Bluebird K7

Initially, he had been using his father's 1939-built Rolls-Royce 'R' type powered propeller-driven hydroplane Blue Bird K4 for his attempts, but he met with little success and suffered a number of frustrating setbacks.

In 1951, K4, which had been modified to a prop-rider configuration to increase its performance potential, was destroyed after suffering a structural failure, when its V-drive gearbox sheared its mountings which were punched through the floor of the hull.

Like Slo-Mo-Shun, but unlike Cobb's tricycle Crusader, the three planing points were arranged with two forward and one aft, in a "pickle-fork" layout, prompting Bluebird's early comparison to a blue lobster.

Bluebird K7 was the seventh boat registered with the RYA in the 'Unlimited' hydroplane series.Campbell set seven world water speed records in K7 between July 1955 and December 1964.

The first of these marks was set at Ullswater on 23 July 1955, where he achieved a speed of 202.15 mph (324 km/h) but only after many months of trials, changes to the inlet splash guards, and a major redesign of Bluebird's forward sponson attachments points by the raising of her front spar.

Campbell achieved a steady series of subsequent speed-record increases with the boat during the rest of the decade, beginning with a mark of 216 mph (348 km/h) in 1955 on Lake Mead in Nevada.

Subsequently, four new marks were registered on Coniston Water, where Campbell and Bluebird became an annual fixture in the later half of the fifties, enjoying significant sponsorship from the Mobil oil company and then BP.

Campbell made an unsuccessful attempt in 1957 at Canandaigua in New York state in the summer of 1957, which failed due to lack of suitable calm water conditions.

"[6] Bluebird K7 became a well known attraction, and as well as her annual Coniston appearances, K7 was displayed extensively in the UK, USA, Canada and Europe, and then subsequently in Australia during Campbell's prolonged attempt on the land speed record in 1963–64.

In 1958 a small wedge shaped tail fin housing an arrester parachute, modified sponson fairings that gave a significant reduction in forward aerodynamic lift, and a fixed hydrodynamic stabilising fin attached to the transom to aid directional stability and exert a marginal down-force on the nose were incorporated into the design to increase the safe operating envelope of the hydroplane.

He set out for the Bonneville Salt Flats in August 1960 and was lucky to survive a 360 mph (580 km/h) crash in his Norris Brothers designed Bluebird CN7 turbine powered car later that September.

Bluebird CN7 was rebuilt in 1961–62 and Campbell subsequently spent a frustrating two years in the Australian desert, battling adverse track conditions.

The bottles... were charged by means of a high-pressure, three-stage compressor, complete with air-drying and cleaning facility, housed in a specially adapted Land Rover vehicle.

By the middle of December, Campbell had made a number of timed attempts, but the highest speed achieved was 264 mph, and therefore still shy of the existing record.

It is impossible to be certain why; fuel starvation, damage to a structural element during the bouncing, disturbance of the airstream into the intakes during pitching, or a combination of causes are all possible.

The most likely ultimate cause is that Bluebird exceeded its aerodynamic static stability limit, with loss of engine thrust, damage to the port spar fairing, and the then little understood ground-effect lift enhancement[16] all adding to the instability.

[13] As a result of meticulous frame by frame study of high quality colour footage filmed on that day, and by examining all available photographs, Keith Mitchell & Neil Sheppard reported that they had identified aerodynamic instability partially due to earlier damage to the port-side forward spar, which gave rise to the starboard sponson lifting off the surface of the water for some 0.8 seconds: "The front spar that had been dented in collision with the duck the previous day was examined by Norris, but as it was only the fairing and not the load-bearing structure beneath, it was decided to leave it alone.

This was as K7 left the measured km, and the loss of engine thrust and asymmetrical damage were undoubtedly contributory factors to the brief airborne episode.

Her starboard sponson continued to bounce clear of the water ... for a fifth (and final) time ... Bluebird exceeded her safe pitching angle of 5.5 degrees (above horizontal), and slowly took to the air.

"[20] Mitchell and Sheppard refer to a report in the Express newspaper dated 18 January 1967, telling the reader that Ken Norris was intimately involved with every aspect of the RAF crash investigation: "Norris stated that at 300 mph the take-off angle was calculated at 6 degrees (to horizontal)... No mention was made of the flame-out of the engine on the first of the two runs, or that the engine could have possibly flamed-out on the return run as it was throttled back.

A subsequent and prolonged search located many pieces of wreckage, and various items were brought to the surface including Bluebird's broken steering wheel and column.

[citation needed] Using adapted sonar technology, a diving team led by William Hammerton Smith,[23] scuba diver and engineer [24][25] was responsible for locating anew the wreckage.

His claim was rejected by a consent order lodged at the High Court in London on 7 September 2001, which declared Tonia Bern-Campbell and the executors of Campbell's will as the rightful owners.

In background information provided to accompany an interview with Gina Campbell in 2018, Leatherhead & District Local History Society published the following: "In May 2009 permission was given for a one off set of proving trials on Coniston Water where it would be tested to a safe speed for demonstration purposes only.

[43] The restoration continued throughout a number of phases, using the Norris Brothers' original drawings together with access to Neil Sheppard's collection of photographs and illustrations.

By early 2024, K7 had been substantially restored in a workshop at Kiltech Industrial Units on Hudson Street, North Shields, Tyne and Wear, by The Bluebird Project, to a high standard of working condition using a significant proportion of her original fabric, but with a replacement Bristol Siddeley Orpheus engine, loaned to them by Geoff Beck, former CEO of De Havilland Aviation,[47] of a similar type albeit incorporating many original components.On 9 March 2024, Bluebird K7 arrived back in Coniston after a successful legal ownership campaign, and was collected by the Ruskin Museum from Smith's property in North Tyneside, where, excluding its visit to Bute in 2018, it had been since 8 March 2001.

[citation needed] The thrust from the BS Orpheus engine initially peaked at some 80% throttle as the craft climbed out of the displacement mode and started to plane.

Furthermore, "The immersion depth was a tiny 0.072" at the front and even less at the rear, 0.046"[56]" In a legal case study response to the publication of a 2019 BBC News website article,[57] Richard Skene of Aberdeen University School of Law commented: "... A reading of the report indicates that Smith, perhaps unwittingly, is resting an ownership case on accessio (that is to say, joining corporeal things together, with the old title of any less significant, accessory items being subsumed into the title of the main, principal item), or could it be specificatio (manufacturing an entirely new thing)?

In December 2022, The Ruskin Museum announced Lancashire-based WEC Group Ltd[66] as its chosen engineering partners to maintain Bluebird K7 once she is returned to Coniston.

[72] Under the Ruskin Museum's and CFHT's initiative, Bluebird K7 was also taken briefly to the Royal Motor Yacht Club in Poole[73] and displayed in Samlesbury where she was built in the mid 1950s.