The Bloodhound Will Stay On the Ground At 1,000 mph

Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that engineers designing the world's fastest car, the Bloodhound SSC, built to smash the world land speed record of 763 mph set by the Thrust SuperSonic Car in 1997, believe they have a solution to keep the vehicle flat on the ground at 1,000 mph after initial iterations of the car's aerodynamic shape produced dangerous amounts of lift at the vehicle's rear. John Piper, Bloodhound's technical director, said: 'We've had lift as high as 12 tonnes, and when you consider the car is six-and-a-half tonnes at its heaviest — that amount of lift is enough to make the car fly.' The design effort has been aided by project sponsor Intel, who brought immense computing power to bear on the lift problem. Before Intel's intervention, the design team had worked through 11 different 'architectures' in 18 months. The latest modelling work run on Intel's network investigated 55 configurations in eight weeks. By playing with the position and shape of key elements of the car's rear end, the design team found the best way to manage the shockwave passing around and under the vehicle as it goes supersonic. 'At Mach 1.3, we've close to zero lift, which is where we wanted to be,' says Piper. In late 2011, the Bloodhound, powered by a rocket bolted to a Eurofighter-Typhoon jet engine, will mount an assault on the land speed record, driving across a dried up lakebed known as Hakskeen Pan, in the Northern Cape of South Africa."

Comments

I'm debating if this thing really counts as a car.

[pecosdave]

Seriously, you rip the wings off of a fighter jet and make it stay on the ground does it become a car? To really be a "car" I would almost argue it needs to be propelled by the wheels.

Re:Easier solution

[PhongUK]

They would have to then engineer a treadmill that can move the belt at 1000MPH, a wind machine that can blow wind at 1000MPH so that the Bloodhounds engines get the intake that it needs. They would then likely have to take care of all the exhaust gasses... ... AND IT WOULDN'T BE AS COOL!

Re:Easier solution

[SharpFang]

Since it's a jet engine (pushing against the air), it would be the old "Plane on a treadmill" problem. Meaning it would drive off the treadmill.