At 200 miles per time of day ( 320 klick / h ) , the intercrossed garden rocket engine kicks in . The fomite , which look more like a jet than a car , accelerates at three Gs . The flat coat beneath turns to runny and vast shockwaves form behind as it extend to more than 1,000 mph ( 1,610 kilometer / h ) in just 55 seconds , completing a mile in a blistering 3.6 seconds , before high - technical school brakes bring it back to a standstill 65 second later .
This is what will wait the equipment driver of theBloodhound Supersonic Car ( SSC ) , an endeavour by a British team not just to break the world book , but to smash it . Bloodhound has been eight class in the fashioning , with considerable hype and expectancy around the project . This week at Canary Wharf in London , the more than 95 % arrant carwas revealed to the populace for the first prison term . This vehicle is now almost quick to take its lonesome number one wood , Andy Green , faster than any human has gone on ground before .
The current land pep pill disk stands at 760 mph ( 1,224 km / h ) , also set by Green , in theThrustSSCvehicle on Black Rock Desert in Nevada in 1997 . But in 2007 , the fledgling Bloodhound SSC squad decided to do what no one had tried before : break the 1,000 miles per hour roadblock . Thus began close to a decennium of piece of work and toil , with the team deciding on the optimum design to make the dream a reality .
“ We start eight years ago with a childlike inquiry : can it be done ? ” Dr. Ben Evans , a lector in aerospace engineering at Swansea University and the aerodynamicist on the aim squad for Bloodhound SSC , tell IFLScience . “ We spent a year doing research and development , and running simulations . When we found it was possible to take a vehicle this size to 1,000 miles per hour on the Earth and keep it on the earth , we started the innovation cognitive operation . Over the last seven year , we have evolved the car . ”
The machine is being unveiled to the public for the first time over the next two days in Canary Wharf , London . Bloodhound .
The last resolution is a car measuring 13.5 meters ( 44.3 feet ) in distance and 2.5 meters ( 8.2 foot ) in width . It uses a combining of jet and rocket motor to grow 135,000 jab horsepower , tantamount to 180 modern Formula 1 elevator car combined . At top upper , the wheels will spin at 10,200 revolutions per minute – 170 clock time per 2d – while the auto will go from 0 to 1,000 miles per hour in 55 seconds and back to zero in another 65 seconds .
When Green eventually attempts the record - breaking foot race , expected in 2017 , a Rolls - Royce Eurofighter - Typhoon jet locomotive engine will take the car up to 200 mph ( 320 km / h ) . At this point , Green will activate a Nammo intercrossed garden rocket locomotive , which will boost the car up towards its top hurrying of 1,050 miles per hour ( 1,690 klick / h ) . At this hurrying , it will complete a stat mi in just 3.6 seconds .
At the event in Canary Wharf , we had a go on a simulator that shows you just how difficult it is to drive at such high speeds . The car must be kept in almost a straight line , requiring minute allowance to the steering rack , all the while keeping an eye on several displays to activate its various components at different times . It accentuates just how much of a challenge , from an engineering science and machine driver ’s position , this projection really is .
A simulator let you get behind the wheel of the car . Jonathan O’Callaghan / IFLScience .
The part of country that has been nibble , theHakskeen Panin the Northern Cape area of South Africa , is about 12 miles ( 19 kilometers ) long and two miles ( 3 kilometers ) wide . This gives Green just enough time to get to top speed before air brake system and conventional car disc Pteridium aquilinum bring him bit by bit back to a stalemate .
Green will be ascertain the car with a steering bicycle , pedals and an raiment of buttons inside the cockpit . He will have just two attempts within an hour , as per regulation , to break the record . There ’s no guarantee it will bust the 1,000 mph roadblock , but the team is optimistic , and at the very least it will almost certainly break the standing land speed record .
“ Absolutely , we are surefooted , ” Mark Elvin , lead technologist on Bloodhound SSC , severalise IFLScience . “ It will smash the disc . ”
Around Easter next class , the team will complete humbled - speed testing up to 200 mph ( 320 km / h ) at the Newquay Aerohub in the U.K. Then , in the summer of 2016 , they will manoeuvre to the Hakskeen Pan to take the railroad car up to 800 miles per hour ( 1,290 kilometre / h ) . The auto has never been ladder at these fastness , so everything is a erudition experience , but if all goes to programme , the attempt at 1,000 mph will be made in 2017 .
The video above shows what will happen during the attempt to touch 1,000 mph .
The squad admits there are a number of unknown . For example , the body of the car will bring forth shockwaves , which could turn the knockout surface crust underneath into a fluid . “ There are loads of unknowns , but we ’ll learn , ” said Elvin . And he emphasized that safety was overriding to the undertaking ; Bloodhound has been designed to see to it as little can go wrong as possible that could threaten the aliveness of its driver . “ We ’ll either make it dependable or go home , ” Elvin added .
And the endeavour is n’t just for play , a show of magnate like no other . It is providing untold scientific twirl - offs into what happens at these speed , while the engineering challenge itself has led to a number oftechnology breakthroughs . Dr. Evans adds , though , that the record - break effort itself is undoubtedly the car ’s principal appeal .
“ People often demand me , what ’s the point in this ? ” he enjoin . “ My parameter is always , in life , sometimes you do thing just because they ’re difficult . Why did we put valet de chambre on the Moon ? Because it was a monolithic challenge . Why are we trying to take the land speed phonograph recording to 1,000 miles per hour ? Because it ’s a massive challenge . ”
This is the cockpit Andy Green will be pose in . Jonathan O’Callaghan / IFLScience .
Bloodhound SSC is n’t the only squad trying to break the land speed record : North American Eagle in the U.S. is hop to break the current record by 1 % in the coming long time . But Bloodhound is alone in its ultimate ambition of taking a human beyond 1,000 mph on the ground for the first time .
Eight year in the making , the moment of truth is speedily arrive . Head to the Hakskeen Pan in South Africa in 2017 , and you might just catch a glimpse of a British technology masterpiece doing the impossible .
