A 1,000mph British attempt on the Land Speed Record has been cooked up by current and former holders of the record, Andy Green and Richard Noble.
This time the target is to top 1,000mph with a car powered by the engine from the latest Eurofighter Typhoon, topped off by a rocket that apparently uses an 800bhp MCT V12 racing engine as its fuel pump.
Wing Commander Green OBE intends to sit in a tiny cockpit at the front of this surface missile, and hopefully hang on for the couple of back-to-back 1,000mph passes required by the adjudicators. 1,000mph equates roughly to four football pitches a second, by the way – or 500 metres for the sportingly challenged.
It’s twelve years since Andy Green bagged the current record of 763.053mph at the Black Rock Desert in the US, a heroic effort that generated amazing in-car footage and commentary of the fastest powerslides in history as Green battled to keep his car – Thrust SSC – on the straight and narrow. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vHnNxMJLfvA
The latest challenger is named Bloodhound, after the first surface to air missile that project aerodynamicist Ron Ayers worked on. The car will be continuously developed to meet the 1,000mph target, starting with an 800mph bid in 2009, 900mph in 2010 and 1,000mph in 2011. Although a venue has yet to be chosen, the Bloodhound team has already earmarked 14 possible desert sites. Black Rock may be ruled out as the annual Burning Man festival has apparently damaged the surface too much.
The project is described as an ‘engineering adventure’ as much as a speed challenge, and is partially aimed at re-igniting interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics among young people.