Bloodhound

The Bloodhound supersonic car is back on course to break the land speed record and it has scheduled the attempt for October 2017.

The hybrid jet and rocket propelled car was displayed as a trial-build back in September 2015 but lack of sponsorship stopped the project from proceeding to high-speed testing.


Now with new sponsors on board, the Bloodhound team is aiming to reach speeds of 800mph as it breaks the sound barrier and blasts across the South African desert next year. The record attempt will coincide with the 20th anniversary of the current record holder – Thrust supersonic car – which reached a speed of 767mph in the Nevada desert in October 1997.

Thrust's driver, Andy Green, and project director, Richard Noble, are returning to beat their own world record in Bloodhound.

Read next Bloodhound 800mph land speed record bid delayed until 2017 Bloodhound 800mph land speed record bid delayed until 2017

"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," said Richard Noble.

Bloodhound

The 13.5 metre-long supersonic car will be broken down into its 3,500 bespoke components and reassembled as engineers put together a Bloodhound user manual in case the car needs to be repaired while its being tested. A jet engine from a Eurofighter Typhoon will take the Bloodhound up to speeds of a few hundred miles per hour before a cluster of Nammo rockets kicks in to boost the vehicle all the way past 800mph. Together, the engines generate 135,000 horsepower, equivalent to 180 Formula 1 cars.


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Bloodhound will travel under its own power for the first time on the runway at Newquay Areohub in June 2017 where it'll reach slow test speeds around 220mph before it heads out to the Hakskeen Pan in South Africa. Members of the local community shifted 16,000 tonnes of stones by hand to clear a perfectly flat strip of desert 12 miles long and two miles wide. At its top speed, Bloodhound will cover one mile every 3.6 seconds.

"This is probably the biggest moment in the project’s history. Before we could only see financially a few months ahead but now we can put our foot down and really go for it," said Richard Noble.