Eagle's Lair
Members Roster

June 5, 2003

Ladies & Gentlemen:

Our regular visitors to our site will recall the Soundings article printed in the April/May issue of Air & Space Magazine. When you get national exposure like that, it's not uncommon to get feedback because of the audience it reaches. The article got a unique enough response to be printed in the Air & Space Magazine's "Letters" section for the current issue for June/July. For those who didn't catch it, here's the letter quoted from that section.

Ah, the Optimism of Youth
In the article about an F-104 Starfighter being reincarnated as a vehicle to break the land speed record... Keith Zanghi says: "I'm amazed nobody thought of this before." Well, somebody did, and over 30 years ago. It was Tom Trefethen, my brother.

As a high school senior in 1969, Tom proposed modifying an F-104 fuselage and engine into a "Land Speed Record Car," with the goal of breaking the sound barrier. I have included a sketch he made (below).

In 1990, Tom and I signed on to help Craig Breedlove develop a "Spirit of America" supersonic-speed-attempting car. We built the demonstration model, the jet ground-test bell, and the massive S-duct inlets of graphite and epoxy, which fed the car's J-79 engine. We also fabricated the car's nose/pilot capsule.

When I reminded Tom about his high school plans, he said: "...airplane fuselages such as the -104 may not be as strong or stiff as one might think. Traveling through air is quite different from bounding over rock-hard desert surface at Mach 1." I am sure Keith Zanghi and Ed Shadle are considering this as they adapt the aircraft to land operation.

Tina Trefethen
Lomita, California

Ed and Keith were delighted to learn of this. The sketch was very interesting, so we decided to contact Tina about this material. She has graciously agreed to share Tom's material from over 30 years ago with us for use in our classroom section of the site. It is anticipated that we will be able to add more detailed material from Tom's early drawings when they arrive. So, be watching for an announcement about this early concept car which apparently never materialized for Tom for various reasons.

As far as the fuselage's strength over the ground is concerned, Tina is right, Ed has considered this issue and has been working on formulating a solution for it. Keep watching our site for the announcement about this.

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