Ed Shadle, world land speed challenger
Ed Shadle's North American Eagle.
Read or listen: North American Eagle Project eyes speed record
JB: Ed Shadle is a retiree from Washington state who’s preparing to become the fastest man on Earth.
DB: Shadle and his team converted the body of a retired fighter plane, flown by pilot Chuck Yeager and others, to race on land. He calls the project the North American Eagle, and in 2007 he’s planning to drive it at over 1300 kilometers – or 800 miles – per hour. We asked Ed Shadle how he prepared to try to break the world land speed record.
Ed Shadle: I do everything I can to gather information. I may not be the one who can create the detail behind it, but I like to develop ideas based on information that I get. So, I do a lot of networking and gathering of information to see what works. And, like on this project, we build a lot of things that it turns out aren’t going to work out after all, but let’s try it out and see how it works. And then we go back and tear it all apart and do it differently.
JB: For over nine years, Shadle and his team have modified and tested the North American Eagle’s many systems, including its parachutes, steering, electronics, and hydraulics. He told Earth & Sky that it’s critical for the vehicle to respond quickly and reliably to movements of its joystick. That’s especially true as it reaches speeds fast enough to break sound barrier and set a new world’s record.
DB: Our thanks today to NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth & Sky.
The website of the North American Eagle Project has information about how to support and sponsor the American attempt at the world land speed record, in addition to picture galleries of the vehicle and crew, and more about the project’s leader, Ed Shadle.
We asked Shadle what inspired him to prepare to be the fastest man on Earth. ” I’m not sure if there is any particular one thing, other than a series of life–changing events along the way, said Shadle. “My uncles were all World War II vets, and my father was. When they came back from the war, or course, life resumed like normal, except that they had all gotten into stock car racing.”
He added,”here I was, as a little kid, sitting on an apple box on the right hand side of the stock car, being towed down the road to the next races. So I was just surrounded by that kind of environment.”
Growing up in the 1950s era of hot rods had a big influence on Ed Shadle. “We’d go up to the drag races on Friday nights, and for 50 cents you could race all night, and race against anybody that you wanted to. So racing was the way it was.”
A younger Shadle joined the Civil Air Patrol, and qualified for the aviation cadet program. “I thought for sure that I was going to go off and become a fighter pilot. So here I was, I was ready to go. Of course I was pretty poor, I couldn’t get a scholarship. My folks couldn’t afford to send me to college. So I enlisted in the Air Force. Unfortunately, the cadet program was set over to the side, so to speak, and the Air Force Academy replaced it. I couldn’t get an appointment, so I just ended up staying in the Air Force for four years, and I got out and got a job with the IBM corporation and spent many years raising a familiy and building my career within IBM.”
In the 1980s, Shadle once again got the need for speed from watching amateur racers at the Bonneville salt flats. “I started going to Bonneville every year, and built a roadster and a lakester. Those are the kinds of things that I was racing out there, and still do. I go out every year, with with either the lakester or the roadster, and see how fast I can make it go.”
Our thanks to:
Ed Shadle
Owner and Driver
North American Eagle Project
World Landspeed Challenger
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