Land and water speed-record contestant, born in Horley, Surrey, SE England, UK, the son of Sir Malcolm Campbell. An engineer by training, he sought to emulate his father's achievements. He set new world speed records several times on both land and water, culminating in 1964 with a water-speed record of 276·33 mph on L Dumbleyung in Australia, and a land-speed record of 403·1 mph at L Eyre salt flats in Australia. In an attempt to become the first man to break 300 mph on water, he was killed when his Bluebird turbo-jet hydroplane crashed on Coniston Water in England (salvaged in 2001). His daughter, Gina Campbell (1948 ) broke the women's water speed record in 1984.
Donald Malcolm Campbell C.B.E.(March 23, 1921 – January 4, 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).
Family
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. Following his father's death in 1949 and aided by Malcolm's chief engineer, Leo Villa, the younger Campbell strove to set speed records on land and water.
Water speed records
Campbell began speed record attempts using his father's old boat Bluebird K4, but after a 170 mph (270 km/h) crash destroyed the K4 at Lake Coniston in 1951 he developed a new boat.
Campbell set seven world water speed records in K7 between 1955 and 1964. he remains the world's most prolific breaker of water speed records.
Land speed record attempt
In 1956, Campbell began planning a car to break the land speed record, which then stood at 394mph (630kmh). 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. 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 spreed ranges. Campbell had to drive CN7 off the lake in the middle of the night to save the car from being submerged by the rising flood waters.
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 (400+mph). On July 17, 1964, Campbell set a record of 403.10 mph for a four-wheeled vehicle (Class A). Campbell was disappointed with the record as the vehicle had been designed for much higher speeds.
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 276.33mph.
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 429mph speed on his final Lake Eyre run, however remained the highest speed achived by a wheel-driven car until 2001;
Final record attempt
In 1966, Campbell decided to once more try for a water speed record. Eventually, by the end of November, some high-speed runs were made, but well below Campbell's existing record. Eventually, by the end of December, the fuel starvation problem was fixed, and Campbell awaited better weather to mount an attempt.
On January 4, 1967, Campbell was killed when Bluebird K7 flipped and disintegrated at a speed in excess of 300 mph. Bluebird had completed a perfect north-south run at an average of 297.6 mph, and Campbell used a new water brake to slow K7 from her peak speed of 315mph. Instead of waiting for the wash of this run to subside and refueling, as had been pre-arranged, Campbell decided to make the return run immediateley. 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...The cause of the crash has been variously attributed to Campbell not waiting to refuel after doing a first run of 297.6 mph, and hence the boat being lighter; Mr. Woppit, 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.
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. Campbell's body was recovered from the lake on May 28, 2001.
Legacy
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 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. Lomax's film won amateur film 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 temporary home to the actual tail fin of K7, recovered from Coniston in 2001.
Between them, Donald Campbell and his father had set eleven speed records on water and ten on land.
User Comments Add a comment…