Fast, emission free and very green
Another landmark moment for British engineering was reached last week as Richard Jenkins broke the world land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle by clocking 126.1mph.
The Greenbird is made almost entirely from carbon fibre, and is the fifth wind-powered vehicle Jenkins has built to chase the record. The new land speed record was set on a dry lake bed in the Nevada desert, where it smashed the previous record of 116mph set by American Bob Schumacher and his Iron Duck vehicle in 1999.
Weighing just 600kg, the Greenbird is the culmination of over 10 years work and is described by its creator as a 'very high performance sailboat'. The unusual shape of the craft creates a large amount of lift, so to compensate for this the designers built Formula One style wings to help keep the Greenbird on the floor. As a result of the specially designed wings over one tonne of downforce is produced while travelling at high speeds.
Now Jenkins has set his sights on conquering another surface, and is concentrating his efforts on beating the land speed record on ice.