Bloodhound SSC’s Bodywork Can Take a Bullet Like Nothing Happened

Alright, prepare to have your mind blown by some pretty geeky but also cool facts about the Bloodhound Supersonic Car. First of all, the wheeled rocket can reach 1,000 mph (1,609 km/h), a speed that makes the vehicle’s aluminum wheels to spin at 10,200 rpm.

It’s hard to imagine such forces but here’s an example that will hopefully allow you to understand what happens when the laws of physics are unleashed. As wheels rotate at a rate of 170 times per second, a 1-kilo bag of sugar, for example, would weight 50 tons. Do you get the picture now?

Thing is, at such blistering speed, even the smallest detail can backfire and cause a catastrophe if not taken into account. So, no room for errors. At such pressures and speeds, anything around the Bloodhound SSC can turn into a lethal projectile, whether it’s a stone hidden beneath the desert surface or a piece of metal coming from one of the machine’s components.

This is the point where Morgan Advanced Materials kick into action. Their engineers came up with a lightweight composite ballistic panel that is made of millions of woven glass fibers that absorb energy of projectiles that hit them. In other words, there’s your bulletproof body kit for a supersonic land vehicle. Such panels will also protect Andy Green, the former RAF fighter pilot that will attempt to break the World Land Speed Record set by him in 1997.

But guess what? There’s also a video showing how engineers tested the bulletproof armor and we really want you to see it.