We’re feeling smug tonight after breaking a world record time on Colin Mcrae Dirt 2, so let’s check out one of the lesser known records in the real world, one that may not be familiar but is definitely one of the most extreme.
There have been plenty of individuals willing to push the outer envelope. You have your Donald Campbells, Craig Breedloves, Chuck Yeagers and the list continues into the hundreds. Some of these people had the backing of governments, corporate sponsors or wealthy patrons. Others had to improvise a little more.
Darryl Greenamyer set the world low altitude speed record on the 24th of October 1977. The record required 4 passes at a height above ground level of less than 100 metres. An altitude of no more than 300 metres was to be exceeded between passes and no landings were allowed between them.
He officially clocked 988 mph at a height of less than 60 feet above the desert floor. At that speed and height someone told him his brain would be processing sights that were 150 feet behind him. And he achieved it with a plane cobbled together by hand from the remains of at least 12 others that he named The Red Baron.
the red baron in action
988mph? That may not sound too impressive but low altitude flight is a very different beast compared to further up. Fuel consumption and drag increases enormously in the thicker air. To give an idea, the range of his aircraft at high altitude would have been around 1500 miles at a fast cruise. He covered 130 miles during the record attempt and landed on fumes.
Greenamyer’s steed was a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, the first combat plane capable of sustained flight at Mach 2. The Starfighter was the perfect machine for the job. Its thin wings mean low drag and turbulence and combined with its endurance, handling and grunt there’s probably no plane out there that could take the record today without unfeasible amounts of expenditure and development.
The man himself also had the Right Stuff for the job. Greenamyer was a former Lockheed test pilot and he’d already broken the piston-engined world speed record. During his years at Lockheed he’d flown the F-104 countless times and was convinced that it was capable of setting more records.
A standard working day for Mr Greenamyer
The only question was how he would obtain his own example. In the mid 60s the F-104 was still a front line aircraft and military types are never keen to give up their hardware to civilians. He resolved to build his own from scavenged parts.
It took 13 years to create the Red Baron. It was assembled from bits found in scrapyards, job lots bought blind that included fridges and chunks of helicopter, one part was somebody’s office paperweight, a significant portion of the fuselage came from a preproduction mockup that required every rivet replacing.
By the time the plane was finished in 1976 it was a miracle of resourcefulness and a full on airborne hotrod weighing 20% less than a standard Starfighter and having 25% more thrust from a US Navy loaned engine.
It was taken out to Mud Lake Nevada and upped the low altitude record by 90 mph. The Red Baron actually exceeded 1000 mph but the timing equipment malfunctioned and 988mph remained the official speed. It hasn’t been beaten to this day.
That wasn’t enough to satisfy Mr Greenamyer. A few weeks later modifications began to take the world altitude record. It wasn’t to be. On a test flight the landing gear failed and he was forced to eject. The Red Baron’s story was over.
