Ed Shadle, star of the 2010 Geomagic Points Beyond Roadshow, will attempt to take back the land speed record.
Ed Shadle, the driver of the North American Eagle car which will attempt to take back the land speed record.
Ed, explains in our latest Geomagic video how the team used Geomagic to effectively and quickly renovate a Lockheed F-104 fuselage into a super-powered land-speed challenger. The fighter jet, replete with graffiti and dirt accumulated while in storage, was brought to the team's Washington State workshop in 2004. By 2005, the car was achieving test speeds of 300 mph and over 400 by 2008.
The car is powered by a J-79 Turbojet engine which delivers 20,000 lbs of thrust. According to Ed the car is considered inappropriate for road use because of the 70-foot-long flame from the back of the car, so they do keep it to test areas such as Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
The current land speed record is held by Andy Green, a Brit racing Richard Noble's Thrust SSC in 1997. NAE hopes soon to be able to top that record with speeds of 800 mph or more.
eomagic was used to reverse engineer key parts as well as enable rapid and critical air flow testing during the initial design of the vehicle.
View the video now: