Eagle's Lair
Members Roster

February 12, 2005

Ladies and Gentleman:

As Earl Gratzer, Jon Higley, Von Armstrong, Bill Eckberg, Cam Shadle, Tim Finley, Steve Wallace, Ed Drumheller II, Keith Zanghi and Ed Shadle were working in the cold 40 degree weather in the Tacoma area, 900 miles North, Bernard and his wife Tammy were dealing with – 25 degree weather in Fort St. John, BC.

On Thursday, Bernard told his wife he was taking her on a 2nd Honeymoon.  With visions of swimming with stingrays in the Cayman Islands, we can’t tell you exactly what Tammy said when she heard she would be going to Fort St. John, BC, but what we can say is she didn’t envision that she would be traveling by truck.   The two love birds left on Friday and arrived Saturday night.   Special thanks goes to Steve Green at Eagle Machine, Inc. for loaning us the use of his brand new diesel powered pickup truck and gooseneck trailer to tow the engine.

Earl replaced the pump unit on the Hydraulic Repair and Design steering unit.  After we bled the lines, the unit worked just great, giving Ed full travel of the wheel in either direction. Performance Coatings in Auburn, WA has been sandblasting our McVay Mobile Welding mobilizer and preparing it for paint.  It should be ready by the end of the week.

Earl, Von and Keith spent most of the day routing a hydraulic line from the master brake cylinder to the back of the car.  Most of the hard work is done.  We will finish the rest of it up by Monday.  Steve Green at Eagle Machine, Inc. in Abbottsford, BC has built an all new rear axle assembly with integrated disk brakes.   Originally we were not going to install disk brakes on the car, but now that we are performing our low speed runs on a shorter field, Ed felt the additional braking would be worth the extra time to incorporate it into the design.  A big thank you goes to Spencer Aircraft in Puyallup, WA, who we acquired some specialized tools from, during the previous week.

Steve received yet another box of parts from PCB Peizotronics and Larson Davis. Steve spent most of the day building a electronic chassis to install the components into the electronics bay. He also spent a good deal of time sketching out a test bed we will be using to mount the two instruments and calibrate two critical components of our car’s “nervous system”. These will be used with the nose canards to keep it from leaving the ground in subsonic and transonic speeds.

Tim assisted Steve on the work and tested a temperature gauge that will be used on the engine.  Bill spent most of his time in the engine manuals gathering data required for a new engine oil and temperature gauge we will be having built during the upcoming week.  Ed, Jon and Cam de-fueled the car using our Small & Sons electric pump.  The two transferred the fuel to 55 gallon drums so Bill could replace a fuel pump.  Ed II finished up the final deployment bag for our Aerial Machine and Tool parachutes.  Next he will begin working on some display units.

Cam worked on the inlet guide ring for use on the engine that will be returning next week to the shop. Although not present, Libby was busy all morning preparing the team a large pot of her award winning Lentil soup.  At lunch many of the team members could be heard singing  “mmm…mm good, mmm…mm good, Libby’s Lentil soup is mmm-mm good.”  By the end of the day a lot of the team members were having problems bending over because their stomachs were so full!

Bill Eckberg, one of our five jet engine mechanics (along with Sean, Dave, John and Harry), installed a fourth working fuel pump to the tank. In the process of installation, Bill discovered that the fuel line nut to the cover plate being removed and replaced was loose; thereby contributing to the loss of fuel pressure within the system. With these kind of discoveries the team is more confident that our second go around at engine testing and running next month will be a huge success.

Meeko, the team's security guard, was not feeling well, so her owner, Tim, had to put a sign on her forehead that said, "Don't feed me!". You see, Meeko is also known amongst team members as "Meeko the Moocher" because she'll stand right in front of anyone with food in their hands, waiting for a handout.

Engine Update

S&S Turbine Services has completed all assembly work and the engine has been tested to 100% mil power.  Everything works great!  The team of Robin Sipe, Al Von Hollen, Dave Wood, Brian Maddigan and Lane McCabe assembled the 17 foot long engine earlier in the week.  During the rebuild they found a loose locknut on the VSV feedback cable that allowed the VSVs to get out of schedule.  Once they were recalibrated, light off went smoothly, peaking at 1100 degrees F, and settling immediately to 680 – 700 degrees F.  The fuel control is responding correctly to throttle input.  Tail feathers are working per the book.  When we get the engine back to Spanaway the team will have to bleed the air from the fuel lines.  The S&S Turbine team found this was causing the afterburner pump to get hot.  So…..good news from Fort St. John.

The Discovery Canada Film Crew will be onsite at the S&S Turbines test cell all day Sunday to film a run on the stand, and to gather interviews from the S&S Turbine Services staff.  What turned out to be a setback in our program has now been integrated in the storyline of the upcoming one hour Discovery Channel show.  It is anticipated that the Ultimate Engineering series will be shown in over a hundred countries.  In three weeks, Discovery will be back in the Pacific Northwest to film the final segment of the show which will highlight our test runs.

Next Week

The team will be very busy in the upcoming weeks.  Following the filming on Sunday, Bernard will load the engine onto the trailer and head south to Abbottsford.  Keith and Ed will travel North to Canada with a brief case full of documentation and bring the engine back to Spanaway.   We look to reinstall the engine most likely next Saturday.

That’s it for now.

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