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Ladies and Gentlemen:

Choosing to spend a beautiful spring like day at the hangar, our intrepid North American Eagle™ team turned out to put in some work time on the contender for the world land speed record. Ed Shadle, Keith Zanghi, Bernard McVay, Von Armstrong, Rich Pengelley, Omar Chramosta, Larry Martinson, Steve Wallace, Chris Greene, and Levi Swet checked in this morning.

Judging from some of the pictures, the 56 foot long 45,500 hp jet car appears in sad shape.  Not true. It comes apart and it goes back together in much less time than it appears.  Each load and unload and each test run reveals new avenues for improvement. Thanks to our many sponsors, Team NAE™ has the support and the hardware to pursue those avenues.

Still sporting a "baby powder" look, from an earlier in the week scan with Capture 3D Photogrammetry and ATOS 3D Digitizer, the main focus for today was on the rear wheels axle assembly. There are two main axles that support the car, the "traveling axle" for loading and unloading, and the "running axle" for speed tests.  They both attach to a common mounting plate and it is critical that the attachment points are exactly aligned and that both axles can be interchanged with a minimum of difficulty.

Keith and Bernard spent the majority of the day making that happen, with the help of Rich, Larry and Levi.  The old mounting holes for the fastening bolts were welded over and new hole placements were carefully measured and drilled. Team member Bernard, owner of McVay's Mobil Welding, applied his expertise and specialized equipment to make a tough job easier. Much of the time featured  Bernard and the battle of drill against will.  With Keith and Levi helping out, the good guys won.

Much work on the six ton car requires it to be raised up with jacks and onto jack stands.....very carefully.  Ed fabricated a new front wheel block stand today to assure that the front end is fully supported and stable when elevated.  We'll finish it off next weekend with a fresh coat of paint. With the modified stand, our safety just improved tremendously.

All hands assembled to remove the tail cone and place it on its specially designed cart, awaiting the installation of the newly tuned jet engine when it arrives from S&S Turbine Services, Ltd.

Our old reliable start cart from American Valley Aviation needed some encouragement and Ed and Rich were in process of making it happy.   Ed finished off the day by replacing a damaged fuel flow gauge.

On the Newsstands

If you own a Falcon Business Jet, then you have seen the North American Eagle in the latest issue of Falconer Magazine, Issue 36 / 2010. If you're not lucky enough to own a multi-million dollar business jet, the you can read The Quest To Be The Fastest Car On Earth written by Grant Kielczewski, Managing Editor on line. It features extraordinary photos of our July 2009 test session at The Black Rock Desert, and tells the story of tenacity and resourcefulness as our team challenges the 763 mph world land speed record.

Intel Solid State Drive Videos

If  you haven't seen them yet now would be a good time to watch the videos we did with Intel promoting their indestructible Solid State Drives.

For All you F-104 Scale Model Builders

Tony Landis from NASA Dryden sent us this information. Rocketeer Decal, a manufacturer of scale model decals now offer a decal sheet that includes turning your 1/72 F-104 model with the livery of 56-0763. Cool huh?

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!  Tell your friends! It's fun!

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