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Thrust: The remarkable Paperback – 1 Oct. 1999
| Richard Noble (Author) See search results for this author |
| Amazon Price | New from | Used from |
- Print length416 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBantam Books (Transworld Publishers a division of the Random House Group)
- Publication date1 Oct. 1999
- ISBN-100553812084
- ISBN-13978-0553812084
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Product description
Amazon Review
This absorbing and richly illustrated book tells of Noble's obsessive quest for speed, beginning as a six-year-old watching John Cobb's 200mph jet boat Crusader and ending in triumph in the Nevada desert. There is as much financial as technical detail--Noble imaginatively and profitably stalked the Internet for donations as corporate sponsors fell by the wayside--and a jingoistic subplot as the Brits and Yanks vied with each other to achieve the sonic boom first.
But mostly this is a human story of struggle, achievement and the peculiar meanings of success. "We'd got through this", says Noble, "we'd succeeded. But success can be very sad once you've got over the initial elation. Suddenly it's all over and it can never be savoured again." --Nick Wroe
From the Back Cover
Richard Noble, the modern embodiment of the swashbuckling British speed-seeker of yesteryear, was used to that kind of blinkered thinking. He had held the title of the Fastest Man on Earth since 1983, when his Thrust2 car set a new world land-speed record at 633 m.p.h. Critics had argued that he would fail then, too. Noble likes nothing better than a fight and in the late 1990s, as a gripping Anglo-American race began to create the world's first supersonic car, he was determined to risk everything to achieve this world first for Britain.
On 15 October 1997 Noble's ThrustSSC, driven by ice-cool RAF Squadron Leader Andy Green, smashed through the sound barrier to create the first supersonic land-speed record at 763 m.p.h. The ThrustSSC team had beaten the Americans, thumbed its nose at the sceptics, and realized what seemed an impossible dream. It was a triumph for British engineering, technology and derring-do.
This is not the tale of unbroken success, but a story of disappointment and struggle, and of the entangled emotions behind one of the greatest engineering achievements of the twentieth century.
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Product details
- Publisher : Bantam Books (Transworld Publishers a division of the Random House Group) (1 Oct. 1999)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 416 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0553812084
- ISBN-13 : 978-0553812084
- Customer reviews:
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I have been aware of the land speed record saga, although never paid too much attention to it in spite of having seen the Thurst SSC live in the Conventry Transport Museum a few years ago.
In any case, the book by Richard Noble is one of the most thrilling accounts of how a micro-project can achieve what nobody else has achieved before (and has yet to be overcome). The story unfolds as told by Richard Noble speaking in the first person, mixing personal story and anecdotes with technical details and the development of the adventure, in a truly delightful reading.
I'll keep an attentive eye on the Bloodhound SSC.
All I can say is read this book if you're interested in engineering, if you're interested in management, if you're interested in how to get things done in the real world.
The story of Richard Noble is most interesting and really depicts the dedication of his very facinating life.
