Several months ago Top Gear magazine sent a reporter to write a feature on the Aussie Invader project and Rosco. After several months with nothing appearing, we had suspicions that perhaps they could not get their heads around the project, the car and Rosco's sanity to want to drive such a thing. 

This week the article actually appeared in their latest issue and I have to say they have done us proud. The article is nearly 5 pages long and in true Top Gear style, very tongue in cheek, but also very entertaining.

To download a PDF version of the article, click on link under picture.

The car is starting to look like the racer she is and after all the work we did for ABC's catalyst program, which involved creating a temporary nose, she measures around 16 metres (52ft) long. To get pictures that conveys the length of Aussie Invader is almost impossible in the confines of the workshop, but here goes!

We are now pushing to complete all the mouldings that attach to the top and “V” underbelly areas, complete the windshield framework, complete the plumbing that runs through the cars underside and finalise our front...

Over the past 6 months SOTO (formerly Frank Soto) have been working with us on our cars CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics). CFD allows us to test our cars design through computer modelling and hopefully predict it's performance and safety at sub-sonic, trans-sonic and super-sonic speeds.

This work is vital to the development of our car and we have just published a new CFD section with some early pictures of the results. The CFD programs have to run on super computers that crunch billions of mathematical calculations and can take several hours to complete.

After meeting with Perth's Prochem Management, they have agreed to supply our project with the 4" 316 stainless steel oxidiser feed line, stainless nitrogen tanks balance lines and the dump lines for our fuel and HTP tanks.

The sponsorship also included all the associated hardware needed to plumb in our cars rocket motor systems. Special thanks to State Manager Mark Ridout and Assistant Sales Manager Paul Adams, your support is a fantastic boost for the Aussie Invader project.

Hi Sponsors, supporters, crew, friends and LSR fanatics, welcome to our first newsletter of 2010. This is going to be a big and exciting year. As expected January blasted past in the blink of an eye and our Christmas and New Year break meant lots of companies were short staffed, which created a few stressful moments for us in trying to make some positive headway with our car.

We are currently working our construction schedule around lots of TV and photo sessions, which is proving quite a challenge for 2010...

With Aussie Invader 5R starting to take shape and various crew members being involved at different stages of the build and development, it was decided to get as many of the crew together as we could for a BBQ. This would give a chance for new faces to be introduced and longer serving crew members to meet again.

Rosco and his wife Cheryl hosted a great afternoon and many good stories came to light around past record attempts. Building a WLSR is not all work and no play.

Last week we had a phone call from Channel 9's A Current Affair, asking if they could come down and film us. After a few emails and phone calls it was arranged for a few days later. The feature was shown on the 14th Jan nationally and the response has been fantastic.
 
We have several other prominent media features in the planning stages or being shot shortly, including Top Gear Magazine, Scoop, ABC Catalyst to name but a few. These  and others can be tracked via our newsletters.

One Point was made in last nights program that the car would be finished by the end of the year.

An article on Aussie Invader looking to possibly attempt the Land Speed Record in Dubai, made front page news in their newspaper, The National. The article written by Charlie Hamilton, featured a picture of Aussie Invader with a title of "UAE may host land speed showdown".

On page 3 of the paper was a full article about the attempt and this being possibly staged in Dubai. The article then went on to explain about the project, the car and the issues involved in an attempt like this.

To read the full article online, please click here

G’day sponsors, friends, crew and LSR enthusiasts, welcome to 2010, it is guaranteed to be a real blast! On behalf of Mark Read, Cheryl, me and all the Aussie Invader team, we would like to thank you for your support throughout 09.
 
We have had an amazing year with everyone all pulling together to make our project become reality. Let me recap on some of our achievements and adventures this past year, and our plans for 2010...

Dougie MacKay, a long time member of the Aussie Invader team, sadly passed away recently and will be greatly missed. This tribute from Rosco and his wife Cheryl appeared in the West Australian and says it all.

Doug MACKAY (Dougie):
"A True Champion" - Our dear special Dougie. We admired the strength, inspiration you shared with us during your last days, "Your A Legend Mate".

A full feature article appeared in The Sun-Herald about the Aussie Invader 5R project and team, entitled "Fastest car in the world". The article seems to have been syndicated around several other newspapers as reprints of the story keep appearing all over the Internet.

Mark Read and Rosco were interviewed by Ben Cubby for the story. Ben just caught Rosco as he was leaving to go to New Zealand for Rocket Lab's Atea-1 launch. The launch by Rocket Lab who are our rocket engine builders was a great success, having launched the first private commercial rocket in the southern hemisphere into space. These two stories have helped raise the profile of our project considerably.

On 21st November, the highly respected New Scientist magazine ran a cover story on the race to build a 1000 mph land speed record car. The article heavily featured one of our rivals, the UK team with their 3 engined Bloodhound SSC, including the cover picture, however the article also heavily feature Aussie Invader 5R, along with the North American Eagle.

The online version also carried a 40 second movie of Aussie Invader 5R, put together by our CAD / CAM guru, Mike Annear. This article has given our project a boost, with a lot of media enquiries and an intended article in Sydney's Sunday paper The Sun Herald, planned for the 29th Nov.

A great start to the week, with the crew at LF Performance Products inviting Rosco over for a rollcage fitting. The rollcage is a work of art and its great to see all of the associated parts which make it a complete capsule come together e.g. steering wheel, seat and seat mounts and the 6 point harness. The plan is to leave the rollcage removable until all systems are working perfectly, then we will weld it in place, supported by the front and rear drivers bulkheads and horizontal side mountings. In the picture are Terry Fielding(designer), Brad Stacy (welder fabricator extraordinaire) and Rosco. Thanks also to Kim Ledger, Mike Ng and the team.

Rosco and team have been really busy on so many different areas of this project it is hard to comprehend for anyone looking in from the outside what is going on and we had to make a decision on which is the most productive way to move forward. Fortunately we have met with two very innovative companies over the past few weeks that hopefully can assist us in the working schedule for our racer and can also help out with the best suspension concept we have seen.

Jeff Brill from Engenium is preparing our working schedule and Aldo Contarino and Troy Keenan from RIAS Technologies are doing feasibility studies into the possible use of their product as a suspension unit for Aussie Invader 5R.

With the completed CAD drawings from Mike Annear, we were able to set about getting the top hat section (raised area behind the driver's cockpit) laser cut and offered up to the car. The 11 sections arrived from Di Candilo Steel. Now the hard work began, with Rosco and Pete Taylor spending some time putting them in place, checking and double checking everything fitted.

These have to be perfectly aligned in all directions, as this structure will support the tail fin and vertical stabiliser, any inaccuracy here would be magnified many times at the top of the tail fin and could cause the car to be unstable.Full story in next newsletter.   

The Aussie Invader Team had a real win this week after a meeting with the engineering staff at KJ Beer Pty Ltd of West Perth. KJ Beer is a leading engineering consulting firm with many years experience in the mining, gas and oil industries. They have a vast experience in the design and manufacture of pressure vessels and various other specialized engineering challenges.

Our team has searched the globe looking for a company of this calibre to design and supervise the construction of our oxidiser and fuel tanks for our 1000 mph mission and the expertise was in our own backyard all the time. It goes to show how easy it is to miss the obvious. How many other WA companies have expertise that would help us bring the World Land Speed record to Australia? If you are one of those companies, please contact us.

G'day to all of our Aussie Invader LSR Project supporters, sponsors and followers. This past month has been full steam ahead for all of our team, the development of the car is surging ahead and several key areas of this unique vehicle are all happening at the same time.

We have had a huge month with several TV Documentary companies contacting us from Sydney Australia, Canada, The USA and two from the UK...   

On Monday 28th September, Channel 7 News are running a report on their 6pm news about Rosco and Aussie Invader 5R. We hope to be able to bring you a full news story report of the broadcast once it has been shown.

Things have started to really take off with several recent approaches by international media companies to feature Rosco, Aussie Invader 5R and the team in newly planned documentaries, as the race for the Land Speed Record and 1000 mph hots up between Australia, UK and the USA.

The front steering and suspension on Aussie Invader 5R has caused our team many sleepless nights. Our design for this has changed several times over the past months, because finding rose joints capable of taking the 50 tonne loads our car could see in a crisis situation. We searched the world looking for suitable joints that could not only handle these BIG loads but also allow us a 10 degree turning ratio.

Rosco contacted Liebherr Australia's Crane Division in Sydney and spoke with their Spare Parts Division and was fortunate to find a guy that really new his stuff. After explaining what we were looking for, Tony Cockings took it upon himself to search his parts database. He rang us back within an hour describing the exact part we had been looking for, brilliant! Tony then spoke with his Manager Michael Kobilke and asked him the question, would Liebherr Australia like to donate the steering joints for Australia's 1000 mph Land Speed Record contender and the answer was “yes”... Thank you Tony, Michael and Liebherr Australia, we'll make you proud. Pictures of our intended front suspension set up, will be in our next monthly update.

G'Day, friends, sponsors, supporters and LSR enthusiasts.  Boy has this month blasted past, basically in the blink of an eye.  The Aussie Invader Crew and I have worked our tails off with the construction phases of our car and negotiations with perspective sponsors.

We were very fortunate to have a new crew member join our team last week; Dan McKeon is a CFD whizz who has spent several years with the Jordan Formula One racing team in the UK... 

LF Performance is a leading Perth based motor sport, engineering and performance workshop. Their work and cars are highly respected within the industry and have earned some prestigious titles at National and International level. LF Performance have kindly agreed to sponsor the design and build of the rollcage for Aussie Invader 5R. This is a critical part of the car and we wanted a high calibre company for this task, which we have found with LF Performance and their skilled technicians. We look forward to working with them and hope to bring you pictures of the rollcages design and construction soon. 

Boy what a month this has been for the Aussie Invader camp. My crew and I, headed by our Team Manager Pete Taylor, have completed another critical stage of our Aussie Invader 5R LSR racers construction.

We now have the front suspension support ring fully completed and operational, the rear suspension support ring and aft motor flange are fitted and welded, our rear axle housing has been line bored and our rear axle fitted...

 Bosnar Engineering deliver rear axle support housing and axle

Today the Aussie Invader Team picked up their rear axle support housing and axle. The material for this extremely important area of the car was supplied by Di Candilo Steel City and delivered to Bosnar Engineering in Perth, Western Australia's northern suburbs. The team has been looking for a first class machine shop for some time and after a meeting with the Bosnar Engineering management and a tour of their Wangara premises the writing was on the wall.

These people are a first class business and the job was consigned to them. Precision engineering on this vehicle is a must and the alignment of the rear axle must fall into a very close tolerance of alignment, we want to achieve an alignment ratio of  + or - 1 mm over the length of our 12m (40') central mainframe. This axle must also be able to withstand a weight of 50 tonnes on each rear corner in the event of severe yaw or angled pitch.

FRANK SOTO ASSOCIATES is a leading Australian consulting mechanical and engineering company based in Wollongong, NSW. It has today joined forces with the Aussie Invader LSR team to carry out much needed Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) predictions on this unique vehicles journey from transonic to supersonic speed, Mach 1.4. Rosco stated "He was very excited to have an engineering company with a huge reputation, such as Frank Soto & Associates working with us."
 

 New website aussieinvader.com launched

Several changes have taken place recently as the project as started to gain momentum. Mark Read joined the team in mid June and has developed a new Aussie Invader website. This development is ongoing with new material being posted almost daily. We hope to be able to upload new computerised images of the car shortly from Mike Annear. 

 The central mainframe (chassis) delivered

 Rosco Interviewed on ABC television's Moment in Time

 Rollover stand for mainframe (chassis) delivered

 Article on Rosco and AI5R in Sydney Morning Herald's Drive magazine

8th May 09 

A 3 page colour article on Rosco McGlashan and his 45 year quest for the World Land Speed Record, appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald's Drive magazine. It was great coverage for Rosco and the team, raising awareness of the project and proves the interest in an Australian challenge for land speed glory.