Bloodhound LSR - the 1,000mph car project

[Carbon_6]

They have to use a V8 from Jaguar just to pump the rocket fuel.

Holy 🤬.

Crazy, right?

It was originally an F1 Cosworth V8 engine, but that option became redundant when they left F1. The Jaguar V8 actually serves the purpose better due to having no holes in its torque curve and therefore, no loss of performance.

It has to sit next to the High Test Peroxide tank, but in order to prevent heat transfer to the HTP and in turn prevent an explosion, the engine’s exhaust has a ceramic coating which can reduce its surface temperature by at least 30%.

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

Still, at a minimum, you'd have to get low enough that the shockwave hits the ground within the length of the aircraft. I don't think it's possible to fly supersonic that low with those aircraft.

It's not, especially when you take into consideration ground effects and the and the return wash from the normal of the ground to the aircraft itself. It was a fun theory problem I had to do for an assignment.

 

[kikie]

 

[GTPNewsWire]

This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:

1000mph Bloodhound Land Speed Project Enters Administration

This article was published by Andrew Evans (@Famine) on October 15th, 2018 in the Automotive News category.

 

[Famine]

I spoke to Richard Noble and Andy Green a couple of years ago, and Noble said that they came up with the idea because there was a potential 800mph car in the USA (well, more than one, but Steve Fossett died). They wanted to raise Thrust SSC's bar so high that no-one would even think of trying to beat it - to the point that Bloodhound SSC actually had to invent new things just to set that new mark. For that matter, Thrust had too - it was the first car designed with CFD.

I asked what it would take to beat Bloodhound and between the two of them they pretty much opined that it wouldn't happen. Oddly, it was a mix of how much a car can take, how much a human can take and where you can do it. The wheels are at their material stress limits rotating at that kind of speed, the cabin is going to be rocking at 140dB from the thick, ground level air smashing into the screen at Mach 1.34 and there's simply nowhere on Earth left to get a car to 1,000mph+ and back down again - Bloodhound's run will be under 90 seconds long, and cover 12 miles.

It's taken 20 years to get a viable successor to Thrust SSC's 763mph. That took nearly 15 years to beat Thrust 2's 633mph. Bloodhound SSC might never be beaten...


...and to do this they need a quarter of the money that Paris St. Germain paid for Neymar, or half the money Lawrence Stroll is reportedly paying Williams to keep his lad in the chair.

 

[Joey D]

@Famine I'm sure there's some math in here I don't understand, but can you help me out with this:

In total, they cleared an area more than 12 miles long and over half a mile wide — roughly the same as a two-lane highway from Toronto to Las Vegas.

 

[HopAlong]

That's a shame, not too surprising though. I saw the show car at a car show in August, but I kind of thought it was never going to happen as we had a picture on the college wall back in 2009/10 and seeing it nearly a decade later and them still just talking about going 1000mph instead of doing it. I wonder why the programme was so far behind schedule, sure things get delayed a year or two but eight years!

 

[Famine]

@Famine I'm sure there's some math in here I don't understand, but can you help me out with this:

The actual area cleared at Hakskeen is 27km^2, give or take.

If you were to clear an area of 27km^2 that was 8.5m wide (so two, 4.25m wide lanes), it would be 3,200km - or about 1,975 miles - long. The Great Circle distance from Toronto to Las Vegas is 1,954 miles...

Mad, isn't it?

 

[Auditore]

That's....big

 

[TexRex]

Fingers crossed for future financial support for the project. Top speed runs from supposed hypercar manufacturers don't interest me in the least, but this sort of thing is in a league of its own.

I think my favorite part of the whole thing is the fact that parts of the fuel pump (okay, oxidizer pump) actually came from a Jaguar F-Type R:

Spoiler

The danged pump is driven by the Jaguar's engine!

 

[Carbon_6]

And here I was thinking after the Geely deal, they were all set.

Fingers crossed the project doesn't sink without trace.

 

[Scuderia Paul]

It is a shame we are commenting on Bloodhound SSC reaching this stage. For years it has been one of those projects you are mesmerised by because it is pushing the boundries to incomprehensible levels.

The longer something like Bloodhound SSC goes on the less confidence you have in it being realised. Hopefully there will be a positive outcome but, like I have felt about the project for the last couple of years, I am not expecting much.

 

[NFSCARBON1]

Fingers crossed for future financial support for the project. Top speed runs from supposed hypercar manufacturers don't interest me in the least, but this sort of thing is in a league of its own.

I think my favorite part of the whole thing is the fact that parts of the fuel pump (okay, oxidizer pump) actually came from a Jaguar F-Type R:

Spoiler

Spoiler

The danged pump is driven by the Jaguar's engine!

It was almost a Cosworth V8 F1 engine powering the oxidiser, but it didn't have the torque to drive it.

 

[davidt33]

Hope whoever's driving would be wearing some kind of non-destructive suit.

 

[Famine]

Hope whoever's driving

That'd be Andy Green, the current record holder.

would be wearing some kind of non-destructive suit.

... well... he's got a five-point safety harness.

 

[TexRex]

It was almost a Cosworth V8 F1 engine powering the oxidiser, but it didn't have the torque to drive it.

Do you have a source indicating that as the reason for the change?

I've read another that indicates Cosworth as having withdrawn sponsorship. They tested the Cosworth unit (video), and while I'm not aware of the results of that test, one has to imagine they'd previously run computer simulations that took into account engine output specifications when determining whether it would work or not well before testing in a real world scenario. The change to the Jaguar unit is said to have presented packaging complications.

I also read that the change was made simply because the extra horsepower was deemed unnecessary, but that's also rather peculiar if you consider the likelihood that they'd run aforementioned simulations, and frankly comes off as truth conjured up from rumors.

 

[NFSCARBON1]

Do you have a source indicating that as the reason for the change?

I've read another that indicates Cosworth as having withdrawn sponsorship. They tested the Cosworth unit (video), and while I'm not aware of the results of that test, one has to imagine they'd previously run computer simulations that took into account engine output specifications when determining whether it would work or not well before testing in a real world scenario. The change to the Jaguar unit is said to have presented packaging complications.

I also read that the change was made simply because the extra horsepower was deemed unnecessary, but that's also rather peculiar if you consider the likelihood that they'd run aforementioned simulations, and frankly comes off as truth conjured up from rumors.

I was talking to a representative for Bloodhound at the motor show in the NEC Birmingham a few years back, and he said the F1 engine didn't have the torque required without major modifications that Cosworth didn't want to/couldn't commit to. I didn't press him on the subject anymore than that

 

[Famine]

Do you have a source indicating that as the reason for the change?

I've read another that indicates Cosworth as having withdrawn sponsorship. They tested the Cosworth unit (video), and while I'm not aware of the results of that test, one has to imagine they'd previously run computer simulations that took into account engine output specifications when determining whether it would work or not well before testing in a real world scenario. The change to the Jaguar unit is said to have presented packaging complications.

I also read that the change was made simply because the extra horsepower was deemed unnecessary, but that's also rather peculiar if you consider the likelihood that they'd run aforementioned simulations, and frankly comes off as truth conjured up from rumors.

I was talking to a representative for Bloodhound at the motor show in the NEC Birmingham a few years back, and he said the F1 engine didn't have the torque required without major modifications that Cosworth didn't want to/couldn't commit to. I didn't press him on the subject anymore than that

It's pretty much halfway between those situations.

The Cosworth engine didn't have the torque, but also it ran at mental rpm, ran as hot as balls, and didn't have the lifespan - once the engine is sealed in, that's it, it's not coming out again without a lot of work. With LSR runs you have to do two timed runs within an hour of each other, and if the engine-as-a-fuel-pump needs work after the first run, you're screwed. It's also an incredibly specialised piece of machinery that no-one at Bloodhound SSC could have any reasonable expectation of familiarity with - they'd need a Cosworth technician or four on the Hakskeen crew, just to run the engine.

The Jaguar road engine was better on all counts. It's a torquey road engine that can run at a fairly constant and low rev rate and doesn't put out so much heat. And it's just a road engine.

And of course by the time Bloodhound SSC was ready to put the engine in place, the F1 regs had changed and Cosworth didn't make the engines any more. The JLR V8 is still a current engine, even though it was first mooted five years (and three designs) ago. So Cosworth couldn't really supply the engine and people to make it work, and Bloodhound didn't think it was the best fit for the application.

There was talk about using an electric pump based on something from a high-output road car, like Tesla, but I don't think that progressed any further.

 

[PsuPepperoni]

I can chip in $50

 

[Robin]

I had a feeling when it was unveiled all those years ago that this was never going to happen. World records and stuff like this just doesn't capture the imagination like it used to in simpler times, it was a push to find anyone just off the street who cared at all about this project. Unfortunately millions of people would rather watch some "achievement" on youtube these days... hence why a project like this doesn't have the extra investment, motivation and general oomph! to get it going.

 

[FoRiZon]

Should've gone with Red Bull.

They'll throw money to anything especially for extreme things.

 

[Hayden]

Red Bull actually isn’t a bad idea for a sponsor. They do love creating hype through extreme sports and 95% of the work and money has already been done for them.

With the inherit risk of catastrophic disaster however, I’m not sure their board would get behind it. I mean they let a guy skydive from space but these record attempts have a well proven track record of... well... killing people.

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

Red Bull actually isn’t a bad idea for a sponsor. They do love creating hype through extreme sports and 95% of the work and money has already been done for them.

With the inherit risk of catastrophic disaster however, I’m not sure their board would get behind it. I mean they let a guy skydive from space but these record attempts have a well proven track record of... well... killing people.

They're asking for £25 million, not exactly a cheap measure of money. Even if the project is is mainly complete.

 

[Hayden]

They're asking for £25 million, not exactly a cheap measure of money. Even if the project is is mainly complete.

Not a small amount of money by any measure, however (quoted from “The Australian” newspaper’s website)

Even if Mr Baumgartner's mission, officially called Red Bull Stratos (The Space skydive project), cost $30 million, according to one estimate, it is a fraction of the $300m the company spends on sports marketing annually. Yet, in terms of pure scale and human ambition, nothing it has done before comes close to the jump from space.

So if they spent around 16 million pound on the skydive, an extra 10 million for something with (potentially) even greater marketing potential, would be inside their ball park. I can’t name many other brands that could feasibly look into such an expense, but I think it’s fair to say that if they wanted too, Red Bull could be a suitable company.

 

[TheCracker]

So if they spent around 16 million pound on the skydive, an extra 10 million for something with (potentially) even greater marketing potential, would be inside their ball park. I can’t name many other brands that could feasibly look into such an expense, but I think it’s fair to say that if they wanted too, Red Bull could be a suitable company.

It could also feasibly be never beaten, hence a 'RedBull' Bloodhound may always be the fastest land vehicle ever. The money it would cost to go faster and the lack of space to do so, added to the previously mentioned lack of general interest from Joe Public, could easily mean that if Bloodhound does receive the cash it needs to complete the project and it manages to do what they've set out to do, that it could well be the very last LSR. Plus, Richard Noble is the only person who has seriously gone about beating the record in the past 48 years.

 

[Chris Till]

Good riddance. The last thing the world needs right now is this thing. Unless you’re going to do it on zero emissions, no one should care.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Seems like they are done...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-46480342

A project to race a car at more than 1,000mph has been axed after it failed to secure a £25m cash injection.

The Bloodhound supersonic vehicle - built with a Rolls-Royce Eurofighter jet engine bolted to a rocket - is all but finished.

The Bristol-based team behind it was aiming to beat the existing land speed world record of 763mph (1,228km/h).

Test runs at Newquay Airport in 2017 saw Bloodhound reach speeds of 200mph (320km/h).

It was set to go for the record-breaking speed in South Africa, where a 18km-long, 1,500m-wide track at Haskeen Pan has been prepared for it.

The main structure of the vehicle has been built already with "shakedown" tests a year ago working to plan.

But failure to secure the investment forced the firm financing the project into administration.

"Since [then] we have worked tirelessly with the directors to identify a suitable individual or organisation who could take the project forward," joint administrator Andrew Sheridan said.

"Despite overwhelming public support, and engagement with a wide range of potential and credible investors, it has not been possible to secure a purchaser for the business and assets."

The project was a private undertaking that had been funded through donations, sponsorship and partnerships.

But the venture failed having not delivered sufficient cash to sustain such the complex venture.

Mr Sheridan added: "We will now work with key stakeholders to return the third-party equipment and then sell the remaining assets of the company to maximise the return for creditors."

 

[Darla Starch]

...GTPlanet fundraiser to take over the project when?

 

[Carbon_6]

 

[Dotini]

Back in the Golden Era of Land Speed Racing, any dirt farmer who could weld could take a surplus jet engine, wrap it in a frame and go 400 mph at Bonneville, no sweat. Brave Speedlove applied some science and went a bit faster. Multi-million dollar budgets were not needed.

If somebody really wanted to go 1000 mph on land, and do it on a strict (cheap) budget, well that's no problem at all.

Colonel John Stapp rides the rocket sled at Edwards Air Force Base

On December 10, 1954.[6] Stapp reached a speed of 632 mph (1,017 km/h),[7] which broke the land speed record and made him the fastest man on earth