From The Sunday Times
October 26, 2008
The 1,000mph jet car
A British team aims to smash the land-speed record with weird science
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Pat Malone
Did your car feel a little underpowered this morning? What you need perhaps is a Eurofighter Typhoon jet engine under the bonnet. Plus, for good measure, a Falcon solid-fuel rocket engine, and for an extra kick, a V12 racing engine. That would give you a top speed of, let’s see, roughly 1,050mph, and allow you to travel 10 miles – a typical journey to the newsagent’s and back – in 34 seconds.
Say hello to the Bloodhound SSC, a 42ft-long vehicle (you can hardly call it a car) in which Wing Commander Andy Green, a former RAF pilot, will attempt to break his own land-speed record. It is 11 years since Green became the first driver to travel faster than the speed of sound, hitting 763mph in the Thrust SSC (supersonic car). The Bloodhound is set to beat that by more than 200mph, reaching 1.4 times the speed of sound. Blink and you’ll miss it. Really. In the sixth of a second it takes you to blink, it will travel nearly the length of a football pitch. This monstrous contraption is blessed with the power of 1,200 family cars. The fuel pump alone has 800 horsepower. more
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