The Bloodhound Land Speed Record team released a video today, showing how the jet-powered car would stack up against a Formula 1 car, a Bugatti Chiron, and a regular road car.
Some poetic license has inevitably been applied, as it was impossible to factor for traction on the dusty desert surface, which is estimated to be about 1/3rd that of regular tarmac. This is, of course, not an issue for Bloodhound LSR as she’s thrust driven. The state-of-the-art EJ200 Eurofighter jet engine takes some time to spool up and start producing thrust, and a few seconds longer to be up to speed to use reheat (aka afterburners) – where flames are seen shooting out of the back of the car.
When Bloodhound LSR returns to the Kalahari Desert for the record breaking campaign she will be fitted with Nammo’s latest zero-carbon emission rocket, which will provide a further 50 to 60 kilonewtons of thrust (5 – 6 tonnes). This, combined with the 90kN of the jet engine, will provide the power to reach speeds of over 800mph.
Covid-19
Covid-19 has inevitably had an impact on discussions with potential sponsors, so the team has taken the decision to hibernate the project until the pandemic has passed. This will inevitably have an impact on the planned 2021 World Land Speed Record attempt.
Ian Warhurst, Bloodhound’s CEO said “Rightfully, the world has more important things to focus on right now. Discussions with a number of global brands were looking promising when COVID-19 struck, but the sponsorship industry literally shut down. This means our ability to raise the necessary funds in time and, consequently, the window to conduct the LSR campaign safely in 2021 is now very likely to be missed. As a result, we are planning to go into hibernation to reduce the monthly overheads to an absolute minimum, and we’ll reboot conversations with potential sponsors later in the year.
He continued, “In the meantime we thought you might enjoy our latest film, where we imagined drag racing Bloodhound LSR against some other very fast cars.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.