At 1,000 mph, super-sonic car set to break land speed record

16 Jun 2014

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In what would seem like something right out of science fiction, a supersonic racing car, designed for blazingly fast supersonic speeds could soon be a reality.

The £10-million rocket-powered car, dubbed The Bloodhound SSC [abbreviation for the SuperSonic Car], has four wheels and is powered by both a jet and rocket and is designed to attain speeds in excess of 1,000  miles (1,600 kilometers) per hour. The slender body, 44 feet (14 metres) long would keep the entire vehicle aerodynamic.

The vehicle weighing over seven tonnes is powered by engines that produce over 135,000 horsepower, which amounts to over six times the power of all the cars on Formula 1 put together.

The cockpit, which has been 10,000 hours in the making is designed to protect the driver from the effects of travelling at very high speed. 

International Business Times quoted the driver, former RAF pilot Wing Commander Andy Green, as saying it would be "a fairly extreme set of physical sensations".

Green, 51, hopes to smash the speed record with the rocket-powered car. He said the car had a huge amount of power - 135 thrust horse power, accelerating at over 2G, 40 mph per second.

He added the energy going on over the cockpit and the noise that came through would be quite hard physically for him.

The coming years would see the vehicle start test runs at lower speeds before attempting to set a new land speed record.

The current land speed record of 763.035 miles (1,227.985 kilometres) had been set by Green back in 1997 in the ThrustSSC.

The car has been made from five different types of carbon fibre weave and two different resins and sandwiched between the layers of carbon fibre are three different thicknesses of aluminium honeycomb core, providing additional strength.

The hi-tech material, at its thickest point is made up of 13 layers but measures just 24 mm thick.

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