Bloodhound blasts off

THE BLOODHOUND supersonic car, which aims to set a new world land speed record in South Africa within the next few years, has successfully completed a shakedown run in the UK.

With Royal Air Force pilot Andy Green in the cockpit the rocket and jet-powered car made two test runs down a 2.7km runway in in Newquay in the southwest of England last week.

It reached a relatively slow 322km/h in around nine seconds, but the team hopes to go 1000mph (1610km/h) at the Northern Cape’s Hakskeen Pan for the official attempt.

“We came here to say Bloodhound is Go! And that’s exactly what we managed to demonstrate today,” said Green. “The performance, the handling, the stability of it - I can’t fault the car at all, it just worked brilliantly.”

The Bloodhound project has missed several deadlines since its launch in 2008 due to funding and sponsorship issues but new backing from Chinese auto group Geely, Cas- trol and Rolls-Royce among others, has put plans back on track. So far around R555-million has been invested in the project, but costs are expected to at least double that in the future.

The team has not committed to a date for the official South African run, but says the next step is for a 1000km/h attempt sometime next year, at a venue yet to be announced.

Twenty years ago Andy Green set the current land speed record with a max velocity of 1228km/h in Blood- hound’s predecessor - Thrust SSC - at the Black Rock Desert in the US. Thrust SSC was also the first land vehicle to officially break the sound barrier.

If the 13 metre-long Bloodhound reaches its target speed it will not only beat Thrust’s Vmax by nearly 400km/h, it will surpass the low-altitude speed record for aircraft of 1590km/h. At top speed it would cover a distance equivalent to more than four football pitches every second!