The Bloodhound supersonic car (SSC), with Andy Green at the helm, will challenge the current world land-speed record in October next year, says the project team.

The current record of 1 277.98 km/h was also set by Green, in the Thrust SSC.

Following a funding crunch, the British Bloodhound team announced this week that the recent signing of a number of “major deals” has meant that the Bloodhound project now has sufficient funding pledged to complete the car and start the countdown to high-speed testing at Hakskeen Pan, in the Northern Cape, in South Africa, in the second half of next year.  

With Bloodhound engineers now returning to the project, having taken short-term contracts elsewhere, a major programme of work to become race-ready begins in earnest.

The car displayed in September last year was a trial-build vehicle, without fluids, done in part to check the fit of more than 3 500 bespoke components.

Conventional motor manufacturers typically build several pre-production prototypes.

As there is only one Bloodhound, the project team used the trail-build car to determine if all the brackets were in the right place, that key components were accessible for servicing and that one-off parts were manufactured to the correct tolerances.  

The team will now disassemble the 13.5-m-long vehicle, documenting the process in fine detail, to create the Bloodhound user manual.

Where necessary, modifications will be made and new parts created before the Bloodhound is reassembled and transported to Newquay Aerohub for tie-down tests with its EJ200 jet and Nammo rocket system in place.

The jet is a tried and tested component used by Rolls-Royce to develop the production engines for the Eurofighter Typhoon. 

The rocket is a new design, however, and further work will be required before engineers sign it off for use in the car.

The Bloodhound will travel under its own power for the first time at Newquay in June next year, in a slow speed (354 km/h) shakedown test.

This will also be an opportunity for the team to practice live-streaming data and imagery from the car, as a key aspect of Bloodhound’s mission is to share the adventure with a global audience.

By this time the team’s rapid response and turnaround crews will have done extensive training to support high-speed running in South Africa. 

This will include rehearsing “the pit stop from hell” – an intense 40 minute period between timed runs during which the car will be checked, refueled and made ready for the return leg.

This race within a race is crucial to setting a record. In 1997 a delay of just a few seconds cost the team the top prize during an early record attempt.

Two successful runs are required in opposite directions within one hour, and a new record mark must exceed the previous one by at least one percent to be validated.

With the shakedown test successfully completed, Bloodhound SSC will be loaded onto a CargoLogicAir Boeing 747 freighter to be airlifted to Upington. It will then be transported by road to the team’s desert base at Hakskeen Pan. 

Under the guidance of operations director Martyn Davidson, 16 container loads of equipment will have been shipped in advance, and a self-contained village complete with workshop and TV studios set up.
 
“This is probably the biggest moment in the project’s history,” says Bloodhound project director Richard Noble.

“Before we could only see financially a few months ahead, but now we can put our foot down and really go for it.

“We are in this position thanks to the incredible support of our partners and sponsors, and the dedication and sacrifice of many people, including a skeleton crew who have held the fort and quite literally kept the lights on.

“Most of all it has been the amazing public response that has sustained us. Thousands of children up and down the country are racing model rocket cars and there is tremendous public enthusiasm for the project wherever we go. 

“We have come through this difficult stage wiser, leaner and fitter. Bloodhound is now in race preparation, which means the pace and the pressure will ramp up, but so too will the sense of satisfaction as we head towards our car breaking the sound barrier for the first time, with the world watching.”