K7 Bluebird Hydroplane

Wallpaper Description:

Bluebird K7 is a turbo jet engined hydroplane with which Donald Campbell set seven water speed records.

Campbell lost his life in K7 on January 4, 1967 whilst making an attempt to raise the speed record to over 300 miles per hour (480 km/h) on Coniston Water.

Design

Donald Campbell began his record breaking career in 1949 and had hitherto been using his father Sir Malcolm Campbell's propeller-driven hydroplane Bluebird K4 for his attempts, until it was destroyed by a structural failure.

Following John Cobb's death in Crusader, and inspired by both events, Donald began development of his own jet-powered Bluebird K7 to take the record from the American prop-rider hydroplane Slo-Mo-Shun.

Designed by Ken and Lew Norris, the K7 was an aluminium, 3-point hydroplane with a Metropolitan-Vickers Beryl axial-flow turbojet engine producing 3500 pound-force (16 kN) of thrust.

Like Slo-mo-shun, but unlike Cobb's tricycle Crusader, the three points were arranged in "pickle-fork" layout, prompting Bluebird's early comparison to a blue lobster.

The name "K7" was derived from its Lloyd's unlimited rating registration, and was carried in a prominent circular symbol on its sponsons comprising the infinity symbol and the script 'K7'.

Overall length 26 ft 4 in
Overall beam 10 ft 6 in
Overall height 4 ft 8 1/2 in
Length of floats 12 ft 3 3/4 in
All-up weight 2 1/2 tons (approx.)
Construction high duty 'Birmabright' light alloy hull, built around a high tensile tubular steel main frame.

POWER UNIT

Make & type Metropolitan Vickers "Beryl" turbo-jet engine of Straight-through design with: 10-stage axial compressor, single stage turbine. (Later replaced with a Bristol Siddley Orpheus from a Gnat fighter plane)

Dimensions 11 ft 9 ins. Long, 3 ft 2 ins.
Diameter.

Weight 1780 lbs.

Thrust 4,000 Thrust-lbs (Beryl). Sea level static at 8,000 revolutions per minute.

Fuel Kerosene, stored in a "saddle" tank.

Consumption 650 gallons Kerosene per hour; 3 tons of air per minute.