Bloodhound supersonic car shooting for 1,000 MPH and new Land Speed Record

John Neff — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:58:00 EST

Click above for gallery of the 1,000-mph Blackhound SSC

The current land speed record (LSR) for an earth-bound motor vehicle is 763 mph, which was set by Andy Green behind the wheel of the Thrust SSC back in 1997. That car was designed by Richard Noble, among others, and he and his driver are teaming up again to build a new supersonic car (SSC) to shatter the old record on its way to a new LSR of 1,000 mph. The new car is called the Bloodhound Project, a curious name since "speed" doesn't readily come to mind when thinking about that particular breed of canine, but whatever. The new Bloodhound SSC will be powered by three engines: a hybrid rocket, Eurojet EJ200 jet engine and 800bhp V12 engine, the latter of which will pull the vehicle around at low speeds and act as a starter motor - the world's most powerful starter motor - for the jet engine. The car's design is also completely different from that of the Thrust SSC, which Green and Noble used to set the current LSR. That car had two outboard jet engines, but in order to reach speeds of Mach 1.4 on the ground, the Bloodhound SSC will use a narrower fuselage that's been aerodynamically optimized to safely travel at speeds approaching 1,000 mph. Since this is an engineering exercise, the Brit-based Bloodhound team will gear up to their ultimate goal by scheduling successive runs to reach 800 mph in 2009, 900 mph in 2010 and finally 1,000 mph in 2011. You can read more about the car from Noble himself at the project's website, or check out the current design mockup in our gallery below. Thanks for the tip, Qkthr!

Gallery: 1,000-mph Bloodhound SSC

[Source: BloodhoundSSC.com]

Bloodhound supersonic car shooting for 1,000 MPH and new Land Speed Record originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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American team one step closer to challenging land speed record

Eric Bryant — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 14:06:00 EST

Filed under: Motorsports, Etc.

Two weeks ago, the North American Eagle took to the El Mirage desert for some shake-down runs as it prepares to challenge for the world land-speed record. Unfortunately, Mother Nature interfered and rain limited the team to only one run. With a vehicle based on the fuselage of a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter that has been fitted with custom suspension and solid aluminum wheels, the team looks to take back the record from UK-based Thrust SSC (which, in this author's opinion, was one of the most evil-looking competition vehicles of all time).

Burning up to 160 gallons/minute of a 50/50 mixture of biodiesel and kerosene, the GE LM-1500 turbojet engine (a derivative of the famed J-79) will provide an estimated maximum 22,000 lbs of thrust. That should be sufficient to push the dart-shaped vehicle to over 800 MPH in 3.5 miles - enough speed to beat Andy Green's 1997 run at 763 MPH.

[Source: Landspeed.com]

American team one step closer to challenging land speed record originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 23 Jun 2006 14:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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