Name your car Bloodhound and it needs to be something special. In this case, the Bloodhound SSC—those last three letters are for "supersonic car"—is capable of traveling at speeds faster than commercial jets.
The Bloodhound SSC project is a group effort to bring about a new land speed record. Andy Green is the man who will helm this craft, and it's all just inched closer to its first full-on test run. Ahead of that, the team have finally test fired the jet engine portion of the powerplant.
Sitting behind Green is an EJ200 Eurofighter engine. It's a prototype turbofan unit and it will power the Bloodhound during a 200 mph test run at some point this year. This testing allows the engineers to understand how the vehicle responds to the engine and how it should be driven to fully utilize all of the available thrust being generated.
The ultimate goal isn't, of course, to hit 200 mph. You can do that in a Dodge Challenger with a long enough stretch of road. Instead, Green and the Bloodhound gang have their eyes focused on the ultimate target; 1,000 mph. It's an insane number but Green has experience in this realm.
He's the current holder of the land speed record. In 1997, Green was the first person to go supersonic on the ground when he reached 763 miles per hour. Now he wants to go much faster.
This successful test of the jet engine is a major step to getting there.
_______________________________________
