A British Team, with a serving British Military pilot at the helm, and a joint passion to build and run Longbow, a jet hydroplane, on lakes and lochs within the UK.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Jet hydroplanes are a bit of a unique animal really. It isn't just something that I've dived
00:12into. We became very good friends with Dave Warby over in Australia and Dave Warby is the
00:19son of the existing record holder and Dave very kindly through our friendship offered to talk me
00:29through and mentor me through building this one, which is a very similar hull to his.
00:42These engines are out of military aircraft, so you want an engine of a relatively small diameter.
00:51Also, you want the thrust line as low to the water as you can possibly get it because the higher the
00:58thrust rate, the more unstable the boat is likely to be. There is a limit to how quick you can go on
01:05water because some of the air starts to go supersonic sooner than you would think. You're probably talking
01:12about 500 miles an hour. I think you would need something really special to go beyond that.
01:20For a British guy to go and get the record again would be something else. And on the same lake that
01:26Donald, you're following in some very big footsteps really aren't you. Where do we go from here?
01:32Well, get the capsule done, run the engines up, and then once that's done we'll do initial flotation then.
01:40And hopefully she floats.