Eagle's Lair
Members Roster

January 15, 2005

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Today’s work party was really exciting.  Not only did we get a lot accomplished, but we picked up a new team member and met an old friend.  In attendance was Glenn, Bernard, Shad, Dennis, Earl,  Bob, Tim, Ed II, Von, Steve and Libby Wallace, Jon, Marty, Sean, Dave, John, Keith, Meeco, Steve Green (Eagle Machine) and Ed.

Steve Wallace was busy in the electronics bay.  He had to do more tests which involved starting up the American Valley Aviation M32-60B Turbine Start Cart.  The test also involved starting the MD-3 Ground Power Unit to test the automatic switching from ground power to ship power.  Everything worked great as indicated with Steve throwing his hands up in the air as if he kicked the winning field goal for the Seattle Seahawks…..well maybe not the Hawks.

Bob Biesler has been busy re-routing a lot of the hydraulic tubing.  We found when we removed the engine that we could pick up some additional clearance by modifying the path of some of the tubing.  Bob has done a great job and will be finishing that up soon.

Steve Green drove down to work on some design work for the LevX® Magnetic Braking.  Steve’s company Eagle Machine, Inc. in Abbottsford, BC will build the mechanical mechanism that will hold the rare earth neodymium iron boron magnets.  Bob and Ed worked with Steve on the revolutionary technology that will dissipate the tremendous kinetic energy that will be generated as the aluminum wheels are rotated at over 8000 rpms.

Jon and Tim gathered photos for the website. Glenn picked up some 8 x 10 glossy photographs that you will see for sale soon on our NAE™ Gear page.  Glenn and Jon have taken over the PR for the project.  We will start to see benefits from that effort shortly.

Bernard, Dennis and Shad McVay of McVay’s Mobile Welding manufactured an overhead trolley unit that will be used to remove and replace the S&S Turbine Services  jet engine from the North American Eagle™  The new piece of equipment will give us the ability to make an engine change in the Desert in probably one hour (including a ten minute coffee break).  In addition the new equipment will be much safer and easier to use than renting a forklift and slinging the engine into the car.  The only thing left to do now is send it out to Performance Coatings in Kent, WA and have it powder coated.

Ed II did some more repair work on the sewing machine.  It is becoming more apparent that when we start making components for the high speed parachutes we are going to need a newer model.  Again….if anyone out there has a good used industrial sewing machine they would like to donate to the team we would like to hear from you.  If you have already depreciated the machine, it could be a really inexpensive way to be a part of history.

Tim and Sean worked on engine instruments and controls.  Earl, Ed, Keith and Von assisted the others.   We also picked up another team member.  Harry Veldman stopped by with his daughter, April, to see the car.  Harry works at McChord AFB with John Zambrano  and Dave Selby.  Along with Sean Rondestvedt and Bill Eckberg we really have a great engine staff.  When you include Robin Sipe at S&S Turbine Services and Bo Watson down at Mojave we have a lot of experience we can draw from.  Speaking of the engine.  Repair is progressing in Fort St. John, BC.   We will be really close by the end of next week.

This weekend the team was honored to have Jeremy Davey stop by and see the car for the first time.  Jeremy was the webmaster for Thrust SSC.   Fighting cold temperatures in the hangar, he gave the team a one hour presentation on the Thrust SSC project that gave us a lot of insight.  We have known Jeremy for a long time.  Ed Shadle met Jeremy for the first time the summer of ’97 when Thrust SSC was on the Black Rock Desert.  Back then Jeremy gave Ed a tour of the project.  Ed took many of those  best practices and incorporated them into our project.  Before he left we had Jeremy climb up on a ladder and sign a couple of posters.

Earlier in the week Keith, John Drury and Ed drove the LevX® Volvo Tractor to Kelso WA to Interstate Wood Products and met with Dale Lemmons.  Interstate Wood Products are our newest sponsor.  They will be replacing a bad clutch and throttle mechanism.  They offered us one of their fleet of Freightliner Tractors if repairs can’t be completed in time for our low speed runs. 

Also last week Keith met with Rod Parmenter at Moving Spots.   Rod is a filmmaker, director and producer of extreme sports like snow skiing and windsurfing.  He has appeared on the front cover of Ski Magazine and has provided film for Warren Miller.  Rod has been assisting the team as a technical consultant for our video and film production for over a year now.  Keith traveled to Woodinville, WA where Rod was filming a television show he is producing called American Home Challenge™ 2005.   It's an exciting show where seven luxury home builders compete against each other as they construct multi-million dollar homes.  All we need now is to talk Rod into producing a show of mostly 31 middle aged men spending millions of dollars as they try to break the world landspeed record for automobiles!

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