The current world water speed record of 510.45 km/h was set by Australian Ken Warby in 1978. The four decades since then represent by far the longest period that the record has remained unsurpassed.
Harbouring the ultimate intention of bettering this impressive mark is ‘Longbow’ project leader, David Aldred, who says: “A jet hydroplane can be described as a pure thrust gas turbine or rocket powered boat, with a hull designed in such a way that when high speeds are achieved, the craft only has a few square inches of its surface in contact with the water surface, which in turn reduces hydrodynamic drag to a minimum.”
A major contributor to the Longbow project is Kevin Hardcastle, design engineer and founder of Aximo Ltd. To enable Hardcastle to produce the required drawings for analysis of the driver cockpit from the buck already fabricated, the assistance of Manchester Metrology’s laser scanning services was enlisted. Given the project’s demanding accuracy requirements, Neil Blakeman of Manchester Metrology used a Faro Edge ScanArm HD to scan the driver’s tub and capture the required data for conversion into a NURBS format.
“We decided to use the Faro Edge ScanArm HD as it has an accuracy specification of ±25 μm,” says Blakeman. “The arm combines the flexibility and functionalities of a Faro Edge measuring arm with a high-definition Laser Line Probe HD, giving us an ideal contact/non-contact portable measurement system.
“Also, as each of Longbow’s team of experts and technical contributors have ‘day jobs’ and give their time voluntarily, it was important to use a technology that could capture and process the required precise data in a timely fashion,” he adds.
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