The Bloodhound SCC is a 44-foot-long “car” that uses a jet engine to accelerate to 350 MPH. Then it turns on a rocket to barf up the equivalent of 135,000 horsepower. That means it can hit 1,000 MPH within one minute of being parked. In theory.
Bloodhound will try for a new land speed record of 800 MPH before the end of 2016. The short story is; Project Director Richard Noble and fighter pilot Andy Green got this car to 763 MPH in 1997. When someone stepped up to challenge their title of Fastest Thing On Wheels, the Bloodhound crew united to rebuild their rolling rocket ship to the absolutely limits of today’s technology.
The eventual goal is Mach 1.4. In layman’s terms; 1,000 MPH. Or 3.6 seconds per mile, if you really want to get excited.
A total of about 81 people are working to make this happen, which Noble and Green say is intended to inspire the next generation of engineers. The car’s being constantly run and perfected in the South African desert. Pilot Green will be clinging to a carbon fiber cockpit for dear life, but the rest of us can enjoy the record attempts from the comfort of our couches via live stream.
“The South Africans have spent five years perfecting the road surface,” Green explains. The car’s only run in ideal weather, when everybody’s feeling good, and the hand-cleared “track” is smooth as glass.
I’ll let the men in charge explain the rest. The vehicle’s impressive engineering sounds even more elite when it’s described in a British accent.
