www.racetechmag.com
LAND SPEED RECORD BLOODHOUND SSC BELOW Bloodhound SSC will harness a jet and hybrid rocket in an audacious attempt to raise the existing land speed record by no less than 31 per cent
1,000 MPH! Chris Pickering examines the scientific and engineering challenge behind Bloodhound SSC, a craft designed to obliterate the existing Land Speed Record
I
T’S ANOTHER glorious day on Hakskeen Pan, in the north eastern tip of South Africa. The horizon stretches out as far as the eye can see, the sun-baked brown surface meeting the deep blue desert sky for a full 360 degrees. The midday heat is a toasty 35 degrees and the intense light causes the air to shimmer with heat haze. It’s late 2011, and the desert silence is about to be well and truly shattered. The distant rumble of a jet engine shakes the ground as a plume of dust appears on the horizon. At its head, Bloodhound SSC is fast approaching. Over 40 feet of metal, composites and jet fuel, weighing in at six and a half tons, is about to hit 300 mph, but things are only just getting started. Slung underneath the Eurojet EJ-200, which has so far powered the car, is a hybrid rocket
50
www.racetechmag.com
January 2010
engine. As it fires, the total thrust more than doubles, accelerating the craft across the desert at over 2.5g. Another mile or so down the road, it breaches the sound barrier, sending a rumble of thunder across the plain. The team pushes on: 800 mph comes and goes... 900 mph... 1,000 mph. The speed peaks at 1,050 mph (roughly Mach 1.4) before first the rocket, and then the jet engine, shut down. Sheer wind resistance, followed by air brakes and a series of two parachutes, slow the car down to around 200 mph, where conventional hydraulic disc brakes take over and bring it to a halt. That may sound like fiction, but if all goes to plan it’s exactly what a small British team hopes to achieve in around two years time. And the deeper you look, the more the project
takes on an air of the surreal. We’re used to hearing supersonic speeds quoted at high altitudes, but down in the comparatively dense air of the African plain it’s a whole different ballgame. Bloodhound SSC won’t just be the fastest car on the planet; it’ll more than likely be the fastest manned craft full stop. Its driver, Wing Commander Andy Green – himself seemingly escaped from a comic book, with a career flying jet fighters, several land speed records to his name and a first in Mathematics from Cambridge – assures us that nothing he’s encountered in his day job would keep up at that altitude. In fact, even the munitions might struggle: at 1,050 mph the car’s projected top speed is already faster than the bullet from a hand gun. It’s not just the velocities that are impressive.