Richard Noble: Breaking Barriers

Firstly an admission, I am a bit of a Land Speed Record freak, I don’t know quite why, but the whole process of taking on that enormous challenge has always fascinated me.

Secondly, an explanation on timing, Richard Noble, Land Speed record holder from 1983-1997, and Project Director for Thrust SSC the current record holder, has a book out, Take Risk, You can read Paul Tarsey’s review HERE.

That said, when the opportunity as part of the PR surrounding the book launch came up for an extended chat with Richard it took me around a nano-second to say yes.

His efforts have been landmarks in my life, and in my then young son’s life. James insisted on me sending his pocket money to the team trying for the record in Thrust SSC who were running short of funds. I remember helping him to sellotape three pound coins into an envelope, he very much felt a part of it when they went supersonic in 1997. He was 10.

So to get the opportunity to dig a little deeper was a real treat, I hope our readers enjoy reading it as much as I did talking to Richard.

Just how do you get to the stage in life where you embark upon a life of risk and craziness with inspirational projects the like of which just seem to have been a timeline through most of my life?

“It all goes back to John Cobb in 1952. And Cobb was going through the water speed record on Loch Ness. I was age six, and my dad was in the army and we were based in Inverness in Scotland.

“One day we got into the car for a drive around a bit of Scotland, which is what you did at weekends. We were driving down Loch Ness, and we turned a corner and came to Temple Pier, and John Cobb’s jet boat Crusader was sitting on the pier.

“And this amazing boat, remember this was jet-powered at a time when most aeroplanes still had propellors looked just so futuristic, frankly it would look futuristic even today, and as a kid, I saw this thing and thought, “Oh my God, that’s absolutely bloody amazing. How do I get to do something like this?” And it kind of took hold from there.

“From there on really was a matter of getting to a point where, in terms of my sort of commercial competence, I was able to get going on getting projects started.

“It seemed to me to be something which I just had to do. I wasn’t really interested in the water speed record at that stage. The car records costs are much more interesting because they are so much faster. And of course, the car industry is so much bigger for those all-important revenue possibilities.”

So it started with Thrust One – and a somewhat exciting public appearance?

“We had to start somewhere and I had got no background, no pedigree, nothing, absolutely nothing, not even any money!

“So I sold my beloved Triumph TR6 and bought a Rolls Royce Derwent engine (from a Gloster Meteor) from a scrapyard in Portsmouth. That got us started.

“It seemed sensible to build these cars around ex-Royal Air Force aircraft engines because then you’ve got all the systems available and everything plugs together and works.

“I built this thing in my garage. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. But I kept going, and eventually, it started running and we ran it at Branch Hatch and took it to various shows and then it came to grief at RAF Fairford in 1974 when we were trying to do a 200 mph run.

“Something happened and just got completely out of control, flipped into the air and did three airborne rolls before crashing on the runway.

“It ended up in a scrapyard. We sold it off that night for 175 quid.”

And from there on in how long was it until the extraordinary story that became Thrust 2?

“We started on Thrust 2 in 1976 and in 1977 we had a crucial breakthrough with a Motor Show stand at Earls Court after meeting (Design Engineer) John Ackroyd.

“The Earls Court Motorfair gave us the opportunity to present the project to the public. We built a large 100 square foot stand with the Rolls Royce Avon jet engine and its afterburner and ran a fantastic film called ‘The Fastest Man On Earth’ with some, some very, very powerful amplifiers. So much so that filled the whole of Earls Court and caused problems even for a Marine Band downstairs because they couldn’t hear themselves playing!

“Some 30,000 people went through the stand and so we got the thing going.

“Beyond the public support though was the visit to the stand from the Director of Tube Investments (aka TI Group) who wanted to build the spaceframe. He turned up and was very impressed with our presentation. We decided there and then that we couldn’t afford to lose that opportunity so we took him to lunch, I remember it came to £65 which was a hell of a lot back then for lunch, effectively we had eaten our working Capital!!

“Happily he agreed to come on board and build the spaceframe so it turned out to be a wise investment after all!”

So from there on, there were 5-6 years of building up the project, building and treating the car before the record went, peaking at what?

“We topped out at 650mph!”

What is it like to drive that thing at those kinds of velocities?

“Okay, well, let’s take you through a run.

“We ran it on the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, which is a hard sand surface. It’s called alkaline playa, It’s not salt.

“We couldn’t operate on salt because we used solid wheels and they simply don’t work on salt which is a very hard surface.

“We had a 13-mile track there. And we’ve got the car at one end and basically every time it runs, it leaves wheel marks behind. And so consequently you can only use each track section once, and then you move over to the next one. So you’ve got, like a gramophone record, a whole lot of parallel tracks.

“So, imagine that you’re sitting in the car and you’ve got the engine started and it’s idling, and you’ve done your pre-start checks, and you’re waiting for the aeroplane. We have an aeroplane and that’s flying up and down the course. Because the horizon on the desert is only two and a half miles away. You can’t see what’s going on at the other end.

“So consequently, we have to have the aeroplane going backwards and forwards just to check there are no stray Americans on the desert.

“Once that’s clear, and you get the all-clear you hold the car on its brakes. All these cars have left foot brakes, they’re not like a normal car!

“You hold it on the left foot brake and then you wind this enormous Rolls Royce Avon engine up to 92% of maximum rpm.

“You’ve got to be very careful because if you go beyond that the car will go on locked-up wheels and that’s no good. So you hold it there and just make sure everything’s together and you’re getting the right figures.

“And then the moment comes to go and you basically lift your left foot off the brake, and you slam accelerate with your right foot right down to the floor. And you’ve got to keep that your foot on the floor all the way down the track.

“So what happens is within about 30 feet, the engine has spooled up to about 104%, so it’s absolutely screaming. And it’s also lit the afterburner so you’ve got the huge flame at the back.

“So now you’ve got about 35,000 horsepower.

“The car accelerates like a bullet. You’re accelerating at around about 2G.

“2G is about 44 miles an hour for every second but you’ve got an enormous problem because basically, the desert is dusty, in aerodynamic terms you are not getting very fast. The car had two tail fins which weren’t actually working at that low speed, so the car would tend to fishtail a bit, but you’ve got to keep it in the 50-foot lane. And you must not under any circumstances let up on the throttle because if you let up on the throttle at all, even for a second that affects top speed. It’s quite extraordinary.

“So you’ve got your foot flat on the floor and you’re accelerating hard. And then you get to about 300 plus and at that speed, the two fins on the back of the car begin to work on the car, it becomes very stable, very steady. So 300 to 500 is boring, it’s just getting faster and faster.

“And then once you start getting up to 600, it starts to get really interesting, because at just before 600 you start seeing the shockwave, standing on the intake, and I could see that from the cockpit on top of the intake. And then at 617 miles per hour, you get the shockwave standing on the wheel arches.

“This is quite something and there was one day when it was cold when I was running and the whole car was enveloped in a supersonic fog.

“I’d been doing this a long time and so consequently, it was just kind of second nature. So every morning, you know, you will be going out and driving at 600 miles an hour plus in order to try and get a few more miles an hour out of the car. And the extraordinary thing about it is that everything happens in slow motion. Your mental processes are speeding right up. And so everything is very slow in comparison. So you have got plenty of time, it’s very relaxed. And the interesting thing is that you can see every single detail on the track as it comes up and goes under the car.

“So for instance, where the timekeepers have driven across the track to service, the timing lights, you could, you could see their wheel tracks come up and go onto the car quite clearly at 650 miles an hour.

“You’re going through the measured mile and you’ve got to keep the power absolutely on. You mustn’t relax at all until you come out the other side.

‘When you’re out of the measured mile, at that point, you’ve got to go through the deceleration process.

“So what you do is come back on the throttle, and that cancels the afterburner.

“At that point, you’re starting to get a lot of aero drag so the car starts to slow. Then you count to 3 very slowly, then you shut off the fuel – from the accelerator, you pull it back. The accelerator has actually got a kind of foot handle above your foot so you can pull it back.

“You pull it back to zero, and that cuts off the fuel to the engine. And at the same time, you push the button on the steering wheel and that fires the brake parachute.

“The brake parachute is a supersonic parachute from a nuclear bomb. And that comes out on 20 foot of nylon and it comes out instantaneously. It’s absolutely amazing. It’s just you touch that button and it’s there. And suddenly, you’ve got between 5 and 6G deceleration.

“So you’re losing speed at about 130 miles an hour per second. When this first happened, I was really, really surprised by all this. It’s not dangerous because, of course, the parachute is acting as a sea anchor and it’s keeping the car straight.

“And what actually happens then is that you go through this violent deceleration, and it upsets your inner ears, and you get an effect called the somatogravic illusion, which means you are absolutely convinced you’re driving straight down vertically into the centre of the Earth. It’s the most extraordinary thing.

“The drag racers, get it, one or two pilots get it but you know, you’ve got to have really severe deceleration or acceleration to witness it.

“Then very quickly you’re down to 400 miles per hour and that’s deathly boring. I mean, you really want to get out and run alongside, it’s all over really at that point.

“So you see the car down to 200 mph and then bring the wheel brakes in to bring it to a halt, get out your notebook, write down everything you can possibly remember. And of course, you’ve also got a video camera in the cockpit as well. So that records everything so we’ve got all the data.”

And that run has taken you what in terms of distance, and in terms of time?

“In distance it’s somewhere around about 12 miles. It’s about a minute up to 600-650 miles an hour. Then you got about five seconds or so through the measured mile!”

What you’re describing sounds a remarkably physical process?

“Yes, I suppose to somebody who hasn’t done it before it probably is. But, you know, you’re doing it every day. I drove Thrust 2 to probably about 60 or 70 times so I got a lot of experience with it.”

Okay, so the land speed record is gone. Tell me about that moment?

“It was an extraordinary moment because it had taken nine years from Thrust 1 to get to that point. And suddenly we’ve done it. And you know, for all that time, we’ve been talking about how we were going to take the world land speed record, and friendly people would actually listen to us.

“And we’ve done it – an extraordinary moment, and there we all are, all grouped around the car on the desert and John Ackroyd has produced a very small bottle of champagne that he managed to sneak in.

“And basically we’re all celebrating and it’s a wonderful moment, but only for a very, very short time. Because basically, to do this the teamwork is absolutely exceptional. And you are a family and then suddenly you all realise that there’s nothing holding you all together. It’s all over. It’s all done.

‘There isn’t an afterlife for Thrust 2 other than taking it around to a few exhibitions and shows. And basically we’ve all got to go and do something else.”

And she’s now in Coventry?

“Yes, both Thrust 2 and Thrust SSC are in Coventry with visitor number peaking at around 400,000 visitors a year of people going to see it.”

So that record stayed for a long time. At what point did the thought occur to you that there needs to be another step?

“Almost immediately because the point about a record is that it’s there to be broken.

“None of us are really interested in really trying to preserve it. It’s there to be broken and these are a collection of people who love to take on the odds and get better performance.

“So, I then moved on to aeroplanes, we did the ARV Super Two, which is a brilliant little training aeroplane. We finally got it certificated, we fought all the battles with the design, paperwork and the financing.

“Then we tried to do a ship to take on the Agha Khan for the Blue Riband.

“The Aga Khan had got the money but not the technology. We had the technology but not the money.

“That effort incurred the wrath of Rolls Royce’s main board because we had an RB2-11 jumbo engine. And they weren’t very happy about that. But unfortunately, when it was just about to be built, Britain went into a deep recession and that was it, there wasn’t any money and it couldn’t be built.

‘I do hope that one day we might get it built because it was capable of crossing the Atlantic, 3000 miles at an average speed of about 60 knots. That would have been really something, a huge achievement.

“The Aga Khan got it at 53 knots which was a great effort. I mean, he did really, really well (his yacht Destriero is pictured below though it became only an unofficial record breaker being classified as a private vessel).

“We then learned that the Americans and also the McLaren Formula One team were all interested in building a supersonic car to be the first to do that.

“The American project was headed by Craig Breedlove, who’s been an old friend for a very long time. We met on Bonneville together with Art Arfons, another close friend.

“Art was going for the record in a very small car (Green Monster 27) and believed that the land speed record could only now be done by very small cars. So that’s what he was trying to do. But it didn’t work out for him.

“Craig, Art and I were talking and Craig said, “I want you to know I’ve bought myself a couple of J79 jet engines, and we’re going to go for it.”

“Craig had been the first man over 400, 500 and 600 mph so clearly he wanted the sequence, 700 and of course to go supersonic.

“Then when I got back to Britain, an extraordinary thing started to happen. People started ringing me up saying, we can’t tell you anything because we’ve signed non-disclosure agreements but basically there is a British land speed record programme underway. I was really interested obviously.

“And then what happened was I was phoned up by the McLaren Formula One PR people who said, we’ve got a whole lot of sponsors turning up and we’d like to entertain them. Will you send us a video?

“I said, Yes, course I would and then I sort of forgot about it and didn’t.

“And then they rang up again and said, it hasn’t come and I said, “Oh, dear, you know, the Post Office is terrible these days!” clearly something was afoot so I put two and two together, and didn’t send it to them.

“And then they rang up again and were very, very worked up about all this. So it was quite clear that that’s what they were going to do. So I eventually sent them the tape!

“They started pushing on with their programme (Maverick).

“Ron Dennis was very outspoken about it saying, this what we’re going to do, and we’ve got £25 million to spend and if one car doesn’t work, we’ll do again, that sort of thing.

“They had a huge amount of money but the problem is that if you’ve got a lot of money, you can’t do these things. As ridiculous as that sounds it’s true, everybody gets confused. Everybody runs around chasing the money.

“When I saw the Maverick I was absolutely appalled. I thought, oh, Christ, for God’s sake, that’s a really dangerous design. You don’t know what you’re doing. And now, thank God it was never built. It went as far as the mock-up but it never got built.

“We then got started with the luckiest thing on God’s earth which was because of the M25!

“In the early days of the M25, there were a lot of accidents simply because people were using it for just local travel. And because of that it was jammed one day and I was late to a meeting with Ken Norris at Bournemouth where he’s got his flying club. And only because I was late I met (aerodynamicist) Ron Ayers, who also turned up and Ron asked me the big question, which is “Why do all these Land Speed record cars underperform?”

“So I explained that Thrust 2 didn’t because we achieved our design speed. And from then on Ron and I started working together and of course, we then moved into Computational Fluid Dynamics, the first use of CFD on a car.

“We had a huge problem because Swansea University did all the work for us, which was great. We got some really good results, but we couldn’t believe them because of course, this is pioneering and, there was no baseline data.

“And so we moved into a programme using the rocket railway test track at Pendine in South Wales, where they would send warheads down the railway and around Mach 4 and run them into lumps of concrete at the other end.

“Fortunately, we managed to get hold of 200 2 inch strafing rockets and we did about 13 supersonic runs with a model and the data from that then corresponded almost identically with our CFD data and we knew we could do then.

So you then move into the process that I’m sure has become a very familiar part of your working life, the fundraising?

“What happened here was very interesting because there was, at this time, a lot of big companies in Britain. basically telling everybody how brave they were, how innovative, how creative they were, which, of course, is all rubbish because they weren’t.

And I was sort of misled rather, and I went to see these companies and I showed them what we were doing like a really innovative project and how we were going to break the sound barrier.

“Bluntly they were absolutely shocked. It was pathetic, really, the boards all saying “we can’t do that.”

“And so I realised we’d got a terrible problem, which was simply that these companies weren’t living up to their images, and they weren’t innovative and they weren’t creative and they weren’t brave.

“But then I also realised that what had actually happened was that we had brilliant data from Ron, and we realised that if we could only get the car built, we could do it.

“So then I then had to give up the driving role in it, because basically, it was going to be an appalling job to make the money otherwise, the thing was never going to get anywhere.

“We then launched the project and journalists who attended the launch then immediately rang Ron Dennis and said, Well, how are you getting on? And Ron had given up at that point. So then we pushed on with it.”

In terms of the science how much more difficult was it to make the jump that was made from Thrust 2 to SSC?

“It was enormous. Because basically, the level of knowledge in the country was very, very limited and basically, a lot of physicists were saying, just look, this is a very expensive way to kill somebody, you’re going to get supersonic buffeting from the car, you’re going to have terrible problems like the early days for the first supersonic aeroplanes, they had a lot of crashes and lost lots of pilots and aeroplanes.

“And of course, nobody knew what the hell was going on underneath the car, because obviously we’d have a supersonic flow underneath the car. So it was all just very, very difficult.

“But we couldn’t have done it without Ron. He was absolutely essential to this.

“Ron designed the Bloodhound missile (an RAF surface to air defence system – pictured below) way back in the 1960s. He calmly held it all together in terms of the aerodynamics. So really, we were all backing Ron effectively. I’d got to make the money, Andy Green had got to do the driving and the team had got to get the car built.

In sports car racing, we’re very familiar with the principle that whilst there’s one guy in the car there are other guys sitting and watching him in effectively their car. What is that like for someone like you that has been the man behind the wheel?

“It’s a funny sort of feeling. I must say because you feel very strongly that you belong there.

But you’re not there, and you mustn’t even get into the cockpit because basically, that is Andy Green’s ground, Andy Green’s position. And so I’ve never even sat in Thrust SSC!

What was the relationship like between yourself and Andy?

Terrific. I mean, absolutely brilliant. He’s a very quiet guy, actually a very deep thinker, very clever. He’s got first-class honours in mathematics. He’s very, very dedicated and incredibly skilled. And so the relationship was really very, very good.

It was a very difficult car to drive if you remember, it’s rear-wheel steer so that created all sorts of additional driving problems. But he tackled them bit by bit and finally got there. He’s a very brave guy.

Bloodhound, by comparison, ended sadly for you?

“Yes, I had to put it into administration because the government defaulted on us.

“It was then bought by Ian (Warhurst). He and I had a meeting and he made it clear that he didn’t want me to continue with the project.

I said that’s absolutely fine. Because from my point of view, I’m very, very tired and I didn’t realise how ill I was.

So I took about three months to recover from this. It’s been very, very tough.

And basically what happened there was that Steve Fossett, the American, amazing American Explorer, record-breaker, the man who solo ballooned around the world and flew one and a half times around the world non-stop. I mean, there’s nothing this guy couldn’t do.

He set his heart on the land speed record (and bought and refined Craig Breedlove’s car – Spirit of America Sonic Arrow – pictured above). And Andy and I were sort of getting bored because basically, we love doing these projects and so we met in a pub in Whitehall because Andy worked for the MoD in Whitehall and said, What the hell are we going to do?

And we said, well, we can just let him get away with it, or are we going to take him on?

Well, of course, we’re going to take him on. I mean, he’s American, we’ve got to take him on.

And then we said, well, how fast, he’s probably going to go 800 mph so we’ve got to go much faster than them.

So the next thing was a meeting with Ron Ayers. And Ron had also been doing some work on something like this in the background. And he said, “How fast?” and we said Mach 1.5 and he was absolutely appalled. So, horsetrading went on and we ended up with Mach 1.4, which is 1000 miles per hour.”

Steve Fossett’s effort ended when he was killed in a light aircraft accident whilst scouting for potential record-setting sites in Nevada.

There’s an overwhelming sense when you talk about Steve Fossett, Art Arfons and Craig Breedlove of a sense of kinship and community within that extraordinary group?

“Yes, absolutely, and with the guys in Australia (Rosco McGlashan’s Aussie Invader – pictured below) as well. Because we’re all doing the same thing. We’re all battling against the same difficulties.

“I guess the question is, how much do you exchange and how much do you keep in your back pocket?

“We keep most in the back pocket not only because we are in competition, but also because basically, the cars are completely and utterly different and therefore those very minimal IP which could be transferred between them.

“What happened was that after Bloodhound went into administration, I sort of really tried to sort of recover my life and wonder what the hell I was going to do. And I suddenly realised that actually, we’d failed. Because all these wonderful people that supported these various projects, whilst of course, we made sure that they got publicity and everything else, but we hadn’t really thanked them and told their story.

“So I thought this would be rather interesting to try and do this. Because there are some absolutely wonderful stories and of course they are off to the side in terms of the main thread of the existing stories.

“Secondly, we got a huge problem with civil servants from the DTI and everything. Because of all these projects that we’ve done have been very credible, very believable. We’ve involved the most advanced technology from the universities and so on, and industry has supported us because they believe in us.

“But there comes a point when you do need some government help, government support, and basically it’s pathetic, it was not forthcoming and in every single project, they were absolutely hopeless.

“And a really great shame because, you know, the very large numbers of people involved in all this. To give you an idea with Bloodhound, we had 35,000 names on the tail of the car and other 7000 people in the supporters club many of whom would come down to see how we were getting on. In the education programme, we had 129,000 Kids engaging with us.

“So very large numbers of people involved in this, and more still that were energised by this, and I feel that aspect of the programme was neither understood or appreciated by those that could have tapped into something inspirational.

“It seems a great shame that the Government isn’t brave enough, or even understanding enough to, to help to see these projects through.”

Tell me looking back after all these projects, all these moments, and some truly momentous times, what’s the one moment that comes back to you as the most special?

“The highlight I think was the moment when I actually saw Andy Green break the sound barrier.

“We’re standing in the midpoint of the course. We’ve got 200 media there with all the trucks and satellite vans and so on. The car comes up the track, over 700 miles an hour, and it’s coming up the track faster than any aircraft you have ever seen. And it’s doing it in complete silence and the media guys are standing there with their mouths open. They just can’t believe what’s happening.

And it comes alongside and there’s enormous double bang from the supersonic shock waves. You’ve got one on the front of the car, one in the back.

“It rocked our trucks on their axles and shook buildings 15 miles away in Gerlach where the shockwave knocked all the caps off the sprinklers in the classrooms of the school.

“And you just think my God Almighty, what have we done? You know, this is just absolutely incredible. And also, from my point of view, as a leader of a project, I’m facing this awful decision. Is this thing dangerous? Are we going to have a terrible accident?

“Do we continue or do we just panic and stop. We decided to continue. We keep going. And at the end of it when we got our two passes over the measured mile and got the first-ever supersonic record, Andy said: “We’ve driven this car twice too often!” I think everybody agreed with him!”