Thrust Project

Built in the Boatshed

We rented a corner of Ernie Sim's boatyard and in early 1979 the frame was craned round the corners of the lane and backed into our workshop like a dinosaur skeleton into its lair. Following the wind tunnel test, and arrival of the frame, Project Thrust was starting to hit the news. A couple of days after the frame arrived there was a knock on the kitchen door. It was Ron Benton, a master craftsman and sheet metal worker I knew from Britten Norman. Ron was an enthusiast who had worked on all sorts of wheeled and flying machines. He was just the man we needed. I started him on the spot, and then let Richard know. We had bitten the bullet, and Richard now had to find funding for premises and metalworkers, and get sponsorship for the tools and materials needed to build the car.

The pressure was building both for Richard and for me. I was trying to do design work, but organisation and dealing with sponsors and suppliers was forever distracting me. I advertised for a draughtsman to help out. Eddie Elsom arrived — I still had no telephone — in response. He had a calm, logical manner and we hit it off. A few days after he started Eddie stopped me in my tracks with some home truths. 'John,' he said, 'there's only ever going to be one designer for Thrust 2. 1 can't draw what's in your head, what you need is an organiser to deal with all the running around so you can design the car.' He was absolutely right, Eddie became our Operations Manager, and stayed on to organise our air show displays, and record attempt excursions to America.

The car build got underway with Ron Benton panelling the driver's cage with firewalls and making the fuel tanks. Ron's working conditions in the shared workshop were appalling. Hells bells had nothing on the din, as the hollow aluminium hulls were beaten into shape. The next milestone was to fit the engine into the frame. With the local radio station giving us live coverage, Ron, Eddie and I dropped the engine into place, and threaded the after burner in to mate with it. Standing back to admire our handiwork some uneasy thoughts crossed my mind. We had a bare second hand engine installed, but bringing it to life was a different story. We would need complex fuel, ancillary and electric systems, and an engineer familiar with Avons before we could turn a blade. I saved the thoughts for another day and returned to the kitchen to get on with the steering system.

Following his RAF training Tony Meston had just finished a contract with British Aerospace in Saudi Arabia, where he had been servicing Avon engines in the Royal Saudi Air Force Lightning Fighter aircraft. He had come back to UK to take his commercial pilot's licence and had a temporary job flying Islander aircraft for Britten Norman. Tony was driving his Lotus from Newport to Ryde listening to the local Island radio station. As he approached Fishbourne his ears pricked up as he heard the report on Thrust and the Avon. He turned down Fishbourne Lane and appeared on my doorstep as if I had waved a magic wand. Tony knew his Avons inside and out. He took a look at Thrust and stood back in amazement.

Weight for weight Thrust had twice the power of a Lightning and he could visualise the performance vividly. Yes, he would help get the engine up and running and his friend Jeff Smee could do the electrics, in between his duties as a flight engineer with British Airways. Tony and Jeff became volunteer team members, and stayed with us until the engine was up and running in a rolling car in Summer, 1980, after which Tony moved to Antigua to fly Twin Otters around the Caribbean. They had done their bit for Britain and the Land Speed Record.

Early in 1979 working conditions at Ranalagh improved. Eddie had an internal wall built around the workshop to keep out noise and dust. Richard got the free loan of a Portakabin for our design and operations office. We even had a telephone and copier installed. In the workshop construction of the skeletal car progressed to the mechanics. Suspension, hubs, wheels, steering, controls began to take shape. Every part had to be specially machined, fabricated, welded or assembled. Every nut, bolt and rivet had to be specified to aircraft standards and ordered. Our World Land speed contender was being built by a collective cottage industry, and contagious enthusiasm.

Gordon Flux left his engineering business to his sons and retired to the Isle of Wight. He soon found himself back in work as the Thrust team mechanic. Albert Nobbs had left Enfield Marine and set up his own machine shop. He was soon flat out making the massive hubs and other vital Thrust parts.

Jack Morrell had left Cushioncraft to set up his own one man sheet metal shop in Ryde. I delivered a set of drawings for the twin fins that were to keep Thrust on the straight and narrow to his tiny shop. In return I got back two beautifully made fins.

Many of the suppliers got personally involved in fitting their parts and gave up weekends and holidays to help out. Glynne Bowsher of Lucas Girling fitted the wheel brakes he had designed, and went on to become one of the principal designers of Thrust SSC.

Although Thrust 2 was built on a shoestring it was expanding fast and the overheads and expenses were rocketing. Richard's fundraising had to keep pace or Thrust would come to a standstill before it reached the starting line. As the project developed it started to hit the news, and its credibility grew. Richard took his project to the people by forming a supporters' club, with a regular newsletter and merchandising. Apart from raising funds the club raised national awareness and corporate interest. Raising support in kind and cash are very different ballgames, and we had to have cash flow to keep going. Richard worked wonders and somehow kept us afloat.

In the autumn Sammy Miller was to run his Rocket Dragster at Santa Pod Raceway. Not in California as you might imagine but in Bedford, England. Here was an opportunity to see some high speed action for myself. Vanishing Point was powered by a High Test Peroxide (HTP) rocket and capable of phenomenal acceleration, reaching 100mph in 0.36 seconds and peaking at 360mph in 3.9 seconds in the quarter mile. I wasn't disappointed. As the HTP hit the silver catalyst screen it instantaneously vaporised into a supersonic stream of steam blasting out of the rocket nozzle into a trail of sonic shock diamonds. Vanishing Point had vanished and the cruciform drag chute was billowing out a quarter of a mile away down the track. Slam'n Sam drove one hand on the wheel, and one on the chute lever. After the run I got talking to Sammy and in no time was helping push the car and pack the chutes – a humble helping hand, but our paths were to cross again in the future.

Until I went to Santa Pod I had never seen a thrust-driven car. I still had not seen the Bonneville Salt Flats where we hoped to run the car, and our budget did not stretch to a visit that our sponsors might consider a 'jolly'. I could only imagine the surface 'grip and give' of that vast dry lake bed. I had decided that solid wheels were the way to go. I could design the wheels to fit the car not the car to fit the tyres. The wheels would be simpler and lighter, and there would be no risk of a puncture, or losing a tread on wheels that would be turning at up to 8,000r.p.m. I would just have to use intuition to estimate the surface consistency, load bearing, cushioning, friction and tracking qualities. Two separate sets of wheels would be needed; solids for Bonneville, and tyres for test runs in Britain.

Dunlop supplied us with Lightning fighter tyres that were limited to 250mph and Wolfrace Wheels kindly sponsored and I made the wheels to match the tyres. The solid wheels were forged from great billets of aerospace aluminium alloy, and then machined down to size. They were thirty inch diameter by six inches wide at the heavier front, and four inches wide at the back. Thrust 2 was based on the ancient arrow principle of weight at the front and feathers — fins at the back.

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