It might be hard to imagine, but there are 29 men in the world who will feel emotional anguish when Andy Green, a 33-year-old Royal Air Force flight lieutenant from Atherstone, England, drives the Castrol-supported Thrust SSC through the Sound Barrier on land. For these were the men that Green beat after his initiative led him to join applicants for the job of driving the monster car when current land speed record holder Richard Noble announced his project in June 1994, and confirmed that he would not be driving it himself.
"I've always had a fascination for land speed record breaking," Green admits. "It's a calculated gamble that has always fascinated me. Watching Richard making his attempts and actually achieving his record twelve years ago just impressed me enormously."
In October 1983, as Noble became the Fastest Man on Earth, Green had just finished university and started officer training with the RAF. As he outlines the reasons why he chose such a career, he provides an insight to what makes a man want to drive a car at more than 800mph (1287kmh) on a dusty desert, and why he in particular isn't just a daredevil with a death wish.
"Flying fighter aircraft requires a lot of application and a lot of discipline; it's a very challenging occupation and something you have to work hard at day-to-day I've only been doing it for 10 years, and I still need lots and lots of practice, even though I'm a very experienced fighter pilot. Very much, you've got to be on top of the game."
Green hasn't actually seen any combat, and is now unlikely to as his flying days are on hold while he tackles a desk job at the Defence Research Agency working on the development of prototype aeroplanes that are not just the next generation, but the generation after that. He has, however, spent many hours over the Bosnian war zone including Christmas Day last year, a risk probably greater than anything he'll face in Thrust SSC.
He is keenly aware of the achievements - and the manner in which they are still remembered - of one of his aviation predecessors, the American legend Brigadier General Charles 'Chuck' Yeager who was the first man to pilot a plane through the Sound Barrier. He is too modest to harbour overt aspirations of being the landbound Yeager, but astute enough to appreciate the impact success could have. He also realises that few will remember the second man to drive through the Sound Barrier. Thrust SSC has already started to bring record breaking back to the public eye, and 750mph (12O7kph) - the conventional estimate of the speed of sound - is undoubtedly a magic figure.
"It is the last great challenge in land speed record breaking," he says. "Once that's done, the next big thing will be 1000mph (l6lOkph), but that's just a number. This is actually the speed of sound at ground level, and there's nothing else like it."
The sound barrier exists because shockwaves are created as air becomes compressed, but it's a calculable problem. "Very much so," Green asserts quickly. "But when I actually watched Richard do his record attempt, I was aware at the time of the problems of compressibility and transonic flow I believed then that it was not possible to go supersonic on land. I genuinely looked at it, I'd done some mathematical aerodynamics, and I did not believe it was possible. I have had to dramatically change my ideas talking to guys like designer Ron Ayers, because I was wrong. He says it can be done, and now I believe him."
He has no worries that it might feel slightly alien controlling a jet engine powered vehicle with a steering wheel rather than the joystick with which he is more familiar. He comments: "I think it'll be a perfectly natural way to control it. It really doesn't matter what the control medium is, whether it's a rotary motion or a side-to-side motion with a stick. It's actually the effect that motion has and the feedback it gives you. The Tornado that I flew, for example, has fly-by-wire controls, but they do have feel. You get used to things." Clearly, the unchartered territory of a jetcar holds no fear for him.
Though former record holder Gay Gabelich had experience of astronaut training, no other contenders have been qualified fighter aircraft pilots. Most have, instead, had some sort of motorsport background, Donald Campbell and Noble being notable exceptions. Green himself has only ever driven a competition car once, when in December 1994 the finalists in the driver selection were tested in a Volkswagen rally car.
Green's closest rival, Dick Downs, was fractionally quicker, but where he employed a Nigel Mansell style of attacking the muddy course, Green was more like quadruple World Champion Alain Prost, working smoothly towards a quick time. That, too, gave an insight into his overall approach.
Most normal people, though they might get carried away with the enthusiasm of the project until the moment of actual truth, would then think twice about sitting between two Rolls Royce Spey engines spitting out flame and some 50,OOOlbs (110,23Okgs) of thrust. But Green merely smiles at such suggestions and gently reminds listeners of his aviation background.
"I've flown those engines before in the Phantom, and then I was sitting as close if not closer to them. In fact, the noise that spectators hear is the rear end, whereas we're up by the front, where all the noise is behind us. You don't really hear it, to be honest. All you do tend to hear is a bit of intake noise and the scream of the compressors. And of course in Thrust SSC we have an insulated cockpit."
Andy Green will clearly bring a new level of professionalism to land speed record driving, and while Richard Noble and Ron Ayers believe firmly that he will do the job for Thrust SSC, Green in return has great respect for the Thrust team. "I'm very impressed with all I've seen of the team in action so far," he says with the diffidence of a man to whom self-promotion is a stranger. "For me, it's much more a matter of whether I can match up to their standards, not the other way round."
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