Land and water speed record holder Donald Campbell’s Bluebird has been reconstructed. After 50 years, the Bluebird is back.
Donald Campbell died in the speedboat Bluebird K7 on 4 January 1967 as he
tried to break his own speed record in July 1967. In 2001 Bluebird was
recovered from the Coniston Water in Cumbria, England, and 15 years later, the
jet-powered craft has undergone restoration (Daily Mirror, 5 November 2016).
British adventurer Donald Campbell (1921-1967) is the only man who has
broken both the world land speed record and the world water speed record. They
were achieved in the same year – 1964.
He broke eight speed records in nine years in the 1950s and 1960s. On 17
July 1964 on Lake Eyre, a dry salt lake in the middle of Australia (north of
South Australia), Donald Campbell broke the world land speed record of 403.1
miles per hour (648.73 kilometres per hour) in Bluebird CN7. On 31 December
1964 he broke the world water speed record at Lake Dumbleyung near Perth in
Western Australia in Bluebird K7 with a speed of 276.33 mph (444.71 kph).
In England three years later he aimed to break the world water speed record
in the 2.5 ton, 26 foot long (7.9 metres) Bluebird K7 at the age of 45. He made
a successful attempt across Coniston Water, which was 9 kilometres long and one
kilometre wide. He turned for a second attempt. At 300 mph (483 kph) the
Bluebird flipped into the air. Both the craft and Donald Campbell remained at
the bottom of the lake, 140 foot (42.7 metre) deep.
In October 2000 Bill Smith, the owner of a Newcastle engineering factory,
led a team that found and raised the Bluebird to the surface, 34 years after
the accident. The body of Donald Campbell was found 200 feet (61 metres) from
the craft on 28 May 2001, still in his blue nylon overalls. He is buried in the
nearby Coniston Cemetery. In December 2006, Donald Campbell’s daughter Gina,
now 69, formally gave Bluebird K7 to the Ruskin Museum in Coniston on behalf of
the Campbell Family Heritage Trust.
Smith has now reconstructed the engine and pieced back together the
Bluebird with the assistance of engineering and aerospace firms. Using archived
footage, Rolls-Royce Controls and Data recreated the fuel system and MKW
Engineering rebuilt the aluminium aerodynamic wedges. In 1967 the engine was a
Bristol Siddeley Orpheus. Today a new engine, with many original components,
had been fitted into the craft.
Initially it was a mystery why the jet powered Bluebird crashed in Coniston.
However, in 2011, crash experts Neil Sheppard and Keith Mitchell conducted a
frame-by-frame analysis of the incident to determine the cause of the crash.
They determined that the craft was not as stable as anticipated at high speed.
A sudden loss of thrust resulted in the 12-year-old craft flipping into the
air. The craft became airborne after bouncing. In addition, damage to the port
side spar exacerbated the problem, and the waves caused by the first attempt
had led Campbell to decelerate too rapidly. Sheppard and Mitchell determined
that the engine cut out when Campbell lifted his foot off the throttle. The
wreckage showed that the water brake had deployed.
As an eight-year-old school girl in South Australia, I saw the Bluebird CN7
and Donald Campbell after his world land speed record in 1964. The Bluebird was
on a trailer travelling slowly down the Main North Road near Adelaide as
children and teachers from the local schools lined the road, cheering his
magnificent feat and the incredible machine – the fastest machine on land. It looked very futuristic. It
was the most amazing vehicle I had ever seen – larger than a regular car, and a
bit like Batman’s batmobile, but instead of black it was the most beautiful
blue colour in the world. That year I wanted to be a racing car driver when I
grew up. Years later I painted my motor cycle helmet the same Bluebird blue.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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