Eagle's Lair
Members Roster

February 26, 2005

Ladies and Gentlemen:

A great day and a great team! That best describes today's North American Eagle™ work party experience. Sean Rondestvedt, Bill Eckberg, Cam Shadle, Marty Schenck, Von Armstrong, Dennis McVay, John Zambrono, Dave Selby, Aaron McVay, Steve Wallace, Tim Finley, Harry Veldman, Bernard McVay, Jon Higley, Ed Shadle, Slim Lawson and Keith Zanghi were on hand to put the final touches on the Eagle prior to our final film event for Discovery Canada.

Bernard spent most of the day working on a steel tube that will be loaded with PCB Piezotronics and Larson Davis data acquisition sensors. The unit will be used on Steve Wallace’s aerodynamic test bed to analyze the canard effectiveness.  He bored over 20 holes using a Central Welding Supply hole hogger.  The magnetic based drill press cuts through steel like butter.  Central Welding not only carries a full line of welding equipment, but all the tools to complete your metal project.

Before beginning the day's tasks, the team gathered together to go over the tasks needing completion. With so much to do, coordination was critical and the team stepped up to the plate with impressive efficiency. Harry, Bill, John, Dave and Sean hooked up the throttle control, installed the nozzle control linear actuator, hooked up all the engine cannon plugs and placed a engine dump tube into position. They also safety wired the engine “coke bottles” into place. These machined fittings are the engine mounts that hold it in the car.

Keith hooked up the final connections for the installation of the 2nd master cylinder that will be used for the new Eagle Machine rear brakes.  Jon was the rover for the day helping out everyone finish their tasks while he took pictures for this update. He also had to make an emergency run to Spencer Aircraft at Thun Field to pick up some nuts that we needed to install the rear tail cone. Without the support of companies like Spencer who we rely on just for parts just about daily, Keith would be working a lot more overtime and Ed would have to come out of retirement.

Steve was busy in the electronics bay installing more circuits for the PCB Piezotronics and Larson Davis components.  Tim ran wiring for the oil pressure / temperature gauge he installed last week. After a check it is now ready for use. Ed II was at his sewing machine putting the finishing touches on some more deployment bags. In addition he packed up all of the parachute equipment needed for this weeks up coming test runs.

Cam met Steve Green from Eagle Machine, Inc. in Abbottsford, BC about half way between Everett and there, then drove down from Everett to deliver the brakes and calipers that Eagle Machine built for out new axle assembly.

Von re-installed the over the shoulder camera mount in the driver compartment.   Next week Discovery Canada will mount one of their DVCAM cameras and get some spectacular footage as Ed drives the car for our test runs.  In all, there will be five on-board cameras recording the runs.  Sometime in the future Jon and Glenn will put them up on our MiracleStudios hosted web site.

Dennis and Aaron McVay helped out just about everyone. Aaron, who keeps picking the short straw (and is the shortest team member), climbed into the tail end of the S&S Turbine Services jet engine and applied heat to the thermocouples so Steve and Bill could check the wiring. However, Keith is worried. If Aaron continues to eat and grow at his current rate, according to mathematical calculations, Aaron will surpass Keith’s height on June 13th. Then guess who will be picking the short straw!

The goal of the day was to install the rear tail cone on the car, then turn the car around and put it into the Schenck Hangar with the front of the car pointed out. Slim Lawson heard we would be installing the tail cone, so he made it a point to stop by and make sure we did it right.  Slim just celebrated his 85th birthday and did it by holding a fly-in at Spanaway Airport. It was such a big success that at one point he thought they were going to have to install a tower to direct arriving and departing air traffic.

Jon and Ed went into the trailer and attached the tail cone to the internal hydraulic crane. They then moved it outside while the rest of the team slid the car into the tail cone while it was suspended in the air by the crane. Overall, the process went pretty smoothly considering this was only our fourth time doing this. What used to be an all day event with several forklifts, now takes place in about an hour utilizing our engineered equipment; much of it built by McVay's Mobile Welding.

After the tail cone assembly was installed we stood back admired our work and took in beautiful Mount Rainer in the distance. After a minute of that quick repose, it was time to get back to work to turn the car around. Our McVay Mobilizer was 40 miles to the north at Powder Coating, Inc. being painted, so we had to move the car the way they built the pyramids - by hand! With the total steering range of about 5 degrees, the entire team put themselves into the record books for the longest distance man ever had to push a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter around. Later calculations showed by the time we pushed the 56 foot long, 12,000 lb car back and forth in order to turn it around, that the distance was nearly a half mile! Luckily we had a big crew and when done most of us had the night off since we didn’t have to run to the gym that night.

Hot Off The Press

Longtime friend of the project, Colonel Joe Kittinger is featured in the latest installment of National Geographic’s EXPLORATION 77 Pictures of great adventure. He ranks 3rd, along with General Chuck Yeager, for photographs. Colonel Joe has introduced the team to many of our nations greatest test pilots who flew Lockheed 56-0763 when it was a based at Edwards AF Base as a chase plane for the X-15, SR-71 and XB-70 test programs. Pick up a copy today or click the link above and order direct from National Geographic.

That’s it for now. We still have a number of tasks that need to be completed over the coming week. Next weekend we face the Discovery Canada film crews once again to document the test runs of the North American Eagle™ world landspeed record challenger at our secret testing location. Until then, take care.

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