The Awareness Campaign

Steve Green, a good friend of Ed Shadle's who is a machinist in Abottsford, B.C. was instrumental in helping Ed tackle the challenge of coming up with a creative way of designing a suspension system that would allow the fuselage to have a one degree negative angle of attack (nose slightly down angle) and rear wheels that kept the whole body essentially horizontal. The key to this problem came when Ed figured out that a one inch steel doughnut ring could be attached to the fuselage where the tailcone attaches to the back end over the engine. Only this ring has a flange plate on the bottom that allows a mid-axle to be bolted to it so that both side struts could be attached onto the mid-axle, with the rear axle bolted onto the ends of the two side struts further to the rear.

With the fuselage on a flatbed trailer, we transported it over the U.S./Canadian border to Green's shop only a half mile north of the crossing in Abottsford. There, we spent a weekend fabricating the steel, one inch thick doughnut ring, along with a tow dolly made by his brother, Dave. Months later, while talking on cell phones between Spanaway and Abottsford, Ed and Steve took measurements from Keith and Jon in the shop. With this information, Steve fabricated the side struts and mid-axle which, once brought down to Spanaway, fit perfectly when assembled.

During the same period, the team was taking a front steering box liner of steel plating and installing it up into the front landing gear wheel well. This would later accommodate a very hefty steel front wheel suspension system that would be controlled by Ed from the cockpit hydraulically. Also, since the original distance for the fuselage was a shorter distance between the front landing gear and the main landing gears at the mid-point, two mid-position wheels would be designed for the belly of the fuselage to take any "flex" which might occur between the long distance from the front to the rear wheels; a distance of about 50 feet for 7.5 tons.

During the summer of 2002 the paint was put on the fuselage by a group of guys who were willing to do the work after the spring quarter ended at Bates Technical College in South Tacoma. PPG had donated the $10K of viper red paint, and a special glow-in-the-dark paint was applied to the eagle on both sides. After a day's exposure to sunlight, the eagle logo shows up nicely during the darkness of the night.

At the same time, Ed Shadle managed to get the Western Washington State Fair in Puyallup to give us space on the fairgrounds to show off the car in September. It was the project's debut and thousands of people stopped by to see it next to the pig races for children in a lot off of the beaten path. We didn't reveal to those stopping by that we didn't have an engine in the fuselage, but kept a tailcone cover on the back end. Several times those who came in told us they did so only because "that big red thing with the eagle on the side caught my attention out of the corner of my eye." They gawked, asked questions of every type, and many either snickered as they walked away after finding out what our intentions were, or told us to our faces that we'd never achieve our goal.

Over the next few years, we made appearances at air shows and auto shows of various kinds in order to continue gaining public awareness and attract media coverage. It paid off when Ed got a call from Robin Sipe of Fort St. John, B.C. Robin runs a jet engine repair and maintenance shop near the airport in Fort St. John and he asked Ed & Keith, the two owners of the project, to meet and have dinner with him while he was in the Seattle area. He informed them that he was willing to loan the project two of his engines that went into the F-104 fuselage for the testing and record attempt. BINGO! We had our powerplant.

Our next appearance was up in Vancouver, B.C. at the Lion's Gate Arena for the Pacific Auto & Light Truck Show in 2003. A nicer venue being indoors and out of the elements with lots of very interested and excited folks asking questions and getting their picture taken with the team members in our red flight suits.

Over this period of time Ed managed to make a few deals and was able to acquire some F-15 tires that would do for running our initial test runs. However, due to the speed limit of around 250 mph on the tires, we would only be able to do short bursts up to about 300 mph; which would be pushing the tires to their limit for sure.

Our next phase of the project was about to begin; testing leading up to the record attempt.

Dealing with the Junkyard Dog

I was looking at a long, very beat up aircraft fuselage that had no wings, no tail, no landing gear and the cockpit glass was completely broken out. The whole thing was graffitied over and there were holes and missing panels on nearly every square foot of this thing. One area, near the tail at about the one o'clock position of the engine section, there was a huge hole from the demilitarizing done to it when it was sold for surplus scrap.

I asked Ed again how much they'd spent on acquiring it, "$25,000" he said, with Ed's classic smirk on his puss.

"And you want to do what with it?" I asked him.

"Yea, I know, it looks like a piece of junk right now, but we'll get her fixed up. Are you willing to help us out?" he asked with a serious look on his face.

"Well, yea, but when and where?" I asked.

"We'll get together on Saturdays around 10 A.M. here at the airport." he said.

Over the course of four years we very slowly and persistently replaced pannels, screws, rivets and fabricated parts needed in order to make the aircraft into a car. For a while we were outdoors on a side area of the Spanaway Airport, enduring the cold and wind of the northwest weather in the winter. Of course, there was also the beautiful sunshine and warmth of the summer months when we could get more work done. During 1999 & 2000, the hulk was housed for free in a hangar at Thun Field; a Peirce County airport in South Puyallup, but that only lasted about a year until it was rented to someone who had a "real airplane" to store it in.

All during this early stage of restoration, Ed and Keith had managed to acquire a contract with the U.S. Air Force at Edwards AFB in California. We had learned from credible sources that our airframe had once been used as a chase plane for the X-15, the SR-71 Blackbird, and the XB-70A supersonic bomber that was discontinued after a photo op had a catastrophic air incident which took both it and an F-104 Starfighter out. A requirement of the contract with the Air Force was that we had to have a university endorsing us. After making contacts at the University of Washington, we managed to get a professor of physics to step in, providing us with techincal consulting services. This contract provided the project with a large inventory of spare F-104 parts that Ed had paid to have shipped up to Washington state. We began rummaging through box after box of parts, gauges, pannels and landing gears.

While we were making arrangements with PPG Paints and Bates Technical College to have the fuselage painted with the "streaking eagle" on both sides and the rest in viper red, little did we know that other things were in the works to set the project back at least two years or more.

Eventually, Ed was able to rent a hangar in a residential airpark in Spanaway only a few miles from his house. It was big enough to be in out of the weather and still have room for all of the tools and equipment needed to do the work. It was finally approaching completion to a paintable condition in the spring of 2002

Avoiding Expensive Design Costs

Keith took a trip to Washington, D.C. and while there, visited the Smithsonian' Air & Space Museum. As he was walking around he noticed on the ceiling and hanging from suspension wires, was NASA's F-104 Starfighter jet aircraft. He stood there looking at it for about a half-hour thinking to himself, "Get one of these babies, take the wings and landing gear off, and you've got an already proven aerodynamic design for well beyond mach 1."

Dubbed the "Missile with a Man in it", this aircraft's engine - the G.E. J-79 - had set the climb rate record for the fastest ascent of 50,000 feet in 60 seconds. Even though this aircraft weighed about 8 tons, it could still get up and go. With this kind of power to weight ratio, it could literally go vertically straight up like a rocket and accelerate.

Designed in the mid -'50s by Skunkworks' Kelly Johnson and built by North American Aviation, this fighter jet was at the cutting edge of jet aircraft technology in its day. While the Air Force used a couple hundred of them in the U.S. most of them were sold to NATO countries like Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Denmark.

After returning back to the Pacific Northwest, Ed & Keith took a trip to southern California together. During the plane ride back home, their discussion led to the realization that both had separately been considering the idea of using an F-104 fuselage as a their platform for a supersonic land speed car that would be modified to roll along the ground using the same engine it flew with. It was at this point that they agreed to go into a partnership and form a corporation; the North American Eagle.

Ed began to cast word on the Internet to various aviation communities that they were looking for an F-104 fuselage. While word came back that there was one that was available somewhere in the southwest, it was bought out from under Ed before he could get the cash together to purchase it. So, they continued to ask and hope. A couple of months later, word arrived that there was one in Belfast, Maine that a surplus dealer was try to sell to a museum to be put onto a display post outside its entrance. The price was reasonable and it was shipped out to Spanaway, Washington on a flatbed trailer.

Having been asked by Ed & Keith to continue with them onto the new project, I was called on the day it arrived to come take a look. I was in for a surprise when I got there.

An Unexpected Turn in the Road

In July of 1995 I was camping on Mt. Rainier with my family - wife, two daughters, and mother-in-law - in the Cougar Rock campground just above the Longmire Lodge on the southeast side of the mountain for a few days. I woke up early and decided to hoof it down the trail to the lodge below and get a cup of coffee and read the newspaper.

While sipping slowly at a table as other families were enjoying their breakfast, I turned the pages of the newspaper to find a large spread on the front of the sport section about an auto show in the Tacoma Dome featuring a jet powered car that was intending to go for breaking the existing land speed record of 633 mph set by Richard Noble of the U.K. in 1983. Two guys, Gary & Rick, had built a custom vehicle around a long jet turbine engine made by General Electric back in the '50s. T\As I read through the article, I learned that their car, the American Eagle One, had appeared at this auto show recently and their project was based in Edgewood; a small town not far from where I worked and lived.

Having been a B-52 crew chief in the Air Force out of high school, I was intrigued when I read that they were inviting volunteers to drop by and see if they could help out the project. It wasn't long after returning from the camping trip that I went to the shop where the car was. I met Gary, a tall and intense looking guy that was about my age. He was the driver since he'd had experience driving jet funny cars at drag race events around the globe. The car was a fairly sleek looking vehicle, but I could tell from my experience with aircraft that the canopy wasn't designed to handle the speeds they were claiming to achieve; it wasn't aerodynamic, or strong, enough to withstand the pressures created by the airflow.

I became a "grunt" - coming to work parties on the weekends occasionally, and doing whatever needed to be done to get things ready for an event. It was at these work parties that I met two of the crew who would later become good friends; Ed Shadle and Keith Zanghi. Keith had helped to design the steering suspension on the car and was a former drag racer himself. Ed was just retiring from IBM as a technician of 30 years and was the Project Manager. Ed promoted and booked the car for giving Jay Leno of the Tonight Show on NBC a ride. The car had been designed with a passenger seat behind the driver and just in front of the engine.

Over the two years time with this project, it gradually became clear to Keith, Ed, and myself that Gary and Rick didn't really want to go for the record with the car, they just wanted to make money with it to help pay their bills and have a little fun with it. Ed had successfully gotten the car to be on display in the New York International Auto Show and while there, managed to get an appearance on the LIVE with Regis and Kathy Lee Show by doing an engine start and run up on the downtown streets just outside the studio. However, after the trip was over, it was discovered that money had been used to pay allimony and this was the straw that "broke the camel's back" for Ed & Keith. Along with other circumstances which occurred that made it clear the owners weren't serious about this, the British had come over to the U.S. with a twin jet powered vehicle - the ThrustSSC - and, in our own backyard, successfully set a new record; shattering the old one and becoming the first ever supersonic car by going 763 mph or mach 1.02. This was in October of 1997.

It was at this point that Ed & Keith discussed and agreed to go into a partnership together to create their own land speed project. Thier biggest issue facing them was how they were going to afford the very expensive research & development of designing and building a car capable of going faster than the speed of sound. It took a trip to the east coast to find a solution.