| Friday,
19th April 2002 - Efforts turn to Windjet Water Craft
Well, spring is certainly
upon us and with the light summer winds looming, the Windjet
team has now stood down from 'land record ready' status and will be turning
all energy towards the next step in the project, the radical new Windjet
water craft.
This does not mean
the end for the Windjet Land craft, far from it! The craft
has a hectic schedule of shows to attend during the summer, starting at
the home of the land record challenge, RAF Waddington, where the craft
will be the star attraction for the 7th Waddington International Air show.
Following the exhibition season the craft will return to record challenge
status once again at RAF Waddington, when the autumn winds set in.
This winter has been
an exciting time for Windjet, seeing an evolution in many
parts of the project, including the steady improvement of the land craft
performance, which has been possible due to the superb facilities at RAF
Waddington.
| "Being
able to wheel the vehicle out of the hanger at a moments notice has
enabled an extremely rapid evolution of the technology. This really
is a high tech challenge and the land craft performance is now staggering,
with record speeds now being reached in almost all test sessions,"
said James Fitch, the Support Team Manager. |
This improvement in
performance is hardly surprising considering the land craft has now clocked
up over 3000 miles, equivalent to an incredible 17 Formula One races,
or one entire F1 season, all at MAXIMUM load! Not a bad record for reliability!
We have also welcomed
some new technical partners including the Thales Group who are providing
the team with high accuracy satellite tracking and secure frequency radio
communications. Trimite, one of Britain's leading industrial paint manufactures
has also stepped in to provide a paint system for all the Windjet
craft. The paint they have suggested is a very hard two-part polyurethane,
that has a 'slip' additive making the craft as low drag as possible, very
similar to the paint that Trimite supplied to Thrust SSC for their supersonic
challenge back in 1997.
The winter down time
has also enabled massive strides to be taken on the web side of the project,
and this will be brought to you very soon, with a fully interactive members
section of the web site.
We have also secretly
started construction of the radical water craft and news of this will
be brought to you in the near future!
All in all, very exciting
times, watch this space......
|