Bloodhound

It big, it long, it fast, it be British - well done Mr Green

They seem confident and well on track

http://http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8374491.stm

And while I'm at it this is interesting too

http://http://www.quicksilver-wsr.com/quicksilver

One of my interests is the Land Speed Record so i have been following this new attempt since it was first announced that they would go for the 1000mph mark.

What i'm interested in is the design of the car because back in 97 when Thrust SSC broke the record American Craig Breedlove was also on the desert at the same time running his car Spirit of America,now his car was more of a tricycle design which the thrust team had looked at and considered would have stability issues.As it happened Breedlove had alsort of problems which meant his car didn't get anywhere near it's full potential,also it rolled on it's side and did 180 degree turn at over 600mph before righting itself.

Now move on 10 years and the Bloodhound car has outrigged rear wheels along the lines of the Spirit of America car and looks far more like a tricycle design,so i wonder if maybe now as the speeds increase this is the only sort of design to go for.

When Thrust SSC broke the record they could not work out why their performance was dropping off so much as they got close to the sound barrier as the Spey enginges that were used had more than enough power.Then later in photo's you could see the sonic shock wave fanning out for about 150ft across the front of the car,also they noticed the front wheels were not turning as fast as they should of been.The cause of this turned out to be the desert in front of the wheels getting destroyed by the shock wave as the car passed over it.

So maybe this car with the smaller frontal area and narrower underside will have no such problems.

If anyone is interested the BBC did a documentery called the mission which has some really good footage on it of the whole SSC attempt.

As well as Bloodhoud(which is a terrible name) there is another project called North American Eagle which has been having tests at the moment,they are going for 800mph but the car has been being built for about the last 10 years and has to be one of the worst looking LSR cars i have seen.