The 1980's - A Noble Decade
Robin Richardson 1993
Ask Richard Noble about what he'd like to see reported in the motoring and motor sport press about record-breaking and the answer is clear - as much as possible about current projects and attempts, and less of an emphasis on what's happened in the past. This view doesn't extend as far as Henry Ford's "history is bunk" attitude, indeed as a youngster he collected as much information as he could about record breaking, but nevertheless the emphasis is very definitely on what's to come rather than what's gone before. For those hungry to learn more about the exploits of early record-breakers, this may seem a little strange, but it's a view not uncommon among those who actually participate in motor-sport, where the buzz of 'doing it' is all important. And thank goodness for it, because without it there wouldn't anybody building and running record-breakers - you certainly wouldn't do it for the money! But time doesn't stand still. Today's events are tomorrow's history, and even though he still holds the record he set a decade ago, the events leading up to those final successful runs at Black Rock are now a well documented part of motor sport history. Sorry Richard, but for those who like that sort of thing, here is a short history lesson.
I've long since passed the age when I first noticed with alarm that policemen were suddenly getting younger, calmly accepting the fact that the average year now takes only two months compared to the full twelve it occupied as a child, and is divided almost equally between getting ready for the coming Christmas break and paying for the last one. Despite that, it still comes as something of a shock to realise that it's now ten years since Richard Noble blasted across the Black Rock desert , Nevada to etch his name forever on the Land Speed Record roll -of-honour and reclaim from our cousins across the pond, the record wrested by them from his childhood inspiration, John Cobb, back in the early sixties.
Ten years - a whole decade - or as my son keeps reminding me, nearly half his total time on earth so far! At the time I was living in Whetstone, North London and working just up the road in Southgate, where my repeated visits to the man selling the early copies of The Evening Standard at the tube station had become a regular part of my working day, much to the disgust of my colleagues, who couldn't understand why an apparently sane, reasonably intelligent grown-up should pay such an interest in the antics of a team of madmen with a vehicle that bore no resemblance to anything they would recognise as a car. I'd long ago concluded that it's the sort of thing you can't explain - either it grabs, or it doesn't. Some people obviously have no soul.
It had clearly grabbed Richard Noble, to the extent that he was prepared to dedicate a part of his life to a project which would see him achieve a dream whose seeds were first sown by a chance visit to Loch Ness with his father, to see John Cobb and his jet-boat Crusader. With a house, a family and a career to develop at GKN, it needed a special kind of determination, not to mention the understanding of a supportive wife, Sally, to be able to turn childhood dreams into reality.
Whether you see him in the flesh or on film, it's clear that determination and confidence are there in abundance. I first heard about him, when he unveiled Thrust 1, a 3,500 pound thrust Derwent 8 powered jet car. At the same time he also announced his intention of building a car to attack the existing LSR held by Gary Gabelich and his Blue Flame rocket powered device. Frankly, it didn't look likely at the time. Rockets were the big news then, and somehow plans to use a jet engine seemed to be a retrograde step. Apart from plans for an updated Blue Flame , designs by Craig Breedlove and Tony Fox also supported the rocket cause. An article in the UK Custom Car magazine from February 1977, majored on the Barry Bowles, Gamma 201 hydrogen peroxide Blonde Bombshell, but also featured Blue Flame, Shirley Muldowney's Ky Michaelson built rocket dragster and the jets of Art Arfons, Arnold Sundquist and Daily C Conklin. Alongside these, the perpendicular lines of Thrust 1 looked, er! ungainly, to say the least.
But those who scoffed, did so at their peril. The chassis had been picked up from employers GKN after a typical piece of Noble persuasiveness, while the elderly engine, first used in a Meteor fighter was found at a dismantlers for £200. Everything about the car was bought cheaply or cadged, even down to wind-tunnel testing time at British Aerospace. But the finished product was spectacular and fast enough to give the fledgling team real experience running a jet-car, while at the same time getting their name known in media circles, and hence the minds of potential sponsors for the real car. At Fairford in 1977, the end of the beginning came, when a wheel-bearing seized and pitched the self-christened Cathedral on Wheels into a series of rolls that saw it turned into £175 worth of scrap, the sole funds for Thrust 2.
At this point, I suspect many people would have given up, but not Noble. The publicity surrounding the project had been sufficient to generate a call from the RAF, asking if a lecture could be given to some senior personnel about Project Thrust. They were eventually impressed enough to help source an ex-Lightning Avon 210 engine, although not a complete fighter as first requested! This engine was an ideal choice, being powerful, reliable and compact enough to use seriously in a car, unlike the earlier Derwent. It already had a pedigree of record-breaking having been used in aircraft such as the Supermarine Swift and Fairey Delta 2, when they held the airspeed record. It wasn't even the first time it's use for an LSR vehicle had been mooted, that honour falling to test pilot Dizzy Addicott, who had announced plans for a stab at Breedloves 407mph record in the 60's, with a very Spirit of America-like vehicle that he planned to build using a Swift fighter as the basis of the project.
While that turned out to be yet another still-born project, Thrust rolled on, the engine and associated display at the Earls Court Motorfair persuading Tube Investments to stump up the chassis building costs, using their Reynolds 531 tubing. Enter designer John Ackroyd. Press releases circulated to the motoring press let the world know that Richard Noble was looking for a designer for a 650mph car and that he had the engine and chassis builders to prove his credibility. A solid engineering background was enough to impress both Noble and Ken Norris, who had agreed to vet any applicants, although if Ackroyd expected a big salary as a result he was to be disappointed. At the recent Club meeting at the Coventry Museum of Road Transport, Ken said that a good way of testing commitment to your project's cause was to explain to any potential team members that they would have to work unpaid for an initial period, an approach that Noble had no option but to exercise, since no money was available! Ackroyd's enthusiasm and determination turned out to be as intense as his own, and working from the kitchen of a tiny house on the Isle of Wight, the original idea of a Green Monster like layout was transformed into a set of detailed plans for Ken Sprayson at TI to begin work with. Unlike needle nose devices with the minimum of aerodynamic appendages such as Blue Flame that sacrificed everything to outright speed, , the Thrust concept was based on being stable and safe. In retrospect it obviously works, but any layman looking at it at the time, would have doubted that something of such bulk could seriously challenge the pencil slim rocket cars. Placing the cockpit amidships to protect the pilot in the event of a mishap had been proven the hard way when Arfons rolled Green Monster at 600mph.
Slowly the car took shape, and slowly more members were added to the team. Success generates success, and the diligent work in tracking down potential sponsors gained momentum once their was something to show. On July 4 1980, the engine was fired up for the first time in years at RAF Coninsby, while in the following weeks some basic bodywork was added, along with Dunlop aircraft wheels and tyres prior to it's first ever run at RAF Leconsfield later that month. The track proved difficult and bumpy, but soon they moved to HMS Daedalus for a first public demonstration at an airshow, that saw the car lope to 200mph without difficulty. Clearly, the basics were there.
The work continued alongside the frequent public displays, which were necessary to keep up the public interest and act as a lever for further sponsorship activity. TV appearances became more frequent, and the fact that another seat was available on the other side of the car was not lost on a young viewer of the Jim'll Fix It TV programme. The enterprising youngster who spotted this fact wrote to Jimmy Saville requesting a ride in the car, and sure enough his wish came true. Suitably kitted out, he was given the ride of a lifetime by being blasted down a runway in a car destined to be the fastest on Earth. Curses! - how come I didn't write in first?
Relentlessly, things moved ahead and in September Thrust 2 smashed the British LSR held by Robert Horne in his vivid yellow Ferrari, which he in turn had taken from The Commuter driven by drag-racer Tony Densham, the man originally slated to drive Richard Gossling's ill-fated Blue Star LSR car. 248.87mph for the mile wouldn't trouble Gabelich just yet, but on the Greenham Common runway without using reheat, it was impressive stuff. Down on the Isle of Wight, Ackroyd was joined by Eddie Elsom, Ron Benton, Brian Ball and Norman Willis, who worked tirelessly to get Thrust 2 completed and ready for shipping to Bonneville for it's first serious crack at the record. Following the, too much power is never enough, motto, they acquired a later Avon 302 engine to bump up available thrust to 17,000lbs and by September the giant gold car was ready to be shipped to Bonneville.
If they thought that they'd turn up and do an Arfons, by bagging the record with a minimum of fuss, they were in for a shock. To be fair, Noble and Ackroyd always planned to move ahead methodically, pushing up the speeds in stages and learning as they went. And that's exactly what they did, with the result that by the time the Bonneville salt was unusable and things had to be packed up for the year , the combination had pushed the mark for a British car and driver up to 418.118mph; good but not stunning. Some journalists expecting more, began the inevitable comparisons with the Breedlove/Arfons attempts and doubted that the team had it in them to succeed. What they failed to understand, and with due deference to the effort expended by those fine American racers, was that in the 60's, jet-power for cars was only in it's infancy and like all pioneering efforts, once the major obstacles have been cleared, progress is usually quick up to a certain plateau. Beyond that, things get tougher again; witness the Arfons crash at 600mph and the fact that Sonic-1 was almost airborne every time it reached similar speeds.
The following years efforts were grounded almost before they got underway. The car's systems needed to be shaken down after the winter layoff, and so on 16 June 1982, with Mike Barret on board for his ride of a lifetime, Noble hurtled down the Greenham runway with a speed of about 230mph firmly in his sights. As soon as he hit the chutes, he realised that he had just made one of the very few mistakes he would ever make driving Thrust.
By staying on the power for just a fraction too long for Greenham's tight confines, the speed had edged close to 300mph, streaming the chutes intended only for low speed activity. At 180mph and with nowhere to go, a sharp left took them off the runway and into the rough. A heavily damaged nose section and the need to remove the engine and check it out after ingesting dirt, severely ate into the time available, not to mention the precious funds from sponsors.
If real teamwork only shows up in adversity, then the time had never been better to prove it, and this they did - in spades. Realising that discipline and procedure would be an important weapon to add to their armoury, Ken Norris was appointed team manager, leaving Noble to concentrate on his prime activities. They could hardly have hoped for a more experienced person given his wealth of knowledge with the Donald Campbell attempts, but they could have hoped for better weather. Having bust the proverbial gut to get the repaired car to Bonneville, the place was washed out with unprecedentedly bad weather. So near! - only to be defeated by the elements - Thank You God!
To the rescue came Peter Moore, who suggested they check out a place in Nevada that he had visited some time before. More in hope than expectation an advanced party decamped to the Black Rock desert and could hardly have been more pleased with what they found. About 120miles North east of Reno they found the hard, flat, dry surface they were looking for.
Quickly, the rest of the team and the car were moved northwards to Gerlach and after testing the surface and getting the necessary permit to run, a quick squirt at 349mph proved that both Thrust and the desert were made for each other. Despite attempts to get their permit to run revoked and an enforced trip to Fallon airforce base to tune the Avon and run tie down tests, run after run, edged the speeds higher and higher, the most notable aspect being how completely stable the car was. 350 developed to 468, which in turn was a prelude to 500+, with a peak of 575. At last things seemed to be going smoothly, and Gabelich's record looked within their grasp, until a familiar sound was heard on the roof of the motel in Gerlach one night - rain!
It seemed at first that it might only be short lived, since conditions improved enough to let the team push the average up to 590 with a peak of over 600. But it was only kidding - it arrived in torrents almost immediately after the decision had been taken to call it a day and come back next year with all the problems ironed out, for one final push.
Determined as ever, Noble cajoled the all important sponsors to travel the final mile with him, the peak of 600+ undoubtedly being an important physcological helping hand. A colleague of mine who worked for Castrol at the time - one of the magnificent seven sponsors, as Richard called them - well remembers the fuss made about the project and the part the oil company played in it's success, right down to having to dodge around the huge jet car displayed in their HQ foyer from time to time, to impress visiting customers. The press generally were more difficult to impress, which was not suprising given their usual short term view of everything, and even though the motor-sport journalists, who understood what was involved reported favourably, one or two of them who should have known better wrote the project off. Peter Holthusen who professed himself to be an LSR authority, was probably the most dismissive. "Even if Noble had broken the record, more than enough American money and high technology know-how is waiting ready and eager to snatch it back almost immediately. Whatever, the future holds for Richard Noble, and indeed the intrepid Project Thrust team, I would convey a simple philosophy - It's the will that makes men, success takes perseverance."Quite! History can be unkind to those quick to voice their opinions.
Whether the team needed to be spurred on by doubters was debatable, but in 1983 they were back in Nevada for a final fling, complete with a car further modified in the light of the previous year's experience. Rolls-Royce had been persuaded to tune the engine specifically for the Black Rock conditions, while changes to the car's suspension gave in much less frontal downforce, and hence less drag. As Ken Norris relayed to the audience at the club meeting at Coventry, while people go to inordinate lengths to lessen aerodynamic drag, often, up to 50% of total drag can be attributed to the drag of wheels on the surface. The team also took the decision to further reduce the effects of drag by running during the hottest part of the day.
Colder air is denser and more difficult to penetrate, and at the speeds being targeted, this would be an important element. The final factor was the condition of the surface itself, John Ackroyd searching out a slightly different part of the desert to the one used the year before. This gave a fifteen mile track with space for fifteen or sixteen lanes of track, each about fifty feet wide. Part of the deal with the Bureau of Land Management for getting permission to run was that no markings could be made on the desert, so as in previous years, Ken Norris ran up and down each track in the Jaguar fire car, the wheel tracks being sufficient for Noble to follow, even at 600+mph.
When the runs got underway, speeds of 400 and 500mph proved that things were looking good, even if Thrust was, by now, simply loping along at those kind of speeds. The reheat had been failing to engage properly - the car was always run with full reheat, with the exception of some early run at Bonneville - so more runs were needed to edge the speeds up but somehow not with the expected improvements to performance expected. On Run 7 the Avon suddenly hiccoughed before recovering and Noble and Ackroyd feared that all might be lost, even at this late stage, by the engine surging. This is a condition caused by the engine having too much air forced into the intake for it to handle, and coughing it back out again. Damage is usually severe! For a while, it seemed that the whole project might expire along with the Avon, but engine specialists Webb and Watkins were able to assure them that no such damage had occurred, but only after lengthy inspection and further tie down tests at Reno Airport. What they did find was a reheat quadrant that hadn't been opening properly. At lower speeds this didn't matter because the engine didn't need it, but beyond 600mph it definitely did.
Yet again they returned to the desert, and yet again, although the power was now there, the vital extra speed wasn't. Briefly, they fitted the old four inch wide Bonneville wheels in an effort to further reduce drag, but immediately the handling problems that plagued them at the start of the project return, so it was back to the six inchers.
Still the problems came, this time in the form of returning rain, and all the team could do was pray that it was a temporary change in conditions and not the onset of Winter. It looked like they would have to rely on having only one or two days dry weather, and so the final mechanical change was made in order to make every last ounce of performance available. The sound and stable Ackroyd design meant that they could actually run the car in a very slight nose-up stance - drag and the weight of the engine creating enough down force to keep the car from flying - not recommended without the use of wings!
Suitably modified the team waited for their weather window, which finally came on October 4th . Well versed in the art of running the jet by now, the team moved into action, no doubt praying that with the last roll of the dice, all the effort and dedication of the years of the project would finally get repaid with that elusive record. The outward run looked good as Thrust kicked up it's characteristic rooster tail of dust, but when the results came, they groaned in disappointment. 624.241 for the mile and 626.240 for the kilo were certainly faster than anybody had ever traveled before, but not by the necessary one percent that would secure the record. How could they be so close and still go unrewarded?
For what proved to be the one that mattered, they pulled the car back as far as they dared, giving Noble every last inch of run-up to the timing traps. It was all or nothing now! Again the car blasted off , and again the rooster stretched across the desert. All they could do was wait for the times, which when they came finally got them their record. 642.971 for the mile and 642.051 for the kilo eclipsed Gabelich's mark at long last, the new LSR being the average for the mile at 633.468mph. Although faster than Blue Flame over the kilo it was by the needed one percent, but it didn't matter, the LSR is accepted for either distance. Incredibly, and just to prove the soundness of the engineering, Thrust's peak speed was 650.88mph, a mere 0.88 over it's design limit.
And that was it! As Richard later declared, "For Britain and the hell of it!" An appropriate sentiment for a superb accomplishment. The team returned to the inevitable round of tours and press events, the sponsors keen to recoup their investment in terms of publicity for their projects. Mr Richard Noble, became Richard Noble OBE thanks to the UK's honours system, but as always happens when the great adventure is over, and the feting calms down a sense of anti-climax ensues.
As you will read elsewhere in this issue, the car itself, ten years after its last run finally passed out of the hands of Project Thrust and into those of the Coventry Museum of Transport where it had been exhibited in such fine style for some time.
Richard Noble himself, initially founded a company to manufacture a small plane, the ARV Super 2, but like so many other LSR holders, his thoughts turned to water. Unlike men such as Segrave, Campbell and Cobb, he chose the transatlantic challenge made popular by the efforts of Richard Branson and announced plans for a huge boat powered by a Rolls-Royce RB211 engine as used in a jumbo jet. Things looked good and commitments came from a number of backers, but the crippling recession put things on hold - a situation still true for the project today. Somehow you feel that it's a project whose time has passed and that any record-breaking future for Richard Noble lies firmly with the LSR.
Ackroyd's design for Thrust 3 - on the drawing board as part of the project from the very earliest days - was shelved when Thrust 2 was deemed good enough to get the job done. Whether or not it ever gets built will depend largely on the efforts of Rosco McGlashan and Craig Breedlove with their jet cars. Until then, sponsorship money is likely to stay very firmly in company accounts.
The team itself meets every year on the anniversary of the record, and as you read this in the tenth year of that record, most of those involved will be gathering at Bruno's, Gerlach to relive a major achievement of which they can all be justifiably proud.
©Robin Richardson
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