Donald Campbell

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For other people with the same name, see Donald Campbell (disambiguation).
Donald Campbell

Born Donald Malcolm Campbell
23 March 1921
Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, England
Died 4 January 1967 (aged 45)
Coniston Water, Cumbria, England
Cause of death High speed crash
Burial place Parish Cemetery, Hawkshead Old Road, Coniston
Nationality British
Occupation Speed record holder
Spouse Daphne Harvey (1945-)
Dorothy McKegg (1952-)
Tonia Bern (1958-1967)
Children Georgina (Gina) (1946-)
Parents Malcolm Campbell
Dorothy Evelyn Whittall

Donald Malcolm Campbell, CBE (23 March 1921 – 4 January 1967) was a British car and motorboat racer who broke eight world speed records in the 1950s and 60s. He remains the only person to set both land and water speed records in the same year (1964).

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[edit] Family and personal life

Donald Campbell was born in Horley, Surrey, the son of Sir Malcolm Campbell, holder of 13 world speed records in the 1920s and 30s in the famous Bluebird cars and boats, and his second wife, Dorothy Evelyn née Whittall.[1] He attended Uppingham School. At the outbreak of World War II he volunteered for the Royal Air Force, but was unable to serve because of a childhood illness. He joined Briggs Motor Bodies Ltd in West Thurrock, where he became a maintenance engineer. Following his father's death in 1948 and aided by Malcolm's chief engineer, Leo Villa, the younger Campbell strove to set speed records on land and water. He married three times: to Daphne Harvey in 1945, producing daughter Georgina (Gina) Campbell in 1946; to Dorothy McKegg in 1952; and to Tonia Bern in 1958, which lasted until his death in 1967.[2]

[edit] Water speed records

Campbell began his speed record attempts using his father's old boat Bluebird K4, but after a structural failure at 170 mph (270 km/h) on Coniston Water, Cumberland in 1951 he developed a new boat. Designed by Ken and Lew Norris, the Bluebird K7 was an all-metal jet-propelled 3-point hydroplane with a Metropolitan-Vickers Beryl jet engine producing 3500 lbf (16 kN) of thrust.

Campbell set seven world water speed records in K7 between 1955 and 1964. The first was at Ullswater on 23 July 1955, where he set a record of 202.15 mph (324 km/h). The series of speed increases - 216 mph (348 km/h) later in 1955, 225 mph (362 km/h) in 1956, 239 mph (385 km/h) in 1957, 248 mph (399 km/h) in 1958, 260 mph (420 km/h) in 1959 - peaked on 31 December 1964 at Dumbleyung Lake, Western Australia when he reached 276.33 mph (444.71 km/h); he remains the world's most prolific breaker of water speed records.

[edit] Land speed record attempt

Bluebird CN7 at Lake Eyre
Bluebird CN7 at Lake Eyre

In 1956, Campbell began planning a car to break the land speed record, which then stood at 394 mph (630 km/h). The Norris brothers designed Bluebird-Proteus CN7 with 500 mph (800 km/h) in mind. The CN7 was completed by the spring of 1960, and was powered by a Bristol-Siddeley Proteus free-turbine engine of 4,450 shp (3,320 kW). Following low-speed tests conducted at the Goodwood circuit in Sussex, England, the CN7 was taken to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA, scene of his father's last LSR triumph in 1935. The attempt was unsuccessful and CN7 was written off following a high-speed crash in September at Bonneville. Campbell was not seriously hurt, suffering a fracture to his lower skull, and was by 1961 on the road to recovery and planning the rebuild of CN7.

The rebuilt car was completed, with minor modifications, in 1962 and, by the end of the year, was shipped to Australia for a new attempt at Lake Eyre in 1963. The Lake Eyre location was chosen as it offered 450 square miles (1,170 km²) of dried salt lake, where rain had not fallen in the previous 20 years, and the surface of the 20-mile (32 km) track was as hard as concrete. As Campbell arrived in late March, with a view to a May attempt, the first light rain fell. Campbell and Bluebird were running by early May but once again more rain fell, and low-speed test runs could not progress into the higher speed ranges. By late May, the rain became torrential, and the lake was flooded. Campbell had to move the CN7 off the lake in the middle of the night to save the car from being submerged by the rising flood waters. The 1963 attempt was over.

Campbell and his team returned to Lake Eyre in 1964, but the surface never returned to the promise it had held in 1962 and Campbell had to battle with CN7 to reach record speeds (over 400 mph (640 km/h)). After more light rain in June, the lake finally began to dry enough for an attempt to be made. On 17 July 1964, Campbell set a record of 403.10 mph (648.73 km/h) for a four-wheeled vehicle (Class A). Campbell was disappointed with the record as the vehicle had been designed for much higher speeds. CN7 covered the final third of the measured mile at an average of 429 mph (690 km/h), peaking as it left the measured distance at over 440 mph (710 km/h).

[edit] Dual record holder

Campbell now reverted to Bluebird K7 for a further attempt on the water speed record. After more delays, he finally achieved his seventh WSR at Lake Dumbleyung near Perth, Western Australia, on the final day of 1964, at a speed of 276.33 mph (444.71 km/h).

He had become the first, and so far only, person to set both land and water speed records in the same year. Campbell's land record was short-lived, because rule changes meant that Craig Breedlove's Spirit of America , a pure jet car, would begin setting records later in 1964 and 1965. Campbell's 429 mph (690 km/h) speed on his final Lake Eyre run, however remained the highest speed achieved by a wheel-driven car until 2001; Bluebird CN7 is now on display at the National Motor Museum in Hampshire, England, her potential only part realised.

[edit] Final record attempt

In 1966, Campbell decided to once more try for a water speed record. This time the target was 300 mph (480 km/h). Bluebird K7 was fitted with a lighter and more powerful Bristol Orpheus engine, taken from a Folland Gnat jet aircraft, which developed 4,500 pounds-force (20,000 N) of thrust. The modified boat was taken back to Coniston in the first week of November 1966. The trials did not go well. The weather was appalling, and K7 suffered an engine failure when her air intakes collapsed and debris was drawn into the engine. Eventually, by the end of November, some high-speed runs were made, but well below Campbell's existing record. Problems with Bluebird's fuel system meant that the engine could not reach full rpm, and so would not develop maximum power. Eventually, by the end of December, the fuel starvation problem was fixed, and Campbell awaited better weather to mount an attempt.

[edit] Death

On 4 January 1967, Campbell was killed when Bluebird K7 flipped and disintegrated at a speed in excess of 300 mph (480 km/h).[3] Bluebird had completed a perfect north-south run at an average of 297.6 mph (478.9 km/h), and Campbell used a new water brake to slow K7 from her peak speed of 315 mph (507 km/h). Instead of refueling and waiting for the wash of this run to subside, as had been pre-arranged, Campbell decided to make the return run immediately. The second run was even faster; as K7 passed the start of the measured kilometre, she was travelling at over 320 mph (510 km/h). However her stability had begun to break down as she travelled over the rough water, and the boat started tramping from sponson to sponson. 150 yards from the end of the measured mile, Bluebird lifted from the surface and took off at a 45-degree angle. She somersaulted and plunged back into the lake, nose first. The boat then cartwheeled across the water before coming to rest. The impact broke Bluebird forward of the air intakes (where Donald was sitting) and the main hull sank shortly afterwards. Campbell had been killed instantly.

Campbell's last words on his final run were, via radio intercom:

“ Pitching a bit down here...Probably from my own wash...Straightening up now on track...Rather close to Peel Island...Tramping like mad...er... Full power...Tramping like hell here... I can't see much... and the water's very bad indeed...I can't get over the top... I'm getting a lot of bloody row in here... I can't see anything... I've got the bows up... I'm going...oh...."[4] ”

The cause of the crash has been variously attributed to Campbell not waiting to refuel after doing a first run of 297.6 mph (478.9 km/h), and hence the boat being lighter; the wash caused by his first run and made much worse by the use of the water brake; and, possibly, a cut-out of the jet engine caused by fuel starvation. Some evidence for this last possibility may be seen in film recordings of the crash - as the nose of the boat climbs and the jet exhaust points at the water surface no disturbance or spray can be seen at all. Mr. Whoppit, Campbell's teddy bear mascot, was found among the floating debris. Royal Navy divers made strenuous efforts to find and recover Campbell's body but, although the wreck of K7 was soon found, they called off the search without locating his body.

[edit] Recovery of Bluebird

The wreckage of Campbell's craft was recovered on 8 March 2001 when diver Bill Smith was inspired to look for the wreck after hearing the Marillion song "Out of This World" (from the album Afraid of Sunlight), which was written about Campbell and Bluebird. The recovered wreck revealed that Campbell had activated the water brake to try and slow Bluebird down on her final run. The boat still contained fuel in the engine fuel lines, discounting the fuel starvation theory, though the engine could have cut-out as a result of injector blockage. Campbell's body was recovered from the lake on 28 May 2001. Marillion members Steve Rothery and Steve Hogarth were present in the recovery. Campbell was interred in Coniston cemetery on 12 September 2001 after a funeral service in Coniston village attended by his wife Tonia, daughter Gina, other members of his family, members of his former team, and admirers.

[edit] Legacy

Between them, Donald Campbell and his father had set eleven speed records on water and ten on land.

The story of Campbell's last attempt at the water speed record on Coniston Water was told in the BBC television drama Across the Lake in 1988, with Anthony Hopkins as Donald Campbell and Robert Hardy as Malcolm Campbell. In 2003, the BBC showed a documentary reconstruction of Campbell's fateful water-speed record attempt in an episode of Days That Shook the World. It featured a mixture of modern reconstruction and original film footage. All of the original colour clips were taken from a film capturing the event, Campbell at Coniston by John Lomax, a local amateur filmmaker from Wallasey, England. Lomax's film won awards world-wide in the late 1960s for recording the final weeks of Campbell's life.

In the village of Coniston, the Ruskin Museum has a display of Donald Campbell memorabilia, and is home to the actual tail fin of K7, as well as the air intake of the Bristol Orpheus engine recovered in 2001. A project is under way to restore K7, aimed at returning Bluebird to Coniston before permanently housing her at the Ruskin museum. The project is due for completion in mid-2008.

The Bluebird Garage in which Campbell built some of his vehicles has been made a listed building. It now houses a shop, cafe and restaurant.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ GRO Register of Births: JUN 1921 2a 815 KINGSTON - Donald M. Campbell, mmn = Whittall
  2. ^ The Racing Campbells - Donald & Malcolm Campbell - Donald
  3. ^ GRO Register of Deaths: MAR 1967 10F 692 ULVERSTON - Donald M. Campbell, aged 45
  4. ^ BBC News: Last words from Bluebird.

[edit] External links


Persondata
NAME Campbell, Donald
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Campbell, Donald Malcolm
SHORT DESCRIPTION Speed record holder
DATE OF BIRTH 1921-03-21
PLACE OF BIRTH Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey
DATE OF DEATH 1961-01-04
PLACE OF DEATH Coniston Water, Cumberland