shows and every major television network. Recently NBC / Universal filmed the team for a possible pilot.

On the Newsstands

This week the project made the front cover of Desktop Engineering magazine. You can read the David Cohn story describing the engineering behind the Eagle, and some of the people who make it happen.

On the newsstands is an article on the project in the June 2009 issue of FLY RC magazine. The very popular magazine can be found at most grocery stores and all book stores.

We know a lot of our fans are on facebook. Now the North American Eagle™ is on facebook! In fact many of our team members are also! It is just another great way to let everyone know what we're up to. We have many of our latest Power-On systems test videos up on the site. Just type in North American Eagle and you will find us! Tell your friends! It's fun!

We invite you to add a comment, or remark, about our program or the site.

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