Eagle's Lair
Members Roster

January 1, 2005

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Day 1 of the new year with Bernard, Dennis, Chad, Steve Wallace, Sean, Tim, Keith and Ed started out early in the morning and finished a little after sun down.

First, we set a new record unloading the car in a mere 30 minutes.  The previous day we loaded the car in just 45 minutes.  This used to be a 3 hour activity. We are becoming very proficient as a team and it shows in our reduced times.

If you’re a fan of NASCAR, Indy Cars or Drag Racing you might be thinking what our problem is.  Those cars can be loaded in five minutes.  The numbers tell the story.  The North American Eagle™ is 56 feet long and weighs 12,000 lb.  When it fits in the trailer we have only 2 inches of clearance on either side.  There is over 5,200 lb on the front wheel alone.  Even if we had a 53 foot trailer we still can’t get it in.  Luckily we can remove the nose from the vehicle, shortening it enough to fit in a 48 foot long trailer. Everything is so heavy that loading ramps have to be built to carry the heavy weight, are themselves quite heavy.  When you’re done loading or unloading the car it's as if you were working out all day at the gym. It takes a toll on the body.  Luckily all the NAE™ team members are in excellent physical condition.  It's easy see why we excel in other sports as well.

After the car was unloaded we had to assemble the McVay Mobilizer and move the car into the hangar.  We then proceeded to remove the tail cone from the Eagle. Using the same hydraulic arms in the trailer to load the car, we were able to remove the tail cone without a hitch.

With two hours of daylight remaining we jumped on the task of removing the engine.  Except for some minor loading issues, the job went very well.  Today’s activity was an important experiment.  In the event we have to do an engine change in the desert, we now know it is possible.  McVay Mobile Welding will be building some specialized spreader bars and lifting hooks in the next few weeks to make this job safer and more efficient.  With a little practice we believe we could do an engine change in under an hour. 

Next week will be very busy as we ship the engine north to S&S Turbine Services in Fort St. John, BC.  As we mentioned in yesterdays update, Robin Sipe, Allen Von Hollen, Dave Wood, and Brian Maddigan, of S&S Turbine Services, are ready to go when the engine arrives.  

While the engine is gone we will now have time to go back and work on some things to improve that we discovered through all our engine tests last month.  We’re off to a great start for the new year!

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