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Chasing 1000mph: a technological endeavour

28 January, 2015

Jet and rocket propulsion have boosted land speed record attempts previously into the 700mph bracket with the fastest achieved so far being 763.035mph by Andy Green in the Thrust SSC back in 1997. However, the crew behind The Bloodhound Supersonic Car (SSC) want to not only beat this record, they want to blow it out of the water at an incredible 1000mph speed.

Photo: Stefan Marjoram

Thrust SSC’s team leader, Richard Noble, is now the project manager for Bloodhound SSC so the endeavour has some pretty serious experience behind it. The vehicle is currently being assembled at the BLOODHOUND Technical Centre in Bristol, UK. It has three power plants — a Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet from a Eurofighter Typhoon, a cluster of Nammo hybrid rockets, and a 550bhp supercharged V8 Jaguar engine, which drives the rocket oxidizer pump. Between these power plants, they generate 135,000 thrust horsepower, equivalent to 180 Formula 1 cars. For perspective, the Bloodhound SSC at full noise will cover a mile (1.6km) in 3.6 seconds — that’s four and a half football pitches laid end to end per second!

Some of the most scientifically and technologically challenging areas of the project came about with respect to the transmission of data — over 300 sensors and three 720p video streams will be transmitted live from Bloodhound SSC as it blasts down the desert racetrack. But to make sure all of this essential equipment behaves as it should, the team had to test it all out. Check out the video below to hear all about the desert testing day:

The supersonic endeavour is scheduled for September of 2015 — reckon they’ll do it? Tell us in the comments below.

1975 Suzuki RE5

1 November, 2024

Suzuki had high hopes for its RE5 Wankel-engined bike launched in 1975. It had started looking at the Wankel engine in the mid-60s and bought the licence to the concept in 1970.
Apparently all of the big four Japanese makers experimented with the design, Yamaha even showing a rotary-engined bike at a motor show in 1972. But Suzuki was the only one of the big four to go into production. Like many others at the time, Suzuki believed that the light, compact, free-revving Wankel design would consign piston engines — with their complex, multiple, whirring valves and pistons, which (can you believe it?) had to reverse direction all the time — to history.

Westside story

25 October, 2024

For the young Dave Blyth, the Sandman was always the coolest car and he finally got one when he was 50. “I have always had a rule. When you turn 50, you buy or can afford to buy the car you lusted after when you were 20. I was 20 in 1979 and the HZ Sandman came out in 1978. It was the coolest of the cool — I just wanted one,” he says. “Back then a Sandman cost $4500 new and a house was worth about $20,000. I made about $30 a week so it was an impossible dream then.”
Dave was heavily influenced by the panel van culture of the time. “I started with an Escort panel van and upgraded to a Holden HD panel van with a 186ci six cylinder. I started a van club, Avon City Vans.