Saturday 9th November. Engine tests have been scheduled for today as the final check before ThrustSSC takes to the desert for the first time tomorrow. The test pan is quite a distance across the airbase, and the jet-car is now on its solid aluminium desert wheels which must be protected at all time by rubber matting. ThrustSSC cannot be towed - there is no option but to load the car onto its trailer.

(Solid aluminium rear desert wheel. Photo: Jeremy Davey)

ThrustSSC had never been loaded onto the trailer on its aluminium wheels before. The loading process is complex: step one is to winch the car up backwards until the rear wheels are on the trailer, and the fronts are on a level part of the side ramps a foot up in the air. The middle ramp used for the rear wheels is then moved out to form the high part of one side ramp and a second high ramp is brought up on the other side. The car can then be winched the rest of the way aboard. Unloading is the reverse.

This works well on the rubber-tyred wheels used at Farnborough and in transporting ThrustSSC to Jordan. This morning the team tried it for the first time on aluminium wheels - and immediately hit the first snag: the keels on the rear wheels which dig into the desert to give Andy Green a means of steering were doing the same to the rubber. As the car started up the ramp the rearmost wheel took the full load of the back of the car and cut through the matting. Once both wheels were on the ramp and shared the load there would be no problem, but the initial hurdle had yet to be overcome.

(The crane is lined up on ThrustSSC. Photo: Jeremy Davey)

As a first solution the team tried what had always worked - a crane! With press cameramen and photographers swarming around the hangar, ThrustSSC was rolled out of the hangar and the largest crane available brought up. However, it was soon discovered that it did not have the ‘power lowering’ necessary to lower the car gently onto its trailer - just a brake on the mechanism which would bounce the car around too much.

(Robbie Kraike guides the Merlo driver from on top of ThrustSSC. Photo: Jeremy Davey)

Back to square one, and looking for a way to use the ramps. The next try involved lifting the rear end onto the trailer by slinging it from the massive Merlo forklift and rolling the front wheels up the ramps. Again the team hit a problem - the grip of the steering keels on the rubber was so great that it restricted turning of the steered rear wheels to a minimum - the car could not turn itself enough to align onto the trailer. As it was hauled up, ThrustSSC came perilously close to the edge of the ramp: so it was back down to the ground again.

(ThrustSSC is winched up the trailer ramps. Photo: Jeremy Davey)

The answer was to align the car, ramps and trailer extremely accurately before attempting to load up. The ramps were aligned with the car, and Transport Manager Brian Palmer skillfully reversed the trailer exactly into position. Finally ThrustSSC rolled happily up the ramps and into place on the trailer - seeming to make a mockery of the day’s struggles.

(ThrustSSC finally loaded onto its trailer. Photo: Jeremy Davey)

Sadly by now it was far too late to try for the engine tests - by the time the car was unloaded at the test pan it would be dark: great for photography, not so good for checking out the car. So it’s engine tests tomorrow, and desert runs on Monday. As people keep saying round here: "If record-breaking was easy, everyone would be doing it!"

	Sponsored by	This site best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3