1000mph Bloodhound SSC revealed

The Bloodhound SSC supersonic car has been revealed ahead of its first 320km/h next March.

Taking five years to develop and construct, if successful, the SSC will then head to South Africa in August to attempt to break the current 1228km/h Land Speed record with a speed in excess of around 1289km/h.

Once that’s achieved the team will attempt to crack 1600km/h sometime in 2017.

Powered by a Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet engine lifted from the Eurofighter Typhoon, the SSC produces an incredible 99,291kW of power that consumes so much rocket fuel it needs a 410kW supercharged 5.0-litre V8 from the Jaguar F-Type to feed it the required 40 litres of fuel per second.

As far as acceleration goes - ‘devastating’ best describes the Bloodhound’s performance with the 0-1600km/h dash expected taking less than 55 seconds.

Driven by current land speed record holder, Andy Green, the biggest challenge for engineers has been slowing the Bloodhound from its theoretical maximum top speed. This is the reason the SSC has an air brake that adds 3g braking force alone.

Only when the SSC is travelling less than 1000km/h can Green activate the SSC’s parachute while the wheel brakes only begin to work at speeds less than 400km/h.

Other challenges include was dealing with SSC’s 36-inch wheels spinning at an incredible 10,200rpm that posed the risk of kicking up stones that could hurtle through the bodywork. This prompted engineers to develop composite armoured panels that had to survive 3200km/h ballistic tests before they were fitted to the car.

Work first began on the Bloodhound SSC project back in 2010 and by 2017 the total cost of the achieving the 1600km/h is expected to be around $90m.

Image: Flock and Siemens