Eagle's Lair
Members Roster

October 31, 1999

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Autumn 1999 has been a pretty busy month with respect to landspeed racers. The motorcycles enjoyed a successful meet at Bonneville. Among the participants was Richard "Rocketman" Brown with his rocket powered Gillette MACH3 Challenger with a top speed of 365 mph.

In September BUB Enterprises Tenacious II running the Joe Harrelson V-4 turned a 287 at an exclusive Motorcycles only meet.

The USFRA September meet was rained out so most of those entries moved to the SCTA October World Finals. One of the NAE team members, Dave Haller ran his freshened up C Altered to over 203 mph and got his A license. Good job!

Steve Green and I made a trip to Edwards AFB for the annual October open house and air show. I had the great pleasure of meeting with General Richard Reynolds and being introduced to the X-15 pilots, Scott Crossfield, Pete Night, Bill Dana and Joe Engel. What an exiting weekend it was. We watched the XR-71 make its last Mach 3.2 flight over Edwards AFB as it is now retired from active duty. What a magical bird!

Wit the Eagle Machine truck loaded with spare parts from Aero Engineering and Edwards DRMO we headed for George Calloways ranch to catch the El Mirage October meet and bench race with some old friends. It was a good meet but my racing partner from San Jose, Bud Jones wasn’t there. The truck was loaded to the some pretty strange looking parts and topped off with an ejection seat on the very top. Looked sort of like the Beverly Hill Billies with Grannies chair.

The worst kind of luck hit us about 20 miles North of Grants Pass, Oregon when the clutch on the truck went away. The center of the clutch disk separated from the outer surface and needless to say, we were stuck! Steve remembered that RB Slagle was from Grants Pass. He called RB’s widow and told her of our troubles. She called Carl who is now campaigning the Phoenix and alerted him to our situation. We had the tow truck take us by the Ford garage where we picked up the parts then on to Carl’s shop. Carl and Kenny opened up the shop and we started working on the clutch replacement. Pulling the 5 speed and two speed splitter with a 50/30/20 mix of metric, SAE and standard nuts and bolts was no easy job. Remember, this truck has made its share of trips to the Salt Flats! We started at 6 pm, took time out for pizza and beer and finished up by midnight and back on the road. Of all the places to break down on the I-5 corridor, Grants Pass was the place to do it. Many thanks to Carl, Kenny, their wives and Mrs. Slagle.

As for the North American Eagle F-104, yes we’re working on it. We’ve been inventorying our parts and moving some items to my new shelter. Steve has finished the spacer plate and is working on the rear suspension. I’m installing new plexiglass in the windshield and new canopies. We’re a busy bunch.

Edward J. Shadle

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