Faculty of Technology
Fastest car on earth visits campus
Mon, Jul 4, 2011
Richard Noble is the mastermind behind both the 1997 world land-speed record-breaking Thrust Supersonic car, for which the team was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Portsmouth, and the new Bloodhound Supersonic car.
Noble held the world land-speed record himself when he drove Thrust 2 to 633 mph in 1983. He will deliver a public lecture at the university on Wednesday and those attending will be able to hear the stories behind the latest record-breaking attempt.
A full-size model of the jet and rocket-powered Bloodhound Supersonic car (SSC), which can reach speeds in excess of 1,000mph, will also be at the university as part of the 10th International Conference on Technology in Mathematics Teaching. The actual vehicle which will complete the challenge is still in-build.
The British-built feat of engineering will be competing for both land and low flying speed records in South Africa in 2013. It combines a Falcon hybrid rocket, a Euro-jet engine and a Formula 1 racing car engine which together are expected to propel it into the record books.
Its predecessor, Thrust SSC, was the first and currently only car to break the sound barrier when it set the current land-speed record of 763mph in 1997.
To coincide with the lecture, Bloodhound SSC will be on show to the public in the courtyard of Portland building for two days between its appearances at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and the Silverstone Grand Prix.
The man who drove Thrust SCC and who will also be behind the wheel of its successor Bloodhound SSC is Royal Air Force pilot Wing Commander Andy Green. For the new record-setting attempt Green will be sitting at the controls of a hybrid rocket, an EJ200 jet engine from a Typhoon fighter aircraft and a Cosworth Formula 1 racing engine. Green drove Thrust SSC into the record books in 1997 in the Nevada desert, but for this next attempt in Bloodhound SSC, he needs the ultimate desert race track, so after scouring the world, the Hakskeen Pan, Northern Cape, South Africa was selected.
When he reaches 1050mph Green will need to bring the car safely to a stop in 4.5 miles. After turning off the jet and rocket he will deploy an air brake at 800mph, parachutes at 600mph and finally put his foot on a car-type friction brake at 250mph — any faster and the brakes could explode. The car will then be serviced and refuelled with a new rocket and do it all over again because the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, which keeps the land-speed records, takes as its measure the average of two runs over one mile in opposite directions completed within one hour – a huge team challenge.
Bloodhound SSC is supported by industrial and financial sponsors and 4,500 British schools as part of an attempt to reignite the spark for careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Unusually for such projects, all the technical details of the car, including computer-aided design files, are available online.