IET Prestige Lecture (joint with IMechE), 10-Dec-2014

This fascinating lecture for young, and not so young, Engineers held everyone enthralled as Tony Parraman (Head of the Project's sponsor liaison, a past teacher and a qualified engineer) sacrificed the Bloodhound Xmas dinner to take us through the history, current activities and future plans for the project: Not only driving faster than any man has ever driven, but also exceeding 1000 mph!

The engineering adventure started with Richard Noble's first attempt in Thrust and moved on to Thrust 2 achieving over 300 mph, nearly taking off and setting a dubious record for the fastest sack of potatoes (in the passenger seat)!

Then on to Thrust SSC, with Andy Green chosen as the driver (quite a few nutters also applied!). Breaking the Sound Barrier, it still holds the land speed record of 763 mph from 1997. How can we visualise 1000 mph - the speed they're now going for? That's a mile in 3.6 seconds, burning 1.5 tonnes of fuel.

To help them along, they have 230 sponsors, some big and many very small. It's all designed and built in a 21000 sq ft warehouse in Bristol.

Using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and other complex calculations at Swansea University, they've already got Bloodhound going supersonic. They can see the lift and the downforce on the car - it must stay level on the ground and not be either a plough or a space rocket! Not surprisingly, Andy doesn't want eyeballs in the back of his head!

To push the car along, it’s built around a Rolls Royce aero-engine from a Eurofighter Typhoon, with their own control system developed for only a few hundred pounds, and a hefty Jaguar F-Type V8 engine inside to pump fuel. They also need a rocket to push 10t of air in front: there will be one Nammo rocket to start with (building up to three in future) powered by HTP (High Test Peroxide). It has to have four wheels, which need to be very balanced and have a radius smooth enough to not cut through the desert surface, whilst still not sliding sideways.

Where on earth did they find a suitable place to run the car? We learnt that Andy spent part of his honeymoon visiting the seven locations on their short-list, finally opting for The Hakskeen desert in the Northern Cape of South Africa (nicely signposted “Speeding into the future”): A pan that is totally flat, but has some bite, and is big enough at 12 miles × 4 miles. It did need 315 people to pick up 16000 tonnes of stones over 24 million sq metres (picture a dual carriageway from Bristol to Moscow). It was good to hear that this was the first paid work for many and kicked off economic regeneration of the area. The Project had to extend a water pipeline 80 km into the desert for the team personnel and visitors. This will be a lasting legacy, allowing the making of bricks locally.

For the timed runs, they have to do two runs with no more than 1 hour break between to refuel and perform checks. They expect to hit maximum speed for about 1 second during the measured mile, after which it slows down at 60 mph per second. Air brakes are applied at 800 mph and the foot brake at 200 mph.

Education is a key aim of the Project, especially as Tony told us that half of schools do not have even one girl studying Physics. They are engaged with local schools (noting that the Project has to plan for replacing their window glass following the sonic booms!). The aim is to reach 2 million children by 2018, using their interactive education show cars, with the clear message that it is OK to fail, as long as we learn.

In summary, what's it all about? "Build a rocket, boys", as the song goes. To witness the excitement of kids racing their models.

To break the land speed record next year and reach 1000 mph in plus 2016.

Judging by the energy coursing through the theatre during the Q&A session, Tony's presentation had certainly enthused the audience. We found out that the steering has only 5 degrees of lock, giving a 120 m turning radius. That they can't go over the same path and need to leave 50m between each track. There is no aerodynamic steering allowed (although the wheels do lift off...)

The UK leads the race despite competition from Australia (Invader 5 - rocket powered and looks round and pointy like a missile) and the American Eagle (based on a Starfighter and achieving approx 500 mph).

At what cost?  Cash ~ 42 - 45 million pounds. Two Formula 1 teams spend that in two weekends and have no education outreach. Bloodhound is good value. There will be a great legacy: Education is to continue for 5 years;  All data is free to access; there is no IP for what they design - they are not taking commercial advantage.

I marvelled at the stunning photo of Bloodhound, supersonic through the heat mirage at 763 mph. Watch out for the live streaming of the runs, with onboard cameras, which should be truly awesome!