G Force Precision Engineering and its sister company G Force Composites have been involved in the Thrust SSC programme since 1993 when the firm built the first 1/25 scale models that Ron Ayers successfully tested on the 'rocket railway' at Pendine. Specialising in the manufacture of components for the motor racing industry, G Force and Thrust formed a natural partnership, and it was at the company's base in Fontwell in Sussex that the chassis build began in late summer of '94. Thrust SSC's first major public showing was at Earls Court in October of last year where the car, with its painstakingly polished aluminium bodywork, immediately became the talk of the London Motor Show.

However when the car came back from London, there was still plenty to do to achieve Richard Noble's Spring testing objective. James Morton, Design Director of G Force, takes up the story:

'The last time you heard from me Thrust had just left our Fontwell base on its way to Earls Court. We were left with just the nose tip and pitot to finish off and to build up the centre section of the tailplane for delivery to London the following Tuesday (17th October). Suffice to say that we made it - just! On the Tuesday morning the tailplane was in its component parts on the surface table. However I'd drawn it so that (in theory at least) it would go together like piece of overscale Meccano. Dave Threlkeld (Mr T) had drilled off each of the folded spars on his XYZ built CNC mill to co-ordinates that I'd given him. Mr T doesn't make mistakes - but I do - so it was very much touch and go. However Mike Lowman, Gordon Parry and myself had built it up with surprising ease so that Phil Welch could run it up to London for an evening fit by Peter Ross, Bill O Reilly and Trevor Taylor.

'I went to the show on the second Thursday. Richard, Sally, Ron, Andy, Jeremy and the rest of the attendant team were almost out on their feet due to the massive demonstration of interest in the project. The car looked magnificent although the tailplane - that we had strived so hard to get finished - looked slightly incongruous stuck on top of the fin with no leading or trailing edges. As one visitor in my hearshot opined to his friend, "That can't be right!" Quite correct sir!

'The Motor Show was a huge success for the Thrust SSC project. To see the car almost complete - however cosmetically - really gave the sponsors (and would-be sponsors) a huge boost. I think that they suddenly came to realize that this was no pipedream but a firm reality. Ron's purposeful aerodynamic design coupled with the build quality and professional presentation - endorsed by the simulator and Internet demonstration - plus the enormous public interest and enthusiasm certainly got people-in high-places thinking long and hard about the project. In these commercially austere times, it is increasingly difficult to convince a large company to part with its hard earned cash. It is particularly difficult if that company has a suspicion that the particular project is going to be still-born. The Motor Show proclaimed to the word in banner headlines that Thrust SSC was going to happen!

'At the show's close, the guys removed the engines at Earls Court and the car was brought back to Fontwell. Brian Palmer expertly manoeuvred his Plane Trucking wagon into the Fontwell horse track car park and the procedure of craning the car over to the G Force works was reenacted. It is amazing how one can become quite blase about a task that had one quaking in one's boots when it first took place! This new confidence was heavily dependent on the smooth expertise of the staff from Grayson, White and Sparrow who give the impression that they could thread a needle with their 100 ton crane! Accordingly Thrust SSC touched down like a feather and was rolled back onto the freshly painted floor of the workshop.

'Although the car had looked pretty complete at the show, there was still a great deal to do. For instance the skins were all held on with 3mm self-tapping screws - adequate for holding parts together under the lights of Earls Court but not recommended for Mach 1 on the Black Rock! In addition, both front and rear suspension systems were far from complete and were immediately stripped out for on-going work.

'Things were pretty quiet until Christmas. Firstly Richard was sorting out the financial logistics post-Motor Show. Secondly a number of G Force staff were taking well deserved holidays after a hectic 12 months of solid graft and the rest were flat-chat to finish off their part in the Ford Indigo concept car programme. Mike Horne and the pattern shop were busy on Thrust SSC however, preparing the last pieces of the front cowling tooling for sending to Survirn for machining. This was done in late December and in the first week of the new year the patterns were delivered to G Force. The Caberboard MDF material has proved to be a huge success combining ease of machining with low cost. The use of it on the Thrust SSC programme even resulted in an article in Flight International where its use was described as a 'breakthrough'. (Friends have castigated me for elevating MDF to the status of a hi-tech material - they are afraid that the price of kitchen units is suddenly going to go through the roof!). The only problem that we have found with it is that it takes in moisture if you give it the chance (which due to space problems, I am afraid we have), which means that it is prone to local shrinkage when 'baked' during the mould tool manufacturing process. This can lead to hairline cracking which gets reflected on the surface of the mould which only 'elbow grease' and wet-and-dry can remove. We have now taken to pre-baking the patterns to get rid of any inherent cracking before final finishing of the surface. Problem solved!

'Peter Ross, who had joined the team part-time for the Motor Show thrash, had now established himself as a permanent member and was immediately put to work to bring some kind of order to the stores area. This is the small room between the assembly shop and the drawing office which Mike Horne had used to cut up his MDF board. So when the dust had settled (literally), Pete cleared the place up, built shelves (MDF again!) and put together an accurate listing of everything that we had begged, borrowed or stole (and very occasionally bought!) and got it generally organised.

'Richard announced the final push programme during the first weekend of the new year. I put together a programme with estimated man-hours (and thence a cash-flow) and we got going in earnest. Unfortunately the schedule coincided with G Force's traditional 'flat-spin' period where our core business really comes on-line when the racing teams and manufacturers suddenly wake up to the fact that the new season is only a couple of months away. Accordingly it was imperative to bring in extra staff and it was natural to look to our aviation background to find the right people to take on the massive task of finishing off all the car's outer clothing. Nick Dove and Steve Dennis were brought in and quickly settled into the task. They joined Mike Lowman, Gordon Parry and Damian Singleton in the assembly shop in a cacophony of windy drills, rivet guns and terrible singing.

'Meanwhile, in the composite shop, Mark Borer, Chris Horne and Pete Welch came in to join Jon Greaves, Roger Burgess and Jason Thompson to chase through the front bodywork sections. There was a massive amount of work to put together the sections of the patternwork and to ensure that everything was true and square. Once together (and inspected by Mike Horne) these built up sections then had to be hand finished, pre-baked in our 12ft oven and painted prior to waxing up for mould tool lay-up. Because of the weight of these assembled pieces, Jason, Pete and Damian had to build gantries and handling trolleys just to move them about!

'Mike Horne and Chris concentrated on the engine inlet ducts. These items (which are essentially twisting tubes about 8ft long and 30" in diameter) have had a chequered history. The patternwork and original mould tools were originally supplied by Brookhouse Patterns of Blackburn. However the mould tools had flexed too much and had taken on an unacceptable degree of set. Subsequently the tooling system that had been offered by another company had proven to be a bit ambitious for the scale of the components and had been abandoned. The problem was that we required the finish of the part on the inside surface of the duct (to provide free flowing inlet air) and ideally the duct needed to be made as one piece to provide the stiffest structural product at acceptable weight. It was Mike Horne who sorted it all out, firstly trueing up the original mould tools then building up inside them a brilliantly conceived tooling system with carefully tapered and angled shuttering. This new male tool was then prepared for laying up and all the shuttering surfaces sealed so that it could handle the vacuum of the G Force Composites autoclave. The carbon was then laid up and 'cooked'. When ready, the bolts were removed from the internal tool flanges and the tooling 'collapsed' into the middle and hence withdrawn. Hey presto - a perfect internal finish in a one piece structure with compound, double curvature shape. I still can't get my head round how he worked it all out but then he can't wiggle his ears like I can. So each to his own....

'And to cap it all, the inlet ducts fitted the car! Mike H and Nick installed them and Mike got himself in a real lather about front wheel clearance - especially when I fed him a bum steer concerning rim width! Serve him right! Suffice to say that the clearance is as predicted - but there is no way we could now revert to front wheel steering even if we wanted to!

'Meanwhile in the assembly shop Nick and Steve, who have lately been joined by Jason Daies, worked their way round and then under the car sorting out the skins and fitting the Z section stiffeners to stressman Mike Curran's directives. They have so far fitted around 2000 anchor nuts - kindly donated by Microdot. Mike Lowman progressed Glynne Bowsher's steering system, fitting the large diameter torque tube down the left hand side of the cockpit section and then chasing the system down the back 'fuselage' above the fuel tanks towards the rear wheel bays. Damian fitted the forward mounted fire bottles (supplied by Kidde Graviner) and sorted all the front bulkhead flanging. Gordon concentrated on the throttle and braking controls building up the cross-cockpit throttle torque tubes and pedals. To this aim he was constantly supplied with machinings from our machine shop where Dave Carl and Paul Taylor had got our new Hardinge Conquest T42 CNC lathe spitting out close tolerance parts with mind numbing regularity.

'Bundy UK (in the person of Farrokh Taghdissi) came down and fitted the 'hard pipe' runs for the brakes with Gordon following along manufacturing support brackets and bulkhead abuttments. Jeremy Bliss had by this time joined the team on a full-time basis which has re-envigourated the systems programme and he and Peter Ross are flat out chasing the various components and suppliers to get this vital area up to speed.

'There is still a massive amount of work to do, there are many sponsor presentations to make, there are many problems to overcome - but it is all happening. I get the impression that the Sound Barrier has lost that smug, impregnable expression and sleeps uneasily in its bed....'

James Morton
22nd February 1996

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