Starting later this month and well into November, a man by the name of Andy Green will be making a stretch of a South African desert howl with the roar of a Eurofighter Typhoon jet engine. Green will not be controlling the stick of a fighter jet, but the wheel of a land speed record machine called Bloodhound.
The car arrived on site on the Hakskeenpan desert in South Africa las week, and as hundreds of people were busy clearing by hand 16,500 tons of rock, the Bloodhound team got busy assembling it following its long trip down from Luxembourg.
On Monday, October 21, the team presented the finished product: the desert-spec Bloodhound LSR, fitted with solid, precision-machined aluminum wheels, ready to take on the hotbed of the desert, and looking like a bloodthirsty airplane with no wings.
For the next month or so, the machine will be driven down the largest area of land ever cleared by hand for a motorsport event, attempting to reach ever-higher speeds each time. The immediate goal is to touch and break the 500 mph (800 kph) barrier.
All these runs are being made not only as a means to see how fast the car can go, but also how fast it can stop using the “wheel brakes, one or both of the drag parachutes, and with the giant airbrakes locked into position.”
Next year, Bloodhound will go after the record set by the Thrust SSC at 763.035 mph (1,227.9 kph) way back in 1997.
To do this, the car uses the same RollsRoyce EJ200 jet engine fitted on one of Europe’s most widespread fighter jets. The engine develops 90 kN of thrust, or 54,000 thrust horsepower and should have no problem in doing what it was chosen to do.
More on the Bloodhound LSR project can be found in the press release section below.
On Monday, October 21, the team presented the finished product: the desert-spec Bloodhound LSR, fitted with solid, precision-machined aluminum wheels, ready to take on the hotbed of the desert, and looking like a bloodthirsty airplane with no wings.
For the next month or so, the machine will be driven down the largest area of land ever cleared by hand for a motorsport event, attempting to reach ever-higher speeds each time. The immediate goal is to touch and break the 500 mph (800 kph) barrier.
All these runs are being made not only as a means to see how fast the car can go, but also how fast it can stop using the “wheel brakes, one or both of the drag parachutes, and with the giant airbrakes locked into position.”
Next year, Bloodhound will go after the record set by the Thrust SSC at 763.035 mph (1,227.9 kph) way back in 1997.
To do this, the car uses the same RollsRoyce EJ200 jet engine fitted on one of Europe’s most widespread fighter jets. The engine develops 90 kN of thrust, or 54,000 thrust horsepower and should have no problem in doing what it was chosen to do.
More on the Bloodhound LSR project can be found in the press release section below.