Photo: Bloodhound
In October, a 6.4-ton car powered by a fighter jet engine will begin testing in one of South Africa’s deserts, aiming to enter the select group of fastest cars of all times. Called Bloodhound Land Speed Record (LSR), the machine is now getting ready to be shipped from the UK to the Hakskeenpan desert, in the Northern Cape.
The tests that will begin later this month aim to prove the Bloodhound can come close to the current World Land Speed Record, but the team will not try to break it just yet. The highest speed ever achieved by a car on land, the Thrust SSC, is 763.035 mph (1,227.9 kph), and was set in 1997.
The Thrust SSC car that set the world speed record at the time was driven by Andy Green, presently involved in the Bloodhound project.
Instead, Bloodhound LSR will go for 500 mph (804 kph) in 13 runs that will be made well into next month. Even so, that speed would easily place it in the top ten fastest cars in the world, about as fast as a commercial airliner, only on land.
These high speeds are possible thanks to the engine used on the Bloodhound. The unit is a RollsRoyce EJ200 jet engine, the same used on Europe’s favorite fighter jet, the Eurofighter Typhoon. The engine develops a stunning 90 kN of thrust, or 54,000 thrust horsepower. That’s roughly the same power generated by the engines in some 360 average family cars at once.
“So that’s it – we are off to South Africa to start putting the car through its paces. This is engineering at its best and I look forward to everyone joining us online as the action unfolds this autumn,” said in a statement Bloodhound CEO Ian Warhurst.
You can have a glimpse of what the efforts the entire record attempt entail, from shipping the car to the actual record runs, in the document attached below.
The Thrust SSC car that set the world speed record at the time was driven by Andy Green, presently involved in the Bloodhound project.
Instead, Bloodhound LSR will go for 500 mph (804 kph) in 13 runs that will be made well into next month. Even so, that speed would easily place it in the top ten fastest cars in the world, about as fast as a commercial airliner, only on land.
These high speeds are possible thanks to the engine used on the Bloodhound. The unit is a RollsRoyce EJ200 jet engine, the same used on Europe’s favorite fighter jet, the Eurofighter Typhoon. The engine develops a stunning 90 kN of thrust, or 54,000 thrust horsepower. That’s roughly the same power generated by the engines in some 360 average family cars at once.
“So that’s it – we are off to South Africa to start putting the car through its paces. This is engineering at its best and I look forward to everyone joining us online as the action unfolds this autumn,” said in a statement Bloodhound CEO Ian Warhurst.
You can have a glimpse of what the efforts the entire record attempt entail, from shipping the car to the actual record runs, in the document attached below.
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