Thank you for tuning into this month’s update of our little venture of building our jet hydroplane Longbow as we follow our good friend Dave Warby in Australia as he makes an attempt upon his father Ken’s World Water Speed Record of 317mph. Hopefully with good fortune once Longbow is complete we may be able to give Dave a little competition for these huge speeds on water but for now our task is simply to get her on the water and see if she floats!
For those of you following our progress you may recall that last month we provided our first television interviews to both the BBC and ITV channels. From the attention those received we were then approached by journalist Medea Tskhovrebadze and BBC television Director David Lewis Richardson who jointly were hosting a Saturday radio show on Mighty Radio. This radio station in Southport is where RAF pilot Flt Lt David-John Gibbs (DJ) our driver for both Longbow and Donald Campbell’s jet hydroplane Bluebird K7, was born and also where he first learned to fly and hence our project being of particular interest to the radio listeners in this area.
As DJ is currently serving in the RAF based in the southern counties he provided his radio interview over the phone whilst given I am more local, David and Medea asked if I wouldn’t mind coming into their broadcasting studio for a face to face chat on air. This I was pleased to do for them and many thanks to them both for their lovely hospitality.
For this month’s website update I felt it would be nice for you to listen to DJ’s portion of the radio show as kindly edited into the following link by my good friend Anthony Stuchbury.
Following on from that David who produced programmes such as BBC’s Father Brown came along with his lovely Medea to see Longbow and them have a chat with us about how the project may be best presented to our new found television and other media audience going forward.
As part of DJ’s ongoing powerboat racing that he does in his spare time, this month saw him attend and pass his annual ‘dunk test’ where drivers are ‘dunked’ inverted into a swimming pool whilst strapped into a mock driver cockpit and then have to release themselves to swim to the surface.
A primary aim with Longbow has always been to share our exciting journey as an inspirational education platform for our engineers of tomorrow, for which we are been fortunate to have students from colleges and universities on board with the venture. It is great to have the students involved with Longbow’s development and running and when complete and on the water for them to bring their family and friends to see this awesome sight and sound experience as she thunders at speed across lakes and lochs within the U.K.
So as a part of that education platform we are delighted and honoured this month to formally announce that Longbow has been adopted by the renowned Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMech) with its 115,000 members and for which we look forward to promoting the Institute and working with them in the times ahead.
https://www.imeche.org/about-us
This month also saw us have an online video conference with representatives of the Union Internationale Motonautique (UIM) who are the international governing body for powerboat racing and within that the World Water Speed Record. Those attending that meeting were Bob Wartinger in the USA who chairs the UIM Safety / Medical Commission, Tom Stanley in Canada who up until the beginning of January chaired the UIM Safety Cockpit Committee, Paul Martin our design engineer for Longbow and myself as project lead. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss Longbow’s driver cockpit, the engineering analysis for it as required under UIM circuit rulebook 601.01 and the details of sample panel testing of the cockpit as required by the UIM.
The meeting was very productive and we thank both Tom and Bob for their ongoing assistance with guiding us through the UIM cockpit compliance process for attempting the World Water Speed Record. As part of the matters discussed at the meeting it allowed us to revert back to one of our education partners the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) for them to construct a UIM compliant sample cockpit panel test rig within their materials testing laboratory.
Also at the meeting both Bob and Tom suggested we should make contact with Rob Irvine who is a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Marine Engineer as well as Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical engineers in his role as safety consultant and Chairman of the Osprey Powerboat Rescue Team in the U.K.
Following an email exchange and then a chat on the telephone with Rob I discovered he is based just a few miles away from our project which will be very helpful as things move forward.
We are also pleased to announce that both Bob Wartinger this month and Tom Stanley last month have now signed our confidentiality non disclosure agreement (NDA) on behalf of the UIM in order to protect Paul Martin’s intellectual property rights for Longbow’s cockpit design and analysis for when it is formally submitted to the UIM. Currently we are still awaiting Chris Loney on behalf of the British Powerboat Association (BPBA) to sign our NDA that was sent to Chris on the 20th January as the U.K. national representative of the UIM.
Those of you with an interest in jet hydroplanes and in particular the iconic Bluebird K7 may well know that her main framework of the hull was manufactured in high tensile steel tubing during 1954 by the renowned company of Accles & Pollock based in the midlands who have specialised in steel tubing since 1896.
As part of the years that I was involved with the restoration of Bluebird K7 I became very familiar with the Accles & Pollock tubular steel hull frame and the following drawing I undertook of that frame for my design of a rollover jig to aid with the restoration may be of interest to yourselves as shown below.
The following photos show my two children Robert and Jennifer back in 2007 presenting flowers to Donald Campbell’s daughter Gina Campbell QSO at PDS Engineering in Lancashire where Bluebird’s Accles & Pollock steel frame had the forward portion of that frame welded back together by people from The Welding Institute.
Accles Ltd was formed by James George Accles and then with financial backing from Thomas Pollock in 1901 was renamed Accles & Pollock Ltd.
From being one of the Britain’s most prolific manufacturers of bicycle tubes, to what is said to be the world’s first all metal aircraft, the Mayfly the company also produced the Accles-Turrel car. They went on to manufacture tapered seamless golf club shafts and tubular furniture along with being involved with some very highly specialised engineering projects including high tensile steel tubular chassis for land speed record cars and as with Bluebird water speed record boats.
Accles & Pollock are now a trading division of Clydesdale Engineering Ltd and we are delighted to announce that Accles & Pollock have this month come on board as a sponsor of Longbow to both supply and manufacture to Paul Martin’s specification the high tensile T45 steel tubular cage within the driver cockpit capsule of Longbow. As part of that we had a very productive meeting this month with Phil Begley, Divisional Managing Director, Sarah Stewardson, Matt Huckfield and Dean Newey all of Accles & Pollock.
https://acclesandpollock.co.uk/
Also part of our development of Longbow’s cockpit we have booked one of our sponsors Manchester Metrology to come next week in order to undertake a 3D scan of part of Longbow’s hull which will aid the engineers with their design drawings.
We have also touched base with Jonathan Tubb, Managing Director of our sponsor Advanced Fuel Systems Ltd to confirm they are on board to provide the multiple fuel cells that will feed the twin jet engines within the hull of Longbow.
The design of those fuel cells is in some cases related to the final design of Longbow’s cockpit so one may appreciate how so much of the boat’s build at this stage now hangs around that driver cockpit capsule being manufactured.
So that is where we are at with things at the moment folks. Before we sign off it was great to see this month Bluebird K7 making her journey down from Coniston to St Athan where my good friend Pete Walker and his colleagues from The Aircraft Heritage Trust will be installing an Orpheus engine within her that is one of two that we managed to source for Bluebird’s owners the Ruskin Museum
As she set off on that journey the boat was taken down the road leading to the Bluebird Cafe and boating centre presumably to ensure that both transport lorry and craft would fit down the narrow roadway to where it is proposed she will be launched and recovered from when she is publicly displayed next year. This reminded me of the Bluebird replica Silverbird K777 that I assisted with for a number of years being transported on her lorry down the same road and launched there during an appearance she made at Coniston Records Week in 2013 as shown in the following photo at the time as a taste of what the emotional scene will be like when Bluebird dips her toes back into the waters from which she was recovered all those years ago.
I hope that you have enjoyed our little update for this month and please tune in at the end of next month to see where we are at with things then. If you have not already done so please follow our page on Facebook for updates as the project develops.