<< Previous   of   Next >> Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald  (click to enlarge) Crew chief Bill Eckberg of Stanwood watches the oil gauge in the cockpit of the North American Eagle as fellow team member Tim Finley (not shown) tries to activate it Saturday in Spanaway. Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald  (click to enlarge) Richard Pengelley of Arlington removes plastic covering from the tail of the North American Eagle. Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald  (click to enlarge) Owner Keith Zanghi (right) applies stickers to wires inside the jet-powered vehicle while crew chief Bill Eckberg, from Stanwood, examines work being done on the back Saturday morning. Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald  (click to enlarge) Crew chief Bill Eckberg (left) works with Tim Finley to try and get a plug switched out in the North American Eagle so the oil gauge in the cockpit works Saturday afternoon. Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald  (click to enlarge) (From left) Von Armstrong, from University Place, Richard Pengelley, from Arlington and Ed Shadle set the windshield down onto the front of the North American Eagle jet-powered vehicle Saturday morning.

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CONTACT THE HERALD

Robert Frank, City Editor frank@heraldnet.com

Real speed racers: Team shoots for land speed record

By Scott Pesznecker, Herald Writer

SPANAWAY -- The sleek, red machine at a small airport near Spanaway was once an elite fighter jet of the U.S. Air Force.

Now, it's the ultimate project car.

A handful of Snohomish County residents are part of a team of airplane mechanics, speed junkies and military veterans who are converting a 1960s-era F-104 Starfighter into a supersonic driving machine called the North American Eagle.

Their goal: to build the fastest land vehicle known to man.

"Taking a jet and making it into a land racer, that's cool," said North American Eagle crew chief Bill Eckberg, a Stanwood man who works on the 777 line at Boeing while volunteering for the land speed team.

"Even now, people don't know what we do or who we are," he said.

The world land speed record of 763 miles per hour was set by a British racing team in 1997. A British fighter pilot named Andy Green drove the ThrustSSC vehicle that set the record. The jet-black vehicle's historic run through Nevada's Black Rock Desert broke the sound barrier, making it the first time an automobile officially accomplished the feat.

When finished, the North American Eagle could eclipse 830 mph, crew members say.

If all goes as planned, the team could attempt to break the record this fall.

On Saturday, many of the North American Eagle's 43 volunteer crew members, which includes five people from Snohomish County, gathered to work on their rocket car as they do almost every weekend. The machine is tucked away in a hangar at the quaint Shady Acres Airport in Pierce County, where the runway could be mistaken for a long driveway to a home in the rural community.

Children from nearby homes stopped by to sit in the North American Eagle's cockpit, unaware of the legendary pilots such as Scott Crossfield, Joe Engle and Pete Knight who flew the craft when it was still a fighter jet.

The significance of the racing machine was not lost on Don Wilson, 47, of Yakima who drove to Shady Acres on Saturday just to catch a glimpse of the vehicle.

"This is probably the ultimate in going fast," said Wilson, grinning boyishly as he stared at the racer. "I couldn't believe something like this would exist in our own back yard."

Because of the high costs and logistics involved in driving the racer, the North American Eagle is rarely tested. Higher-speed tests require the machine and its parts to be loaded into semi trucks and hauled down to El Mirage Dry Lake in California's Mojave Desert, Edwards Air Force Base near Los Angeles or the Black Rock Desert. The vehicle's top tested speed so far is 350 mph.

Some crew members have lovingly nicknamed their vehicle "The Beast."

And what a beast it is.

The North American Eagle measures in at 56 feet long and weighs 13,780 pounds. Its 42,500-horsepower engine weighs 3,940 pounds -- heavier than a NASCAR-sanctioned stock car -- and the machine will be receiving a new, 52,000-horsepower engine before its record attempt.

The vehicle's 200-pound rear wheels spin at 12,000 revolutions per minute. In order to slow down, the machine is equipped with parachutes and a high-tech magnetic braking system capable of stopping 1,400 foot pounds of torque -- that's more force than is generated by four sports car engines, crew members said.

Forget about fuel efficiency; this bad boy burns 160 gallons of jet fuel per minute.

"I was trying to wean myself away from airplanes," said Richard Pengelley, 65, of Arlington, who toyed around with some Chevy trucks after retiring from Boeing three years ago. "Now I'm in this dream project. I'm dedicated to following this until the end."

In its heyday, the F-104 was a high-powered, single-engine fighter used for both combat and test flights. Used by the U.S. Air Force in the late 1950s and 1960s, the planes were used as recently as 1994 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in conjunction with the space program.

"The design was truly unique," said Ed Shadle of Spanaway, the vehicle's driver and co-owner of the project. "The F-104 was the only aircraft to have its own fan club. It was so fast, so powerful."

Shadle was working on another land speed project when the British team broke the record in 1997. He abandoned the vehicle he was working on, knowing it had no chance of going anywhere near 763 mph.

He talked with Keith Zanghi, who co-owns the North American Eagle project. They decided to seek out an F-104 for their next project.

Through a junk dealer, Shadle found his Starfighter chassis in Maine in July 1999. The jet had been sold by the government as surplus, and it was in terrible shape, covered in graffiti with holes punched through its metal fuselage.

He named it the North American Eagle after his previous land racer, which was named the American Eagle 1. He likes the new name because it represents the entire North American continent, and much of his vehicle's machine and engine work was done in Canada.

The record-setting British team got money and help from its government to build its land speed car, Shadle said.

The North American Eagle crew couldn't even get permission from Paine Field officials to test their engine at the Everett airport. Paine Field officials were concerned about the noise from the engine, and they were worried about lawsuits if something were to go wrong, Shadle said.

Instead, the crew tested the racer's engine by tethering its back end to the base of a large tree at the Spanaway Airport. When they fired up the engines, the craft powered forward, anchored in place by the tree. The machine's incredible force caused the tree to lean over a few feet, but it did not uproot.

Roughly $300,000 of the $1.5 million invested into the racer has come from Shadle's and Zanghi's pockets. Other funding has come through volunteer labor, cash and parts donations, and merchandise sales.

People should care about this project, Eckberg said.

"It's about pride," he said. "There's not enough pride in America right now. Nobody wants to step up, to help stir the American dream again."

That's not to say the media hasn't noticed. The North American Eagle has already been the subject of two Discovery Channel documentaries, which have aired around the world in recent years. The vehicle was also featured in a Canadian documentary.

On Saturday, a CBS film crew is planning to begin gathering footage of the project for an upcoming documentary called "The Future." A German film crew is also coming to Washington to learn more about the project.

If all goes well this fall, everyone will know about the North American Eagle.

"This is the ultimate car in the garage," Shadle said. "It's pretty much the pinnacle."

Reporter Scott Pesznecker: 425-339-3436 or spesznecker@heraldnet.com.