Bluebird Archive Photos & Films

[sheppane]

Plus of course DC had successfully practiced the "quick turnaround" system more than a couple of times

Steve's bang on about that. DC employed quick turnaround in all his timed runs of December 66 (10th, 12th, 13th and 14th) and the two un-timed Christmas Day and Dec 27th runs. I would wager, although we can never know for sure, that DC was always coming back immediately on the 4th. (From his perspective of water condition certainty, it was the best methodology).

The key is in being comfortable in the run up on run 2, but the really high speed middle 3 km (one km either side of and the measured km) being as good as they were on the way down. Campbell calculated and had actual proof that this would be the case. He would run into water brake chop early on the return at relatively low speed, and would be below 250 mph by the time he met his wash from the first run 1km plus north of the measured kilo. We also calculated that in slowing down at the end of the second run, DC would in all likelihood have needed to run to the head of the lake, overshooting Pier Cottage.

One interesting thing I have discussed with Bill, the Orpheus cut out on both runs on the 4th after approx. 31 seconds of sustained max throttle. (using Campbell's commentary from run 1 and photographic evidence from run, 2, which incidentally, commenced 3mins 18 seconds from Campbell starting run 1)

Bill is hoping to be in the position to retest the fuel system to see if this failure replicates itself in due course. It could point to an intermittent electrical failure or a fuel flow issue to the booster pump.

[Renegadenemo]

One interesting thing I have discussed with Bill, the Orpheus cut out on both runs on the 4th after approx. 31 seconds of sustained max throttle. (using Campbell's commentary from run 1 and photographic evidence from run, 2, which incidentally, commenced 3mins 18 seconds from Campbell starting run 1)

Yes - that is top of the list of must-have data. I's just too much of a coincidence and the mechanical state of the fuel system shouts of a deficiency in the fuel delivery. Not sure how we'll set that experiment up, especially as we have no way of knowing what had been done to the pump stroke in 66 because the mis-match between tacho-gen and indicator was missed but there has to be a way to check it out. Will give it some thought.

[ted.walsh]

if you are driving the run the most important thing is to have good entry speed, ideally you should 'know' you have good speed and not just expect it to be there with your foot down hard. blowing out of the back of the run at N+x mph wont get you any records regardless of Vmax and typically is both dangerous and expensive in terms of mechanicals, rescue and recovery time. For the return run, especially in the case of Donald, the south run coupled with his turnaround course would have had a lot of say on his return run kilo entry speed. typically if you mess up the turn round it gives you far too much wash to navigate across at what is usually a pretty hairy point in how a boat is behaving, this massively affects your entry speed. ive attached one of the course tracks from one of my own runs that has been overlayed into Google earth but I don't suppose the 67' team had such a luxury

coniston-run3.jpg

course positions approximate....

[Renegadenemo]

That's a helluva long way down the lake - I'd never thought of just how long the tow would be if it all packed up at the south end. Apart from going down there to clear out the south end with a new sidescan sonar we've only really been to where K7 crashed, oh, and where Gordon Park dumped his missus. I'd certainly not want to tow something as cumbersome as K7 all the way back from there so it's either quick turnaround or no stoppy the engine...

[polo]

At the South east corner [?] of Coniston there is a small wooden pier that can be easily reached from the road with service equipment. So if you get a 'breakdown' the boat can be towed there for 'on the water' work and restart from land based batteries. That is unless you do what we did with K8 and have a 'battery boat' following her in case of power need.
This Pier is where Tony Fahey tried to remove the it by getting his right sponson caught under a pier upright and put full power on. He used it to refuel and restart using a large array of batteries.
I can state that a tow back from here is painfully slow having done it several times with K8 !
Remember K7 is meant to go fast and at slow speed she will be the proverbial pig to tow. she will be low in the water with all the resulting resistance and if the waves build up [its the Lake District ! the weather changes quick] or you tow too quickly there is a chance of taking on quite a lot of water [ as per K8] making the tow harder still. A swamping would be a disaster.

[Renegadenemo]

Can't start K7 with batteries... Couldn't do it then and can't do it now.

[f1steveuk]

Well, couldn't with an Orp', but you could with a Beryl.



I'm sure the original intention was to have a compressed air cylinder on Louis boat at the far end. Indeed, the very bottle was in use at Filching to take air to cars in storage to "re-round" tyres. I suspect it simply didn't have the capacity.

[Renegadenemo]

Well, couldn't with an Orp', but you could with a Beryl.

Yes - I ought to have qualified that. You'd need a big old bottle to decant into the Orph' start system. It holds 32 litres of air at 3200psi.

[f1steveuk]

It was a big bottle (bloody heavy), on a lovely "barrow" made by Leo, but as I said, I don't think it had the capacity. Wasn't there enough air "on board" for about six starts (obviously ignoring any running re-lights)?

[Renegadenemo]

Wasn't there enough air "on board" for about six starts (obviously ignoring any running re-lights)?

That's the figure that somehow seems to have been captured by history but reality is rapidly disproving it. The start system was designed for the Hunting 162 or is that 126, I can never remember, so it's a fair bet that as well as a piston pump and a hyd pump there'd have been a generator too. K7 lacked the generator, preferring instead to run the boost pumps from a pair of batteries for the short duration involved but even with that missing the start system is good for only a couple of starts and matters would be even worse with cold oil. I reckon on the aircraft it would give one good one.