It’s called a somatogravic illusion, says Bloodhound programme director Richard Noble as he hunches up his shoulders and grips an imaginery steering wheel.

“The whole world twists and you are absolutely convinced you are going straight down into the centre of the earth.”

This illusion occurred when Noble piloted the Thrust II – claiming the world land speed record in 1983 at 633.47 m/h (Mach .85) – in the process facing a vehicle decelerating at up to 6g, losing speed at 130 m/h a second.

The land speed record is not all about reaching that magical mark, after all; it’s also about stopping, turning around and doing it all again. The record has to be set twice in one hour to enter the history books.

A new record attempt, in a vehicle named the Bloodhound, is set for 2014.

This UK-driven land speed record project markets its science angle extremely well. It wants – and works very hard – to inspire young people to enter the maths and science fields and to ignore the lure of the arts and the softer sciences, as made popular by the modern media, says Noble.

The UK has pursued the financial sector to the detriment of engineering and manufacturing, he adds.
In the book The Science behind the Speed, Noble writes: “The financial system, now under- regulated, has overreached – UK oil is running dry and the party is over.”

The last time the UK delivered large numbers of engineers was during the Cold War, when children were inspired by fighter jets and other technological wonders, says Noble.

While the pursuit of new blood for the fields of science and maths through the Bloodhound project is admirable, a land speed record attempt must surely also involve something other than disillusionment with a modern system that is not delivering a sufficient number of engineers.

Noble has acknowledged that his 1983 attempt was driven by an ambition to take back the land speed record from the US, set in 1970 by Gary Gabelich at 622.41 m/h.

And is it not also about being the ‘Fastest Man on Earth’, as Noble was known before Andy Green took over in 1997, first with a run of 714.144 m/h, in the Thrust Supersonic Car (SSC), then adding a final nail in the coffin at 763.035 m/h?

Green’s success was, however, also Noble’s, as the Thrust SSC team was managed by Noble. And they are not done yet. The same duo now hopes to set a new land speed record at Hakskeenpan, in South Africa.

This is set to happen next year, first with a series of test runs, which will, hopefully, break the existing record, followed by the grand finalé in 2015, when Green & Co will aim for the magical 1 000 m/h mark.

That is fast. That is 30% faster than the current record. That is faster than the bullet from a Magnum .357 and a Lockheed F104 Starfighter. It is 447-m-a-second fast.

Surefire Web Hit
Chasing the land speed record all but stopped in 1970, says Noble. When the Thrust II attempt broke that 13-year-old record, it grabbed its share of headlines, but even more so when the first supersonic car set a new record in 1997.

“It generated enormous publicity,” says Noble.

The Thrust SSC project became the fifth-biggest website in the world – an enormous achievement, considering that the Web was only commercialised in the mid-90s.

The project received 59-million Web hits in 1997.

What would the 2014 event deliver?

Three-billion page hits a year, believes Noble. That’s many, many youngsters becoming excited about the idea of science and technology.

The attempt at Hakskeenpan, which has already been years in the making, is also likely to be the Noble and Green team’s swan song in terms of land speed record attempts. Noble is 67 and Royal Air Force (RAF) fighter pilot Green 50.

“We made a decision to build a last land-speed record car and to push it as far as we can. We wanted Mach 1.5, but Ron Ayers wasn’t happy. He said Mach 1.4 was as far as he would go,” says Noble.

Ayers is the Bloodhound project’s aerodyna- mics chief.

The UK government supports the newest land-speed record project, even if not by providing the jet engine Green and Noble so sorely wanted, but by it becoming the UK Defence Equipment and Support Minister Lord Drayson’s long-sought “iconic project” to bolster maths and science in that country.

This is exactly the reason why Bloodhound is an open data project. It has around 5 300 schools, colleges and universities in the UK following the project in every possible detail. None of the data is protected by copyright or intellectual property rights.

Back to science and maths then.

But what does it feel like to pilot a vehicle at 633 m/h?
“Like a taxi,” relents Noble.

Owing to the amount of test runs required, he “was out there” on the Black Rock Desert, in the US, doing 600 m/h every day.“It goes like a taxi as the car gets better.”

The control in breaking the land speed record lies with the engineers, emphasises Noble.

“There is not much emotion involved. If the driver has too much of it, then you have the wrong driver. If the driver is having a blast, then he’ll go faster and faster until he breaks the car.”

That said, however, every land speed record attempt provides “us mere mortals with the chance to build a very exotic car using very advanced technology”.

“Things also start to get interesting at 550 m/h,” adds Noble.

“You can see the shockwave on cockpit. Your mental processes speed up. Everything happens as if in slow motion. You see every small detail.”

120 mm Rain at Hakskeenpan
Another Thrust team member who will go all out for one more go at a new land speed record is Martyn Davidson. He is a retired RAF engineer with 28 years’ experience, and is the Bloodhound trials project manager.

Davidson applauds the support provided by the Northern Cape government to make the Bloodhound project happen, with the provincial authority hoping to use the Hakspeenpan track as an extreme motorsports arena after 2015.

There remains one month’s work in clearing the pan from what was once 6 000 t of stone. This is done by more than 300 local people, picking up the potentially hazardous material by hand.

However, work has to wait as the pan received 120 mm of rain at the end of March– twice the area’s yearly rainfall.
Davidson is not fazed.

“This is fantastic. It will level out the surface. In the next three months it will give us the sandy surface we need.”

As the Bloodhound makes use of aluminium wheels, it needs some ‘give’ in the surface to grip properly.

The surface is far from Davidson’s only focus. Apart from a myriad of technical issues, the Internet age has also stripped the project of any privacy, so to speak.

“Previously, we loaded up and went to the desert and did our thing.”
Now, however, there is a global audience, as well as rapidly growing interest from around the world to not only watch the record attempt on YouTube, but to also trek to Hakskeenpan to witness this event first-hand.

Davidson expects 5 000 to 10 000 people at the pan for the record attempt.

It is also expected that the Northern Cape will set up a temporary town with entertainment venues to gain as much as it can from the event financially.

Davidson and the Bloodhound team will number around 45 to 50 people. They will land at Upington Airport using an Antanov cargo plane to carry the team’s 95 t of equipment.

Equipment that still needs to be procured includes two high-speed fire chasers (fire trucks) that can do 180 m/h.

Safety is very important for Davidson. After all, going 30% faster than the previous land speed record produces a host of unknowns. This is why Green will probably start out his test runs at a leisurely 50 m/h.

“We’ll push up the speed incrementally and handle problems as they arise.”

It is also possible for any member of the team to stop a test run at any point in time if they see anything that could jeopardise Green’s safety.

There is no ejector seat on the Bloodhound, as the forces active at 1 000 m/h will likely, literally, flatten the driver.

“The speed of sound is faster through ground than air,” adds Noble.
“One school of thought says the desert will break up before the car gets there. We’ll have to see what happens.”

He believes, though, that the Bloodhound is well able to handle the record attempt.

“It’s a masterpiece. The best we have ever done.”

From Crimplene to Land Speed Records
In talking to Noble, it may appear as if he is all about land speed records, but that would not be true.

He worked for ICI during his 20s, where he was part of a team of four that developed a product called crimplene, a polyester fibre used largely in clothing.

This product development enabled him “to focus on high-risk” projects, he explains, such as the Thrust and Bloodhound record attempts.

One of the other projects on his desk is starting up a taxi airplane service for the business community.

As the current “very inefficient” airport system demands long timeframes before and after flights, Noble would like to see a fleet of smaller planes – flying as fast as the slower business jets, but able to land on grass – using the numerous small airstrips littering the landscape around cities.

Typically, says Noble, a businessperson will go on the Internet, and book a plane at its nearest airfield to his or her destination of choice.

Big risk? Perhaps, but the rewards could be pretty big too.