The UK and South Africa are gearing up for the end result of a £24-million project, which will see the ultimate jet- and rocket-powered car, the Bloodhound, whip up dust in the Northern Cape as it prepares to break the world land speed record.
The Bloodhound, which is hoping to reach 1600 km/h in 2015, is being constructed in Bristol in the UK and boasts 3 500 components.
Bloodhound supersonic car education programme director Dave Rowley said the car would initially go through test runs at slower speeds in preparation for the 1 600 km challenge and would be driven by Andy Green, known as the fastest man of earth.
“We can’t wait for the car to get here,” said Rowley, who had been in South Africa for over two years building up momentum for the run and involving schoolchildren across the Northern Cape in projects that had been sparked by the Bloodhound.
A simulator and education projects that had been developed in tune with the Bloodhound’s run were shown off at Cape Town’s Victoria and Albert Waterfront last weekend, with around 300 excited schoolchildren fascinated by the idea that the car was expected to run at 1.4 times the speed of sound.
Hakskeenpan, which was a massive dried out lake in the far Northern Cape, about 200 km north west of Upington close to the Namibian border, had been chosen as the site for this spectacle in late 2015 or 2016.
The track that had been prepared for the record-breaking attempt also involved the surrounding community. About 300 people, most of them women, had been employed to clear 6 000 t of stones and rocks to create 20-km-long and 1.1-km-wide area.
Thousands of schoolchildren, mainly from the Northern Cape, had been enrolled in projects ahead of the arrival of the car.
“They’ve been working on virtual science labs. They’ve been designing their own cars that go on a track [and] they’re measuring speed and resistance. It’s getting both the teachers and kids very excited,” said Edit Microsystems MD Peter Labuschagne, whose comapany was working with the Bloodhound team.
The main aim was to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers, particularly given the shortage of these skills in South Africa. Classroom subjects from science, technology, engineering and mathematics to geography and English were being supported.
Rowley said the Bloodhound project was a constant learning curve, as there had been 12 changes made to the external shape of the car over the past three years.
“The car still needs to lose weight. There’s been a lot of collaboration by companies on how to make is smaller and thinner,” he told Engineering News Online.
Rowley said a major challenge had been how to keep the wheels on the ground, while driving faster than the speed of sound.
He added that the Bloodhound project was “unique in the world of advanced engineering” as its research design, manufacture and testing was shared through the www.bloodhoundssc.com website.