Eight years of groundbreaking automotive and aerodynamic design have climaxed to produce a car that leaps from standing-still 0 mph to an almost jet-like 1,000 mph in only 55 seconds.
The 13.5-meter-long (44 feet) Bloodhound – recently concluding its display at London’s Canary Wharf – sports a two-meter-high tail fin essential to its stability at the phenomenal speeds propelled by a powerhouse project director Richard Noble describes as “a xmiture of jet engine and rocket motor.” Specifically, it’s a hybrid of the guts of two historically iconic elite automakers, a Rollys-Royce EJ200 jet engine and a Jaguar supercharged V8 joining the Royal Space Agency’s Nammo rocket motor. It all came together under the visionary watch of aerospace and Formula 1 racing designers who constructed the groundbreaking Bloodhound alongside Army engineers and the British Royal Air Force.
Presently, the Bloodhound covers a mile in roughly 3.6 seconds, Noble said – but that’s without taking stopping into consideration. The multi-disciplined team from various backgrounds with speed and brilliance in their DNA are hoping to shatter 1997’s currently standing land speed record of 763 mph. Noble himself has reached speeds of 633 mph previously when he broke another former land speed record in 1983 behind the wheel of the Thrust2.
Oh, he was also the project director of 1997’s record-breaking team of the Thrust SSC.
Next stop for the Bloodhound? A specially designed South African desert race track, where next year, RAF pilot Andy Green will chase an 800 mph top speed and then set his sights on 1,000 mph in 2017.
Go, Speed Racer, go.
Source – CNN
