I just posted a few more pictures to the Donzi site. I will be sending you original prints along with a few technical documents.

I spoke with Walt in 2010 about the boat. I was hoping to learn about the project. He was one of the designers of the boat itself but he told me he had very little to do with the building of the turbine boat. As an engineer myself I was looking forward to hearing about some of the development work with my dad. He said that mostly Jim worked with my father. Which is probably why my dad stayed in touch with Jim for a while and I never really new of Walt.

Walt may know a bit more about how it was operated. Which could be very helpful. I imagine visiting him with a picture of that control panel would be worth it.

It is my understanding that one set of throttles were to control the air flow throughout the free turbine and the other was for the turbines. I suspect the shifters down below were for the transmissions. I remember Allen Brown talking about a brake lever as well. That would make sense as you would have to brake the free turbines prior to shifting the transmissions.

I just posted a few more pictures to the Donzi site. I will be sending you original prints along with a few technical documents.

I spoke with Walt in 2010 about the boat. I was hoping to learn about the project. He was one of the designers of the boat itself but he told me he had very little to do with the building of the turbine boat. As an engineer myself I was looking forward to hearing about some of the development work with my dad. He said that mostly Jim worked with my father. Which is probably why my dad stayed in touch with Jim for a while and I never really new of Walt.

Walt may know a bit more about how it was operated. Which could be very helpful. I imagine visiting him with a picture of that control panel would be worth it.


It is my understanding that one set of throttles were to control the air flow throughout the free turbine and the other was for the turbines. I suspect the shifters down below were for the transmissions. I remember Allen Brown talking about a brake lever as well. That would make sense as you would have to brake the free turbines prior to shifting the transmissions.

I haven't quite figured out the control levers yet but I think one set is for the governors that would control RPM and the other set for the torque or throttles. I am going to ask Odell again if he could explain them or maybe someone else would have a good idea, maybe Walt or Sonny.

It did have shifters and a brake system for each turbine they were right under the instrument panel.

I am so looking forward to seeing the pictures and info that you are sending, thank you again!!!

At they time they were worried about being able to throttle the turbines as turbines typically operated at high speed consistent speed and consistent load. So the actual throttles to the boat ran the free turbine. I am not sure how they diverted the flow. I think some of the technical stuff I have covers the concept but not the actual installation. He did a lot of boats and this was not the first. The thunderbird was about proof of capability and concept so they could sell turbine power in other applications.

I was just reading United aircrafts "Bee Hive" magazine about the boat they mention "John Gill" as the designer of the v drive powertrain Not sure who he was or if there is any information on him

It appears John Gill designed a few different propulsion systems.

https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&...ict&gws_rd=ssl

To clarify he was the designer of the drive for Thunderbird

Thank you baditude for the info

I know, I was just saying by chasing down some of the other designs you may find out more info about the V-drive setup.

Dave
I was wondering were you found a copy of the bee hive magazine? Tried to find it online but had no luck.

I looked at the link for John Gill, it looks like John and Jim Wynne were working together on some interesting projects. I remember an article about a jet boat with turbine power, seems like that would be a pretty easy way to hook up a turbine.

my dad saved a few copies. One of them has a telegram about the race stapled to it.

There is an extensive article about the boat in the magazine. I will be sending you a copy I am just trying to get everything together.