We were all extremely sad to hear of the passing of Neil Armstrong recently, and our thoughts are of course with his wife Carol and their family. 

The BLOODHOUND team was extremely fortunate to have been visited by Neil at the end of 2010, when he and Carol came to the BLOODHOUND Technical Centre in Bristol.  During that visit, Neil demonstrated the huge breadth of engineering understanding that made him such a legend – a description he undoubtedly deserves but probably wouldn’t like, scrupulous as he was in acknowledging all those behind Apollo’s success. 

After a very detailed couple of hours of briefing from Chief Engineer Mark Chapman and others, Neil gave us an impromptu 30 minutes of his thoughts on test programmes and how to conduct them.  We were spellbound as he talked about test flying in jets and rocket aircraft, and of course with the space programme.  His support for our approach to the Land Speed Record, and his advice on how to get the best out of our design and test programme, gave us confidence and inspiration in equal measure. It was a special moment in time for all of us.

Thank you for taking the time to visit us Neil, we will always remember it as a privilege and an honour. 

Andy Green