North American Eagle land speed record car

The North American Eagle Project was a jet powered car that was intended to challenge the (Mach 1.02)

land speed record The land speed record (or absolute land speed record) is the highest speed achieved by a person using a vehicle on land. There is no single body for validation and regulation; in practice the Category C ("Special Vehicles") flying start regula ...

set by the

ThrustSSC ThrustSSC, Thrust SSC or Thrust SuperSonic Car is a British jet car developed by Richard Noble, Glynne Bowsher, Ron Ayers, and Jeremy Bliss. Thrust SSC holds the world land speed record, set on 15 October 1997, and driven by Andy Green, w ...

in 1997. The venture was a collaboration between

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

and US

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

s, and

mechanic A mechanic is an artisan, skilled tradesperson, or technician who uses tools to build, maintain, or repair machinery, especially cars. Duties Most mechanics specialize in a particular field, such as auto body mechanics, air conditioning and r ...

s. In 2013, they had hoped to reach , or Mach 1.058. In a land speed record attempt on August 27, 2019, the North American Eagle crashed, killing driver

Jessi Combs Jessica Combs (July 27, 1980 – August 27, 2019) was an American professional racer, television personality, and metal fabricator. She set a women's land speed class record (four wheels) in 2013 and broke her own record in 2016. She was kno ...

. During the run, Combs did set a new world land-speed record for a woman, at . Since the crash, the project has been abandoned.

Description

The vehicle was based on the fuselage of a Lockheed F-104A-10 Starfighter jet fighter aircraft, tail number 56-0763, The aircraft was built for the United States Air Force and assigned to the

Air Force Flight Test Center The Air Force Test Center (AFTC) is a development and test organization of the United States Air Force. It conducts research, development, test, and evaluation of aerospace systems from concept to deployment. It has test flown every aircraft in ...

at Edwards Air Force Base from August 29, 1957 until 1970 when it was retired. Initially the aircraft was used as a GE test platform for the J79 engine. It was later used as a

chase plane A chase plane is an aircraft that "chases" a "subject" aircraft, spacecraft or rocket, for the purposes of making real-time observations and taking air-to-air photographs and video of the subject vehicle during flight. Background Safety can ...

for the

North American X-15 The North American X-15 is a hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft. It was operated by the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as part of the X-plane series of experimental aircraft. The X-15 set speed an ...

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird The Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" is a long-range, high-altitude, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed and manufactured by the American aerospace company Lockheed Corporation. It was operated by the United States Air Force ...

and

North American XB-70 Valkyrie The North American Aviation XB-70 Valkyrie was the prototype version of the planned B-70 nuclear-armed, deep-penetration supersonic strategic bomber for the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command. Designed in the late 1950s by North Ame ...

test programs. It was flown by Joe Walker,

Scott Crossfield Albert Scott Crossfield (October 2, 1921 – April 19, 2006) was an American naval officer and test pilot. In 1953, he became the first pilot to fly at twice the speed of sound. Crossfield was the first of twelve pilots who flew the North America ...

, Pete Knight,

Bill Dana William Szathmary (October 5, 1924 June 15, 2017), known as Bill Dana, was an American comedian, actor, and screenwriter. He often appeared on television shows such as ''The Ed Sullivan Show'', frequently in the guise of a heavily accented Boli ...

Chuck Yeager Brigadier General Charles Elwood Yeager ( , February 13, 1923December 7, 2020) was a United States Air Force officer, flying ace, and record-setting test pilot who in October 1947 became the first pilot in history confirmed to have exceeded the ...

Joe Engle Joe Henry Engle (born August 26, 1932) is an American pilot, aeronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut. He was the commander of two Space Shuttle missions including STS-2 in 1981, the program's second orbital flight. He also flew three fl ...

and Bob Gilliland among other notable pilots. North American Eagle has designed road suspension and has carried out the necessary systems integration for it. The vehicle was long and weighed .

Powerplant

The engine was a

General Electric LM1500 The General Electric LM1500 is an industrial and marine gas turbine produced by GE Aviation. The LM1500 is a derivative of the General Electric J79 aircraft engine series. The LM1500 delivers up to . History The LM1500 was derived from the J79 e ...

turbojet (a civilian variation of the aircraft's original

J79 The General Electric J79 is an axial-flow turbojet engine built for use in a variety of fighter and bomber aircraft and a supersonic cruise missile. The J79 was produced by General Electric Aircraft Engines in the United States, and under lice ...

). A stock engine for low speed testing is rated at 42,500 hp (31.7 MW). The vehicle had an enhanced engine for record attempts, rated at 52,000 hp (52,700 metric horsepower). At idle the stock engine consumes of fuel per minute, rising to per minute at 100% military power and per minute in

afterburner An afterburner (or reheat in British English) is an additional combustion component used on some jet engines, mostly those on military supersonic aircraft. Its purpose is to increase thrust, usually for supersonic flight, takeoff, and comba ...

mode.

Braking systems

, four methods were in use to decelerate the vehicle. It had high-speed air brakes which were original equipment on the F-104, high-speed

drogue parachute A drogue parachute is a parachute designed for deployment from a rapidly-moving object. It can be used for various purposes, such as to decrease speed, to provide control and stability, or as a pilot parachute to deploy a larger parachute. ...

s to be deployed at , and low-speed drogue parachutes for deployment below . The vehicle also had an anti-skid

neodymium Neodymium is a chemical element with the symbol Nd and atomic number 60. It is the fourth member of the lanthanide series and is considered to be one of the rare-earth metals. It is a hard, slightly malleable, silvery metal that quickly tarnishes i ...

rare-earth magnet Rare-earth magnets are strong permanent magnets made from alloys of rare-earth elements. Developed in the 1970s and 1980s, rare-earth magnets are the strongest type of permanent magnets made, producing significantly stronger magnetic fields than ...

eddy-current brake. The vehicle failing to stop has been suggested as a factor in the crash of the North American Eagle in an August 2019 land-speed record run.

Runs

Fourteen engine test runs were conducted on a test stand, the first in June 2004, with the last two using full afterburner. In December 2004, the first test runs of the vehicle were performed. A total of 23 test runs were completed with the vehicle between March 2006 and June 2008. Speeds as high as were claimed but not verified by outside official automobile speed record authorities. Testing in the US was conducted at

Sanderson Field Sanderson Field is a public lighted-land airport located in Shelton, a city in Mason County, Washington, United States. It is located just outside the City of Shelton corporate limits, and is owned and operated by the Port of Shelton. It is bor ...

Shelton, Washington Shelton is a city in, and the county seat of, Mason County, Washington, United States. Shelton is the westernmost city on Puget Sound. The population was 10,371 at the 2020 census. Shelton has a council–manager form of government and was the ...

; Toledo Airport in southwest Washington state;

Edwards AFB Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County and a southern arm is in Los Angeles County. The hub of the base is Ed ...

, California;

El Mirage Dry Lake El Mirage Lake is a dry lake bed in the northwestern Victor Valley of the central Mojave Desert, within San Bernardino County, California. The lake is located about west-northwest of the town of Adelanto and north of Highway 18 in San Bernardi ...

, California; and

Black Rock Desert __NOTOC__ The Black Rock Desert is a semi-arid region (in the Great Basin shrub steppe eco-region) of lava beds and playa, or alkali flats, situated in the Black Rock Desert–High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area, a si ...

, Nevada. On October 9, 2013,

drove the North American Eagle (NaE) Supersonic Speed Challenger at the Alvord desert, claiming the women's 4-wheel

with an official run of 398.954 mph (632 km/h) and a top speed of 440.709 mph (709 km/h). In doing so, she broke the 48-year-old women's land speed record, a run average set by Lee Breedlove in ''Spirit of America - Sonic 1'' in 1965. On September 7, 2016, Combs set a new top speed of driving the Other American Eagle.

Fatal crash

On August 27, 2019, the North American Eagle crashed during a

attempt, killing driver Jessi Combs. Reports indicate that the car failed to stop and traveled beyond the edge of the lake bed. Investigation into the cause of the crash was reported in November 2019. The investigation revealed that the front wheel assembly of the car collapsed, likely due to collision damage from hitting something on the track. In late June 2020, the

Guinness Book of Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

reclassified the August 27, 2019 speed runs as meeting its requirements, and Combs was credited with the record at , noting she was the first in nearly 46 years to break the record, surpassing the record set by

Kitty O'Neil Kitty Linn O'Neil (March 24, 1946 – November 2, 2018) was an American stuntwoman and racer, known as "the fastest woman in the world". An illness in early childhood left her deaf, and more illnesses in early adulthood cut short a career in dr ...

in December 1973.American jet-car racer and Mythbusters host Jessi Combs posthumously awarded world land-speed record for a woman

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

/ AP, 2020-06-25

References

External links

North American Eagle Project
*"North American Eagle Project eyes speed record",

Earth & Sky ''Earth & Sky'' was a daily radio series that presented information about science and nature. It began broadcasting in 1991 and ceased operations in 2013. ''EarthSky'' is the ongoing website, serving 21 million users in 2019, according to Google ...

(2006-12-01)
part 1

part 2North American Eagle Black Rock Desert Photography
{{F-104 family Jet land speed record cars Lockheed F-104 Starfighter