As recently as last summer, the Bloodhound SSC team had set its sights on the Verneuk Pan in the Northern Cape as the venue for its ambitious Land Speed Record attempt. More than 80 years earlier, Sir Malcolm Campbell took his ‘Bluebird’ to 218.5mph at this location, achieving just 13mph short of Henry Segrave’s record breaking run in ‘Golden Arrow’ in the same year at Daytona Beach. But a survey of the ground conditions at Verneuk ruled it out as a suitable location for Bloodhound’s 1,000mph bid and an alternative site had to be sought.
The team was aided in this search by Dr Adrian Luckman of Swansea University’s School of the Environment and Society, who used a Geographical Information System approach and satellite remote sensing techniques to identify some 36 potential sites around the world. These included another site in the Northern Cape, close to the border with Namibia – the Hakskeen Pan. Having already gained the enthusiastic support of the Northern Cape government, the team was keen to pursue possibilities.
Earlier this month, Bloodhound SSC engineering director John Piper and driver Andy Green paid another visit to South Africa to visit this desert location. Some 19km long, 5km wide and - most importantly - hard and flat, it got the thumbs up. In 2011, once the 18km long, 1,500m wide track at Hakskeen has been prepared and everything readied, the scene will be set for the world’s first ever attempt to propel a land based vehicle to speeds of 1,000mph or more.
The three-year project is the brainchild of current Land Speed Record holders, Richard Noble and Wing Commander Andy Green, the latter having driven the jet-propelled Thrust SSC vehicle to a record-breaking 763mph back in 1997. Last week, a team from Swansea University’s School of Engineering, which was responsible for Thrust’s successful aerodynamic design, marked the completion of Bloodhound’s design phase with a celebration at the Bloodhound Technical Centre in Bristol.
The team, comprising Professor Oubay Hassan MBE and Professor Ken Morgan, developed a pioneering computational fluid dynamics application for the Thrust project’s aerodynamics simulations. The technology has since been refined and adapted to meet the aerodynamic challenges posed by Bloodhound – not least of which will be the critical task of keeping the new car in contact with the ground at the record-breaking speeds it is expected to achieve in 2011.
A consortium comprising Bristol City Council, the University of the West of England (UWE) at Bristol and the SS Great Britain Trust will now knuckle down to the challenge of building this magnificent beast at various sites in the city, including workshops at the UWE campus and the historic dockside.
The build phase was inaugurated in Bristol last week, with Science minister Lord Drayson and project director Richard Noble in attendance. The decision to locate this key stage of the project in Bristol is a tribute to the city’s great engineering heritage, which has included such iconic British engineering achievements as Brunel’s SS Great Britain and the supersonic Concorde airliner. The yearlong build is scheduled to start early next year, with the first test runs due in the spring of 2011.
To describe the Bloodhound SSC car in any detail over the next paragraph or two just wouldn’t do it justice, but I can’t resist a brief sentence on the power source. This comprises a Eurojet EJ200 jet engine, delivering 90kN of thrust in clever combination with a purpose-built Falcon hybrid rocket, which will add a further 120kN of thrust while consuming a tonne of fuel in just 20 seconds! There’s a lot more on the project website which I recommend to all interested 11 to 90+ year olds.
However, if you can manage to pull yourself away from your London Christmas shopping on Wednesday December 9, and pop down to Savoy Place, the IET Wheatstone and London Network Christmas Lecture 2009 will give you chapter and verse – and all for free. Systems engineer, Dr John Davis and Wing Commander Green will be on hand to describe the engineering and operational challenges posed by the fastest car in history. Speaking as one with experience of Andy Green’s presentations, I would say this is an event not to be missed. Download the registration flyer here
Les Hunt
Editor