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.