The BLOODHOUND gang (not the rap group) has finally started physically building its 1000mph land speed record challenger, BLOODHOUND SSC.
With the team having squeezed the equivalent of 36 years-worth of work into just 36 months during the initial design phase, work has now started on BLOODHOUND SSC's primary structure (well, 90 per cent of it, anyway).
BLOODHOUND's chief engineer, Mark Chapman, handed over the first technical drawings to Hampson (the aerospace fuselage specialist tasked with buildng BLOODHOUND's body) last Friday (4th Feb), so work fabricating the rear chassis can begin this week.
The steel-lattice rear chassis not only has to contain 47,000lbs of combined thrust (equivalent to an epic 133,000hp) from the car's Eurojet EJ200 jet and Falcon Project hybrid rocket, it must also cope with 30-tonne suspension loadings, air pressures on the bodywork of up to 13 tonnes per square metre and substantial additional loads generated by the tail fin, air brakes and parachutes.
It's clearly a fair old challenge, but the BLOODHOUND team are up for it. "After three years of working on a virtual car, Hampson, Cosworth, ACG and our other technical partners are helping us make it a reality at last," says Chapman. "It's a great moment for a team which has invested the equivalent of thirty years getting the programme to this stage."
With construction now underway, the aim is to have BLOODHOUND SSC ready for UK runway trials in spring 2012, ahead of the start of high-speed runs in South Africa and the attempt on a new World Land Speed Record in late 2012 – 2013.