“Records are meant to be broken.” Andy Green must really believe in that statement as he straps down in the supersonic car called Bloodhound to break his own record. The vehicle is being developed by a team from Oxford in the UK. They have been working on it for years in the hopes to break the world land speed record.
The existing land speed record stands at 763 mph, also set by Andy Green back in 1997 with the Thrust Supersonic Vehicle. The team from Oxford aims to reach 1000 mph with the new vehicle and for this purpose tested the Rolls Royce EJ200 jet engine of the car at the end of September. The engine was taken from the powerful Eurofighter Typhoon plane.
With the engine test done, the team is ready for a test run of the vehicle in Newquay, UK at the end of October, when the car will travel up to 200 mph. “What a fantastic ending to the end of our first week of testing,” said Stuart Edmondson, Head of Engineering Operations. “Integrating a Eurofighter Typhoon jet engine into the car is a huge challenge; however, we have succeeded! Witnessing the EJ200 jet engine at maximum reheat is a fantastic experience. Not only can you see the shock diamonds and hear the deafening noise, you can physically feel the power of the engine as your body shakes. With the static tests complete the Team will move onto dynamic testing, ready for our high speed, 200mph, trials at the end of October.”
The final attempt will take place at the Hakskeen Pan in the Northern Cape region of South Africa. The team is eager to complete all the prior tests and attempt to break the record in 2018. Latest news is that it will be pushed up to the start of 2019. During the finale, Bloodhound will take around 55 seconds to reach the maximum speed of 1,000 mph. Afterwards, it will take another 65 seconds to slow down with the help of disk brakes and a parachute.