Spring is well and truly here in the U.K. and as we bounce along into the better weather it was good to see our good friend Dave Warby and his team back at Blowering Dam this month for further development runs of his jet hydroplane Spirit of Australia II. The only downside being the low water levels in the reservoir at Australia thereby considerably reducing the length of the course Dave was able to safely run the boat and consequently speeds were kept to below 250mph on this occasion. Other than that Dave reports that he is very happy with the way the boat is now handling and is looking forward to returning to Blowering Dam in a few month’s time when the water levels in the reservoir are forecast to be considerably higher.
Back here with Longbow our design engineers had asked that we arrange for the craft’s hull section in the area of the driver cockpit and rear of that to the front of her twin jet engines be 3D laser scanned. This being in order to tailor fit the driver cockpit capsule shape to the ‘as built’ area including what will be the engine inlet tracks on either side to the rear of her cockpit area.
In order to facilitate this we called upon the services of Manchester Metrology who are based in Ashton-under-Lyne and who have so kindly been a sponsor of the project from the outset. The following photos show them previously levelling the steel grillage table upon which Longbow’s hull was then constructed, along with them later scanning the buck for the driver cockpit capsule.
On this occasion Sam Mather and Matt Bottomly from Manchester Metrology came for the day to scan the area of Longbow’s hull and front of her twin jet engines using their Creaform HandySCAN and associated software. The following photos show the Sam undertaking the scanning process, the results being captured and downloaded onto their laptop and the multitude of small temporary reference targets they applied throughout the scanned area.
This month it was also great to have a visit from Nick Clare and Andrew Price who have been following our little project and who had asked to come and see the boat in person. We always like to accommodate our supporters if they want to come and see the boat which is what the venture is all about and it was great to chat over various aspects of Longbow’s design and construction over a brew.
It always makes me smile that moment when people first see the craft in the flesh for the first time as they remark that they were not expecting her to be so big which isn’t always so readily apparent from the photos we publish in the updates.
Given the stage that we are now at with the build of Longbow we have been advised by those working in television and the media to start capturing both video and photographic record of the project to a high resolution professional standard so that this can be used as part of the back story within programs and the media at a later date. To assist us with that task renowned photographer and videographer Neil Draper who has worked with amongst other unique projects, the Red Arrows and the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight came to visit us at the workshop and spend the day interviewing us about the project, whilst taking video footage and photographs. An example of Neil’s superb work is given below.
This month we also welcome a new product sponsor to the venture by way of The Testometric Company Ltd based in Rochdale and who manufacture testing equipment for both the U.K. and international markets. See: www.testometric.co.uk/
Simon Harwood Director of Testometric informed us that they supplied the bend test equipment for the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) who are one of our education partners for the venture. Simon and his colleagues are kindly arranging for one of their company’s test equipment rigs to be set up to provide four point bend tests of sample material that the composite outer shell of Longbow’s cockpit will be constructed from. These bend tests of cockpit sample composite material being as set out by the Union Internationale Motonautique (UIM) who historically homologated previous international Unlimited Outright World Water Speed Records.
Dialogue between the UIM and ourselves continues and as part of that, those following the venture and indeed jet hydroplanes and the Unrestricted Outright World Water Speed Record in general may be interested in the following information issued to us this month by Fred Hauenstein Senior Vice President of the UIM.
For the UIM Unrestricted Outright World Water Speed Record:
1. The boat must be piloted by a driver.
2. Directional control of the craft must result from reaction with the water.
Fred on behalf of the UIM states that this means continuous driver input steering to maintain directional control of the craft; there is according to the UIM no other way to interpret this rule. Fred goes on to state that if the water immersed rudder were removed from the water (including being withdrawn from the water whilst the craft was running) the boat would no longer be under directional control by the driver through reaction with the water. Furthermore Fred states that if the driver did not have input to the water immersed rudder there would no longer be directional control, only stability straight ahead. The rule also requires the driver of the craft to control the boat, thereby eliminating remote or computer control of the boat.
3. For safety the boat’s running attitude may be controlled by electronic sensor’s or actuators.
4. UIM Circuit Rulebook – 600.04 would allow submerged hydrofoils to be controlled by electronic means.
5. There is no UIM rule that would forbid a driver seeing outside of the cockpit by live video camera(s) within the cockpit where their vision to the front and / or sides would otherwise be obscured by the craft’s hull / cockpit / windshield design.
So for clarification I know some of those interested in this record have spoke about a design of boat where the movable water immersed rudder being controlled by the driver to steer the craft would be withdrawn from the water during running of the craft to in effect ‘fly the boat’ during a record run. Indeed the late great hydroplane boat builder Ron Jones Sr. suggested this concept to me back in 2011 when we chatted about a boat capable of attempting this record but clearly such a craft relying upon withdrawing the boat water immersed rudder from the water during a run would not be homologated by the UIM.
With regards to the American jet hydroplane Hustler built by Rich Hallett and driven by Lee Taylor this achieved a UIM homologated record of 285.22mph in June of 1967 beating the previous record of 276.33mph by Donald Campbell in his jet hydroplane Bluebird. It would be 10 years later before Hustler’s UIM record would be beaten by Ken Warby in his jet hydroplane Spirit of Australia.
My good friend the late Doug Ford in his superb book about Lee Taylor states that Hustler was fitted with a 15″ long water immersed rudder aft of the bottom fixed fin of the transom but I have yet to see any photographic evidence of that driver operated water immersed movable steering rudder actually in place and fitted to the boat at the time of the UIM record being set in 1967.
What we do have is photographic evidence Hustler being steered by sprint / midget car type steering box in her cockpit connected by pitman arm to metal rods running down the length of the boat inside of the hull which were in turn connected to a movable vertical metal deflector in the jet stream coming out the back of her Westinghouse J46 pure thrust gas turbine engine. That is to say steering of the boat left or right by the driver being achieved by deflecting the jet thrust coming out the back of the engine above the surface of the lake.
In order to clarify that Hustler did indeed also have a water immersed movable rudder controlled by the driver Lee Taylor to steer the craft in 1967 for its UIM homologated Unlimited Outright Record if anyone has photographic evidence of the water immersed rudder fitted to Hustler at that time that they can pass to us for publication upon our website it would be most appreciated.
Hustler remains one of my favourite historic jet hydroplanes and it is important that any ambiguity of how the craft was steered to obtain its UIM sanctioned record is clarified by actual photographic evidence of the boat at that time to show a water immersed driver operated steering rudder was fitted. Surely somebody out there must have photos of that water immersed steering rudder fitted to Hustler if indeed it was fitted with such to confirm its existence beyond any doubt?
There is a huge archive of photographic evidence of Donald Campbell’s Bluebird that held the UIM record prior to Hustler and Ken Warby’s Spirit of Australia that won the record after Hustler to prove beyond any doubt that Bluebird and Spirit of Australia were both fitted with a water immersed steering rudder and thereby being UIM compliant for being awarded the Outright World Water Speed Record owned by the Royal Motor Yacht Club (RMYC).
As regards the matter of the cockpit for Longbow and its analysis / specification by our design engineer being protected by a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) as already signed by Tom Stanley and Bob Wartinger of the UIM, we have yet to receive such a signed NDA from the British Powerboat Association (BPBA) with our NDA previously being sent to them in February.
We trust everyone will appreciate that the matter of our desire to have Longbow’s cockpit approved by the UIM is dependent upon the UIM being able to protect our design engineer’s intellectual property rights relating to all documentation they would be required to send the UIM as part of that cockpit submission process. As stated within previous updates such NDA’s are standard practice within industry and are widespread within motorsport including within the FIA.
This issue has now been referred to Thomas Kurth, Secretary General of the UIM who in turn has sent the matter to their legal consultant in Germany to examine our case in depth and come up with a proposed solution. This being the highly delicate legal context of the protection of intellectual property and the administrative handling of related procedures by the UIM.
Until this matter is resolved by the UIM to the satisfaction of our design engineer Paul Martin in order to protect his intellectual property rights and commercial interests relating to Longbow we are unable to submit Paul’s cockpit analysis and specification of the cockpit composite shell lay-up to the UIM for their consideration.
We hope that this matter can be resolved without further delay as you will appreciate it is now holding up further progress with the construction of the boat and we will update everyone following the venture as soon as we have a proposed solution to the matter from the UIM.
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.