Nineteen years ago, at Black Rock Desert in Nevada, a plucky bunch from the UK, led by Richard Noble and RAF Wing Commander Andy Green, set a new land speed record. Noble and his band broke the sound barrier in the process. This was Noble's second land speed record; he was the current record holder at the time, having claimed it in 1982 with Thrust 2.
Regular readers will know that Noble and Green are trying to smash their existing record by aiming for 1,000 mph with Bloodhound SSC. But not everyone is content to let them set a new record unopposed. In fact, Ed Shadle thinks it's his patriotic duty to reclaim the crown for the USA. He hopes to get there with the help of one of the most iconic planes ever to grace the skies: a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.
"I was traveling with a friend, and we got to talking about the land speed record that the Brits had done," Shadle told Ars. "We talked it out, and I said 'why don't some Americans jump on this thing?' Meanwhile, Craig Breedlove had made that famous U-turn with the Spirit of America, and then he hung it up and said he wasn't going to do it anymore. On the flight, we started rationalizing?what kind of a fuselage would we do, how would we engineer this thing, and so on." And thus the North American Eagle was born.
Shadle spent time in the US Air Force before a long career at IBM. He figured a Starfighter would fit his needs perfectly?if he could get his hands on one. As luck would have it, one turned up in Maine: a junkyard relic that had spent much of its life as a chase and research aircraft at Edwards Air Force Base in California's Antelope Valley.
"It was demilitarized and in rough shape," Shadle told us. "It looked like it had rolled down a mountain. Our wives and girlfriends questioned our sanity."
He and his small group of friends and supporters spent the next three years rebuilding the jet. They replaced longerons and reskinning the body. "We must have put in 5,000 rivets," Shadle said. "And I learned how to use the English wheel quite well, shaping parts to fit."
The next step was finding a surplus General Electric J-79 engine, which happened in 2004. Without any support from GE, S&S Turbine Services in Canada stepped in to help get the engine fit to run. In the process it got upgraded from a mere 12,500lbs of thrust up to 19,000lbs.
"It's got the latest version of everything that came on the J-79," Shadle told us, "and looking at our acceleration curves, just within 4.5 miles we could reach over 600mph. As soon as we can get onto a longer course, we should be able to push it beyond 600mph."
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