Eagle's Lair
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For images of this, and other days at El Mirage, please go to our Photo Gallery.

June 5, 2006

Ladies & Gentleman:

At the crack of dawn, the team headed out to El Mirage dry lake bed, as Ed Shadle stayed behind to do a radio interview in the town of Palmdale.  The first order of business was to position the NorWest Trucking / LevX® Tractor Trailer and set up camp. Cam Shadle put up the large awning used at Bonneville to help block the sun. The rest of the team led by Bernard McVay help unload the Eagle, remove the American Valley Aviation AVA M32-60B start cart and the tons of tools and special tooling to make the Eagle run. All three firemen, Rob Martinson, Sean Rondestvedt and Mike Endicott kept in shape by unloading the thousand of pounds of equipment. They recruited the young Tom Pengelley who rode his Honda Superbike down from Seattle.

Long time sponsor of the project, Central Welding Supply loaned us a 10 kw generator set which was promptly setup, supplying electricity to the entire camp. A very helpful and necessary item on the lake bed.

Didi Boyington set up a large table of pastries, fruit, coffee and much needed water for the team. It was a big job each day, as she had to travel into town, buy supplies and have them ready by the next day for breakfast and lunch. Trying to feed and water 32 guys and gals is not that easy. Each day the camp consumed 200 lbs. of ice. It is amazing how much water the group drank, but when you're working hard in 111 degree F temperatures, it's not hard to sweat it off quickly. Libby Wallace helped in setting up a shaded area for the crew to eat lunch under. However, most of the time the guys were too busy getting things done to take advantage of it.

Keith and Ed were given the task of setting up the porta-potties. A dirty job, but someone has to do it. After going to Bonneville for the last 20 years, Ed knew how to tie down the porta-potties in anticipation of the early afternoon winds and sudden squalls that can show up at a moments notice. Last thing you want to have happen is show up in the morning with a big mess to step into.

Russ Garlow and Rich Pengelley installed the mid-axle wheels and installed the belly doors. Through out the day Jon Higley maintain our Quality Assurance check sheets by making sure they were filled out and in the book.

Also arriving in the early morning was Chris Lofft who is the producer for Base Productions, which is based in Washington DC and Los Angeles. Chris was with the team to shoot footage and record interviews for an upcoming Discovery Channel show. Base Productions produces numerous shows for Discovery, A&E, National Geographic, and the National Hockey League. Discovery Channel also had still photographers shooting for possible 15 foot billboards. We don’t yet know what they have planned, but it should be exciting.

About 8:00AM Bill Eckberg and Jerry Lamb arrived. Jerry Lamb towed down his brand new travel trailer complete with air conditioning. It was a welcome addition where team members could take a small break to get out of the El Mirage heat. Just after lunch Al Von Hollen from S&S Turbine Services arrived. He flew in from Fort St. John, B.C. and was commenting that the temperature was a little higher in southern California. Also arriving was Steve Green from Eagle Machine, Inc.  Steve towed his large 5th wheel trailer, which he used to haul some of our equipment down on. Eagle Machine, Inc. has just purchased another Dallas-Smith trailer, just like the one used to haul the Eagle with. In the upcoming months we will be busy setting it up so that next time, we won’t need to be pulling all these extra trailers. Earl Gratzer and his wife Roxanne drove down and arrived at the start of the day. The team was now complete with everyone having arrived.

Steve Wallace performed last minute adjustments to the PCB Piezotronics / Larson Davis Data Acquisition system.  The car utilizes Space Age Controls miniature displacement transducers to give feedback on the vehicles attitude. Space Age Controls is located in Palmdale California, just down the street from Heritage Airpark 42. Tim Finley did some hooking up of the thermo gauges that measure the temperature of the magnetic brakes. 

Russ, Jon, Rich, Sean, Rob, Tom and Mike headed out and setup the 4.5 mile course by placing cones every 1/10th of a mile with flags at the one and two mile marks.

Rachel Shadle took care of passing out our security badges to the team members, VIPs, sponsors and press. Manufactured by Signs by Tomorrow in Bellevue WA, the badges help identify who was who and secure the camp during operations. Thor at Signs by Tomorrow delivered on time over 200 badges and information boards for the project. It was a ton of work and Thor burnt the midnight oil to make it happen. Thanks Thor.

Keith Zanghi was busy installing the MotoCam® onboard cameras and the Olympus Industrial i-SPEED 2 High Speed Video Camera.  The MotoCam® cameras record directly to Scandisk Flashcards and completely eliminate the problem of vibration from the tape head jumping up and down. Look for the MotoCam® Cameras in the upcoming summer movie blockbuster Miami Vice - The Movie. MotoCam® supplied all the onboard cameras. The i-SPEED 2 High Speed Video Camera was dropped shipped to our hotel and still needed to be mounted in the special protective housing. Keith drilled the housing and fitted the camera on site. The i-SPEED 2 camera used is a special high G version that can take up to 100g’s. No wonder it is used by nearly every automotive manufacturer for crash test vehicles. The Olympus i-SPEED 2 camera will provide exciting footage and analysis of our parachute opening sequence.

Ed Drumheller II took care of the parachute system. We had five complete parachute systems ready to plug into the car, plus brought along the parachute packer if we needed any more.

Doug Schwartz from Sterling CI brought along one of his intern Ryan for the week.  The two of them were coordinating with the media and shooting still and HD Video.  Doug has been recruiting sponsors for the team since last fall. 

In the late afternoon the Eagle was towed out to the lake bed and its engine fired up to adjust the hydraulic pressures. Jerry and Al bled the LevX®/ Eagle Machine, Inc magnetic brake lines while Sean Rondestvedt laid on his belly on top of the car and adjusted the Rapp Hydema valves that control the system. They all work in conjunction with the Hydraulic Repair and Design hydraulic pumps. As Bill Eckberg orchestrated the run up, all three guys did their job with the 42,500 hp engine screaming. With the engine running, Bill gathered exhaust emission samples for work we are doing with Seattle BioDiesel. The Eagle is utilizing a 50% BioDiesel / Kerosene mix that many of the local papers were thrilled to hear about when we mention it. With the engines running, Discovery Channel cameras were busy capturing the entire sequence, while the team’s fire support team of Sean, Mike, Rob and Von stood by. Mark Seguin could not make the trip because of prior commitments, but will be with us next time.

Special Thanks

We would like to thank the B&I Marketplace in Tacoma, WA that helped make this trip possible. We would also like to thank the Martinson family. They supplied the many orange markers for us to lay out our 4.5 mile course and create a camp boundary.

Longtime fan of the project, Baja Bob stopped by and dropped off some specialty hammers he manufactures. Bob visits Ed at Bonneville every year and was at last years test session at Edwards AFFTC.

For images of this, and other days at El Mirage, please go to our Photo Gallery.

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