Richard Noble

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Richard Noble, OBE (born March 6, 1946, in Edinburgh, Scotland) was a holder of the land speed record, and was the project director of the ThrustSSC, which currently holds the land speed record which was set at Black Rock Desert.

His record breaking car, Thrust2, travelled at 633.468 mph. He went on to be project director for the Thrust SSC project, current world record holder. The supersonic car driven by Andy Green broke the record at 763.035mph or mach 1.02.

In 1984 Noble, a qualified pilot, exploited a production hiatus at Cessna aircraft (caused by USA's onerous product liability laws) to create a new all-British aircraft, the ARV Super2. A rugged all-metal tricycle two-seater with a slender forward-swept shoulder-wing, the ARV aimed to capture the training market. Its Hewland engine was an inverted inline 3-cylinder 2-stroke of 75bhp. Only some 35 ARVs were made before the the Isle of Wight factory closed; but production is restarting at Opus Aircraft in North Carolina .

[edit] Quotation

	Land speed record breaking is like warfare and seduction. Lots of hanging around followed by moments of intense activity.
	— Quoted in Autocar magazine of September 6, 2006 in an article on the JCB Dieselmax project