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Design fixed for 1,000mph car - the 'Bloodhound'

edesignuk

edesignuk

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
Mar 25, 2002
19,232
2
London, England
_46784866_bloodhound_front_466.jpg


The UK team aiming to smash its own land speed record by driving a car beyond 1,000mph (1,610km/h) has settled on a final design for the vehicle.

It calls for a major re-configuration of the vehicle's two power units, with a Eurofighter jet engine now being positioned above a hybrid rocket.

The car, known as Bloodhound, will be built in Bristol's docklands.

The team expects to start running the vehicle on the Hakskeen Pan, Northern Cape Province, South Africa, in 2011.
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BBC.

:cool: :D
 
that's like another 240mph faster than the current land speed record. Nothing like setting your sights high :rolleyes:

Good luck to them!
 
As a Bloodhound Ambassador - I'm more than a little excited. I've met Noble, Green and Ron Ayers ( the aerodynamic genius behind Thrust SSC ). I'd heard about the Jet-over-Rocket swop a few weeks ago. The new run venue sounds PERFECT. And building it next to SS Great Britain? PERFECT :D

I was helping out at this - http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/news.cfm?widCall1=customWidgets.contentItem_show_1&cit_id=4560 - it's just awesome to see how excited kids can get about cars with jets and rockets. They don't even realise they're learning STEM subjects !!

And Andy Green? He's friendly, chatty, bloody tall, and was perfectly happy to stand in the queue with the rest of us for lunch at a Bloodhound SSC 1K club meeting. I was talking about orbital recon. of potential run venues with him for AGES.

I had just got to Uni when Thrust SSC was running at Black Rock. I was busy, broke, and a long way from Nevada. It'll take a heard of wild horses to keep me from heading to SA to watch this thing actually run. It's possibly the only event that I would turn-down attending a rocket launch to go and see.
 
It's crazy-mad British engineering at it's best. I really hope they succeed with this, both in terms of the record and inspiring British kids.
 
I wonder what the turning circle is for that thing @ 1000mph? It'd probably be quicker to go the whole way around rather than try and turn it about.. :)
 
It's a jet without wings. I could drive to school in 1.5ish minutes. If the road was straight.
I wonder if they'll take it of any sweet jumps.
 
I have been reading as much as possible about this over the last month or so, as a kid I got a wall chart showing all cars/records for world land speed records. There is just something so brilliant about being mad.
 
ravenvii said:
Doesn't the human body have a maximum tolerance of g-forces at around 250 MPH?

This is assuming the car isn't airtight like airplanes.
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What has g-force got to do with speed? You can accelerate to 1000mph at 1g or 100g. It'll just take a hell of a lot longer at 1g.
 
ravenvii said:
Doesn't the human body have a maximum tolerance of g-forces at around 250 MPH?

This is assuming the car isn't airtight like airplanes.
Click to expand...

G forces are gravitational forces. They express 9.8 m/s/s or 9.8m/s^2. It doesn't matter how fast the thing is going, it matters how fast it accelerates.
 
I admire the engineering behind this effort, but to me it's not a proper land-speed record attempt. It's just a low-flying aeroplane.

If I recall right, the land-speed committee had great difficulty drafting the rules to allow cars like this, without just opening it up to people renting a jet fighter and zooming over the measured mile at mach 3 while trailing a wheel on a stick to meet the 'contact with the ground' requirements.

I'm still not clear why this wouldn't be an acceptable attempt. The Bloodhound uses a Eurofighter jet engine for propulsion after all.

To me, a true land-speed record is via pushing against the ground, i.e propulsion through the wheels.

The 'wheel-driven land-speed record' is a bit of a murky category too, but the current mark stands at about 460mph, set in 2001 by Don Vesco in a turbine-engined car.

http://www.ugofadini.com/lsrwdnew.html

cheers
 
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