Land-speed car begins testing, beats 500mph with just one engine, Ars Technica

      

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Early Wednesday morning, on a specially prepared course laid out across miles of desert in a remote corner of South Africa , a car that looks more like a wingless jet fighter broke the (mph) 805 km) barrier for the first time. The Bloodhound LSR, the car in question, has actually been designed to go more than twice that speed, but not until next year.

You don’t just build a car, prep a course, and try for 1, 00 0mph on your first go; it requires a methodical test program to work up to speed. That test program is now properly underway, and we spoke with Bloodhound’s driver, RAF Wing Commander Andy Green, to find out how it’s going now that he’s finally able to start giving the car a proper workout.

Even getting out to the Hakskeen Pan in South Africa has been a challenge; originally, the plan had been to start testing the car in 2015. Butdesign changesand funding constraints meant that the Bloodhound didn’t run under its own power until 2017and then only at speeds up to 210 MPHon a runway in Newquay, England.Less than 12 months ago,it looked like the decade-long project was completely done. Thenin March Bloodhound was boughtby Ian Warhurst, and in July we learned that the sleek machine, now painted white,was finally headedto the Southern Hemisphere.

Finding a suitable location is one of the big challenges of setting a land-speed record, alongside the engineering challenge of building such a vehicle and the fundraising challenge of paying for it all. Thesalt at Bonnevilleis in bad shape, and Black Rock is now too popular with campers and burners. But a remote spot near South Africa’s border with Namibia proved suitable. The local government got on board and provided support for hundreds of locals to clear more than (million pounds) 16, 500 tonnes) of rock from the lakebed.

Testing is go

The team has been on site since late October and has marked out 12 tracks, each 10 miles long and 1, (feet wide) (km x) ********************************************************************************************************* m). Over the past couple of weeks, the team has been running the car at increasing speeds, reaching 501 mph today. For context, the record –which was set in 1997, also with Wing Commander Green behind the wheel– stands at 762. 15 mph (1, 231. (km / h or Mach 1.) ).

I asked him how it felt to finally be at this stage. Green said:

It’s what we all imagined it would be … We’ve got the car tearing down the desert, generating an awful lot of knowledge about how to do this faster and safer better next year, which ultimately is why we’re here this year. It’s also showing that the decade of work that Northern Cape [the province in South Africa where the attempt is taking place] has put into this amazing desert has produced an extraordinary surface for straight line racing.

Despite the fighter-jet looks, Bloodhound handles like a car, Green told me. “It’s got very stiff suspension; it’s a very firm ride, but it’s also a very smooth surface,” he told me. There’s only two inches (50 mm) of suspension travel, and the center of gravity is higher than might be ideal, because of the jet engine at the back. (When Bloodhound runs next summer, it will carry a Nammo hybrid rocket underneath the EJ 200, but this year test program is just jet-powered.)

Often, the faster a race car is, the worse it is to drive at low speed. Low speed just has a new meaning in this case. “The faster you go, the more it moves around,” said Green. “At slow speed — anything below 200 mph — the grip on the surface is about the same as driving a normal rubber-tire car on snow. Above 200 mph, it’s like you’ve driven off the snow and onto an ice rink. It’s a real significant change. “

He went on:

But it does give some body roll, either in a crosswind or maneuvering. And the thing you least want to feel in a land-speed record car is body roll. It’s only one or two degrees, but I’m acutely sensitive to it. Every time I feed the steering in, if I’m going to put any significant yaw i feed in gradually to minimize the roll.

A dab of oppo at 400 mph?

Not all steering inputs can be as measured. If you’ve beenwatching the in-car footage, you’ll notice that sometimes Green’s hands are working much faster at the wheel; in those instances he’s reacting to Bloodhound attempting to step out of line.

Green said:

I’ll put in a very rapid steering input to stop it moving if it’s yawing off-line. If it has come off the line, then I’ll put in a much more gradual input — not now to stop the motion, but actually to correct the displacement, basically displacing the car back onto the line. That’s a much more gradual process than actually just damping down the [yaw] motion.

Green added that “the car has been designed to make sure that if we do finish up with a significant level of crosswind or a significant yaw angle, the car will slide rather than grip right cause of the higher center of gravity. “

        

Listing image byCharlie Sperring for Bloodhound LSR