BTM TALK –BLOODHOUND SSC
News
Ron Ayres (left) and Ian Glover (Gareth Tarr).
B
rooklands has a long association with the world land speed record (LSR); not only was the outright record established here on three occasions but also many of the British drivers who have broken the record have raced at the Surrey Track – Cobb, Campbell and Eyston for example. In the 119 years since the first record was estab- lished, it has been held by a Briton for 71 of those years, including of course the current holder Andy Green who took the record through the sound barrier to 763.035mph with Thrust SSC in October 1997. Now, as many will know, there is a new British project aiming to increase the record by 31 per cent to over 1,000mph – Bloodhound SSC. In December two members of the team gave a talk in the Vickers Suite about the project – Ian Glover of the Communications Team and Ron Ayres the Chief Aerodynamicist. In his introduction Ron explained that, as a
Brooklands volunteer in the early 1990s, he had come across Vickers’ wind tunnel archives from the 1920s and 30s which included testing for record breakers Blue Bird, the Railton Special and Golden Arrow. This sparked an interest in record- breaking and a chance meeting with Richard Noble in 1992 led to Ron being involved in the Thrust SSC project. Back in the 1950s Ron had been involved in the Bloodhound surface-to-air missile project and that is where the current LSR attempt gets its name from.
Ian Glover was keen to emphasise that the 16
Bloodhound project has three objectives: • Inspire the next generation about science, technology, engineering and mathematics
• Share an iconic research and development programme with a global audience
• Set a new World Land Speed Record of 1,000mph
In 2016 the project reached 130,000 school-
children in the UK alone. Furthermore, the project team will make all data from the runs available over the web so, for example, when Bloodhound is making its runs over 500 pieces of film and data will be immediately available. The project has also resulted in improvements for the area in South Africa where the car will make its record runs with the introduction of 4G communications and water sanitation being examples.
Any discussion about an extreme vehicle such
as Bloodhound must also include some of the fascinating facts. The car weighs 7.7 tonnes and has three engines; a Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet, a hybrid rocket and an auxiliary engine to pump fuel to the rocket. Of course the vehicle is constantly being changed as it is developed and in the question and answer session Ron Ayres said the final specification of the vehicle will be when it does the last ever record run. As an example, the original auxiliary engine was to be a Cosworth F1 unit, is currently a Jaguar item but might be electric in the final specification.
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