Eagle's Lair
Members Roster

January 29, 1999

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The North American Eagle™ Team went on the public speaking tour again. On Tuesday January 26th, Ed Shadle, Steve Green and Keith Zanghi visited the Univeristy of Washington and gave a presentation to Professor Robert Breidenthal's Aeronautics and Astronautics junior class. The 50 minute presentation featured a history of landspeed racing, along with an update of the current project. Steve Green was on hand to talk about the solid aluminum billet wheels. The students were impressed with the amount of science that went into the wheel design. The very expensive FEA (Finite Element Analysis) is the key to a successfull design. The original shape was found to be very unstable do to the high stresses of the original design. Using FEA, Steve redesign the wheels in his Abbotsford Eagle Machine shop. Today the wheels are expected to have a long life at speeds exceeding 900 MPH.

Also on hand was Brian Leckey from the BBC. Brian is the director of Discovery Channel's "Extreme Machines." He stopped by to interview the team and see whats new. He is traveling the country talking to some of the greats in landspeed racing; Andy Green, Art Arfons, Tom Green, and Craig Breedlove. Look for the updated show in about 4 - 5 months.

Following the presentation, the team was given a tour of the University of Washington's wind tunnels. Hosted by Professor Breidenthal the team got an extraordinary tour of all the University of Washingtons wind and water tunnels. Operations Manager Brian Geppert gave a special tour of the F.K. Kirsten Wind Tunnel. A subsonic, double return, closed circuit wind tunnel. Under test was a 747SP used my NASA in the SOFIA observatory.

We invite you to add a comment, or remark, about our program or the site.

[Privacy Policy]