John Ackroyd...
John Ackroyd (right with Richard Noble), design engineer extraordinaire, has been a key man in a mad mix of land speed and long distance balloon record attempts, including the first supersonic land speed record. Whenever a record was broken, behind the jubilation and celebration John was there.
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The Collection...
This is a unique set of pictures of the Isle of Wight that John has collected over the years. They range in date from the late 1890s to the 1950's, pictures of Ryde, Wootton Bridge, Newport, and Shalfleet are just some of the images available to view.
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Jet Blast...
Read a chapter from John's book Jet Blast in which he describes in detail the building of the World Land Speed Record breaking car Thrust 2 which was constructed at Ranalagh Works at Fishborne, on the Isle of Wight.
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Project Pictures...
A collection of pictures of the various projects that John has been involved in. These include Project Thrust, Virgin Atlantic, Pacific and Global balloons, Earthwinds, Thrust SSC, Spirit of America, etc.
Learn more »Jet Blast
The Islander aircraft ski design job lasted through the winter and finished in the early Summer of '77. I drifted back into the deckchair profession, but this year the weather was inclement, and the social life subdued. One dismal day I sat down in a deck chair, surveyed the empty beach and picked up a copy of 'Car and Car Conversions' magazine. Scanning through the pages a press release caught my eye. 'Wanted 650mph car designer' it read. It was a bolt out of the blue and I was mesmerised. Tales I had read of Land Speed Record holders John Cobb, Donald Campbell and Craig Breedlove, and designers Reid Railton and Ken Norris went buzzing through my head. I had experience in aerodynamics, aircraft and car design, and practice in turning design dreams into working vehicles from Austin 7 to Electric cars. I also had a web of contacts with all sorts of practical skills.
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Pacific Flyer
This is a book about challenge, technology and adventure — the mid-winter crossing of the world's largest ocean, by the two of us suspended in a tiny capsule below a balloon full of hot air. The book describes the development of the amazing balloon behind the scenes, and brings back the hair raising moments of the actual flight, and our rescue from the Arctic wastes
Learn more »Thrust 2
"By realising that success depended on the critical relationship between safety, operational reliability and outright performance, John came up with a car which could be safely and regularly run to its maximum speed. Too often in the past cars which sacrificed everything to performance turned out to be either so unreliable or downright dangerous that they never reached their design speed. "Thrust 2" exceeded its design speed by 0.88 mph."
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Project Thrust, Virgin Atlantic, Pacific and Global balloons, Earthwinds, Thrust SSC, Spirit of America, rocket motorcycle, rocket dragster, wheel-driven record breakers and waterspeed attempts are all here. The personalities and places are brought to life by intimate and dramatic photographs which capture the mishaps, the dashed dreams, the determination and the moments of glory. The story is told by the man who, armed with nothing more than a sharp pencil, a huge drawing board and a sense of adventure, provided solutions, innovations, design answers and real problem solving which were major contributions to the record breaking achievements on land, sea and air in the last quarter of the 20th Century.
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