Bloodhound LSR - 1000 mph car

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Anybody else following this? After 11 years the car is now up and running, testing in the South African desert prior to attempting 1,000 mph next year. 334 mph reached in a short run this morning. They have a YouTube channel and have been posting short daily updates since they arrived just over a week ago. Fascinating stuff.

Bloodhound LSR

Bloodhound Land Speed Record

Capture.JPG
 
One of the more intriguing things I've done was to be Andy Green's run engineer for his last record attempt, a rather more pedestrian 350 mph to take the Diesel Landspeed Record.
It was a real privilege to work with such a great test pilot.
He comes at things from about 180 degrees from all the racing drivers I've worked with before!
Race car speeds and car dynamics were all familiar at up to 350 mph, but the 1000mph bit I will leave to those with aviation experience.

Andy and I.jpeg
 
Sad to say, as it’s dragged on, I’ve lost interest in it to the point I now consider it an utter irrelevance. It isn’t going to result in any great revelations in technology, aerodynamics or vehicle dynamics, other than for those wanting to go very fast on salt flats.

A great crack for all those involved I’m sure, despite the persistent funding problems.
 
We're all different ... I find the engineering involved really interesting. I saw an interview somewhere where they were explaining how the car had evolved since the project started. For example they originally needed a supercharged Jaguar V8 to pump fuel into the rocket motor, but battery technology has evolved to the point now that they can use a far simpler (and lighter) electric system instead. I appreciate Chris Harris isn't everyone's cup of tea but there are some great insights in this video from a few years back:

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An excellent (and recent) interview with Andy Green here (including the bit about being able to remove the Jaguar V8 from the car):

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One of the more intriguing things I've done was to be Andy Green's run engineer for his last record attempt, a rather more pedestrian 350 mph to take the Diesel Landspeed Record.
It was a real privilege to work with such a great test pilot.
He comes at things from about 180 degrees from all the racing drivers I've worked with before!
Race car speeds and car dynamics were all familiar at up to 350 mph, but the 1000mph bit I will leave to those with aviation experience.

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Which one is Andy and which one is you...? :D
 
If nothing else... This is 100% British enigneering at its best and what we as a country are good at...

I think this is excellent and will be following now they have the funding sorted...

After all we need a boost right now.. (no pun intended)
 
through 550 mph today..........incredible achievement by the whole team!

I come from a time when we used to celebrate true heroes and this team deserve far more recognition than they receive. The work that they have carried out with schools, colleges, universities etc to push engineering skills, has been superb. Thank god, that we still have some people pushing the boundaries.

Sadly, it would appear that many in the UK, would rather idolise reality TV 'Z' listers. :wallbash:
 
Well said.. couldn't agree more. The engineering and skills involved are incredible. And all helps to keep the UK as the global center for engineering excellence. Keep up the good work.
 
I can't begin to tell you how good Andy Green is.
It is my personal opinion that there is nobody on earth (apart from James Bond!) who could have taken a car beyond the sound barrier on land.
It certainly was not just a case of planting your foot and hanging on!
The car required steering input due to the rake and aerodynamics as it passed through certain speed strata. There was no way to practice this. Andy was pioneering as he combied the high frequency control inputs in to the steering and overlaid them with the prescribed low frequency inputs for the very first time as the car tended to mach 1.....
When we were doing the diesel speed record, the speed instrumentation quit as the car exceeded 400kph, simply because we were using a racecar car system. No race car goes over these speed, so the units were simply not calibrated above this speed.
Andy explained this to a group of journalists saying he knew the gear ratios and so could simply calculate the speed from the RPM and overall ratio....
The journos' jaws just dropped as he explained this was really no problem for him having been used to calculating target distance during 'instrument failure' exercises in Phantom fighters by triangulating mentally the position whilst flighting at close to mach 2.....
A first in maths from Oxford only begins to explain how good he is.
 
Exciting to see if they can do it....
 
Exciting to see if they can do it....

So far they are just testing with the jet engine ... not sure what the theoretical top speed with that is, but next year they will be adding the hybrid rocket that will be fired to (hopefully) push them up to the 1000 mph target speed.

It's amazing that while simply doing test runs they are already within 6 mph of Richard Noble's old record in Thrust 2 (634 mph).
 
I read last week when they tested to 500mph they conducted a test to see how far it would it take to come to a halt from that speed without deploying 'chutes or braking. Three miles.
 
I read last week when they tested to 500mph they conducted a test to see how far it would it take to come to a halt from that speed without deploying 'chutes or braking. Three miles.

Yup they've done several 'coasting' tests to measure the actual rolling resistance of the car (so it can be compared with predicted figures), which is an important part of their performance modelling. They've also done runs with the airbrakes extended right from the start, for similar reasons. This whole programme is about data gathering, prior to the really serious stuff next year.
 
Yup they've done several 'coasting' tests to measure the actual rolling resistance of the car (so it can be compared with predicted figures), which is an important part of their performance modelling. They've also done runs with the airbrakes extended right from the start, for similar reasons. This whole programme is about data gathering, prior to the really serious stuff next year.
Yep. If they know the vehicle mass (which of course they do). The speed/time curve from a coastdown can be solved to get coefficents for Aerodynamic, Viscous and Rolling drag forces. Of these, aero is by far the biggest at the speeds they're running at.
 

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