The Bloodhound supersonic car, that has taken around eight years to design and build, is being put on show for a few days in London. It has been manufactured in Bristol with a view to breaking the land speed record in 2017 and hopes to achieve a speed of over 1,000mph over a dry lakebed track that is twelve miles in length and two miles wide in South Africa at Hakskeen Pan.
The current land speed record was set back on the 15th October 1997 by Thrust SSC when a speed of 763mph was achieved in Nevada at the Black Rock Desert. The driver of the vehicle at that time was Wing Commander Andy Green and he is expected to be in the seat of the Bloodhound when it attempts to break the record.
In 2016, it is to start testing runs at Newquay Cornwall Airport at speeds of around 200mph to make sure that the software and electrical systems are all functioning correctly. It will then be taken to South Africa for further testing where it is hoped that it will get up to 800mph.
To help this supersonic car reach a record breaking speed it will use a combination of a Rolls-Royce Eurofighter Typhoon EJ200 jet engine, a Jaguar V8 engine and a rocket motor from Nammo of Norway to achieve 135,000 thrust horsepower. It should be capable of covering one mile in a mere 3.6 seconds and hopes to reach 1,000mph in just 55 seconds.
Bloodhound is 44 feet long, 8.2 feet wide and 9.8 feet high. The cockpit has been manufactured incorporating layers of carbon fibre to provide as safe an environment for Andy Green as possible. It has a 6.5 feet high tail fin to give it added stability. It has three separate braking systems and hundreds of sensors that will enable the technicians to monitor its performance. The solid wheels are made of aluminum revolving at 4 x quicker than those on a Formula One racing car. The floor has been made with steel to cope with the dust from the ground that could be travelling at 1,000mph as the particles hit the underneath of the vehicle.
The car is being displayed at London’s Canary Wharf. However, tickets to view the Bloodhound have been sold out well in advance.
AIB Insurance wishes those involved in the project every success in their endeavour to break the land speed record in 2017.
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