Supersonic car to make its 200mph debut … then take on speed record
THE UK-built car which it is hoped will shatter the world land speed record will make its global debut later this year.
Bloodhound SSC (supersonic car) will undergo a 200mph trial at Newquay Aerohub in Cornwall.
This will be only a fraction of the 1,000mph speed organisers hope the car will reach in a series of high-speed runs in a desert venue in South Africa – possibly next year.
Currently being assembled in Bristol, Bloodhound will be fitted with airbrakes and winglets after its Newquay trial so it can start high-speed testing at Hakskeen Pan, in South Africa’s Northern Cape in summer 2016.
Depending on how those tests go, the car could not only break the previous land speed record of 763mph, but push on to 1,000mph as well.
At full speed the car will cover a mile in just 3.6 seconds.
Andy Green is the current record holder, achieving the 763mph in Thrust SSC at Black Rock Desert in Nevada, USA, in 1997.
Now 52, Green will be driving the Bloodhound, whose project director is Richard Noble – who was also project director for Thrust SSC.
Bloodhound spokesman Richard Knight said: “Hopefully, we will be able to get the car up to 800mph once we get to South Africa.
“This is going to be a gradual process. We cannot rush to try to get up to 1,000mph. The saying is: ‘You don’t hurry to go fast’.”
Bloodhound has three power plants – a Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet from a Eurofighter Typhoon, a cluster of Nammo hybrid rockets and a Jaguar V8 engine that drives the rocket oxidiser pump.