Bloodhound back on scent
Project saviours announce 500mph testing will take place in South Africa in October. Sponsors, sign up now!
FOLLOWING ITS collapse and subsequent revival, the Bloodhound SSC Land Speed Record team has revealed that it is back on track, and has announced a high-speed test programme. The British project’s ultimate aim is to achieve more than 1000mph; it last ran at Cornwall Airport in Newquay in October 2017, when the LSR car was driven up to 200mph.
Within 12 months the project was on the rocks, but it came back to life this year under the ownership of Ian Warhurst’s Grafton LSR. Now it has been revealed that it is set to hit 500mph two years after that Cornish run – a key target in the programme and a dress rehearsal for the record bid. The attempt will involve ten runs by the Rolls-Royce jet-powered vehicle, taking place on a dry lake bed at Hakskeen Pan, Northern Cape, South Africa.
The team says a huge amount has been achieved in the past few months with freshly assembled personnel, including altering the car from its original spec for running on tarmac to one suitable for a remote corner of the Kalahari Desert. Changes include adding the parachute braking system, uprating springs and dampers, adding more air pressure and load sensors, and a fire detection and suppression system.
If the high-speed trials are successful, the next stage of the project is scheduled for late 2020,
but all the following actions are dependent on sponsorship and partnerships.
Current LSR holder and pilot Andy Green, who took Bloodhound from nought to 200mph in 8sec in Cornwall, said: ‘High-speed testing is a key part of setting a new world Land Speed Record. Building on everything we achieved in Newquay in 2017, we’ll learn a tremendous amount by going fast on the desert the car was designed to run on. This is where science meets reality and it all starts to get really exciting!’
As much preparation has gone into the 12mile (19km) desert track as the car. So far 16,500 tonnes of rock have been removed from 22 million square metres of lakebed. Warhurst explained: ‘The section of the track we’ll use is 16km [10 miles] by 500m, with large safety areas on both sides. This allows us to lay out up to 12 individual tracks side by side. This is important as we can’t run over the same piece of ground twice because the car will break up the baked mud surface. We need multiple tracks so we can build speed slowly and safely – going up in 50mph [80km/h] steps, comparing real world results with theoretical data – and Hakskeen Pan is the perfect place to do this.
‘The surface is hard, too, which means we’ve been able to design slightly narrower wheels to reduce aerodynamic drag. The desert surface also has a slight degree of “give”, which will work with the suspension to give a smoother ride, reducing vibration inside the car.’