Northern Cape Business 2018-19 edition

SPECIAL FEATURE
Flash across the pan on track
The Bloodhound land speed record attempt is set for October 2018.
CREDIT: STEFAN MARJORAM/FLICKR
The countdown to October 2018 is on. The Bloodhound supersonic
car that will be propelled across the sandy flats of
Hakskeen Pan by a rocket, three jet engines and a V8 engine in
pursuit of the world land speed record is set to blast off in that
month. The Bloodhound team is still raising money for this expensive
exercise, but indications are good.
Countless tests have been done at the base of the Bloodhound
project in the UK. One of them proved that the carbon fibre disk
brakes can heat up to 1 000 degrees Celsius. Trials at Newquay Airport
in Cornwall saw the 7.5-ton vehicle reach 322km/h but conditions in
the UK don’t allow for the kinds of speeds that the Bloodhound team
want to achieve on the even ground where the record attempt will
take place, about 200km north of Upington.
Further tests on the Northern Cape track will be done in the 800km/h
range, before launching the final push for the record.
The current land speed record of 1 227.98km/h was set in 1997 by
the same man who wants to better it in 2018. Wing Commander Andy
Green is a British Royal Air Force pilot and he wants to take the new
record out to 1 600km/h.
A 450kg rocket will fire the vehicle and the car will be fitted with
a further three jet engines and a V8 motor vehicle engine: it will have
power equivalent of 180 Formula 1 motor cars.
Design tweaks that have been made along the way include a revised
layout for the floor mounting system, testing of the best jet-start procedures,
and making the electronics
as robust as possible so that the
cockpit messages are easy to read.
Legacy
The Northern Cape Provincial
Government has enrolled 50
schools in the Bloodhound
Project, creating many opportunities
for learning about science,
mathematics, engineering and
technology. The schools chosen
include the province’s 17
Dinaledi schools, which already
specialise in mathematics and
science. In Britain, the project is
linked to STEM schools (Science,
Technology and Mathematics
Schools).
There are more than 500 sensors
built into the supersonic car,
sending out millions of pieces of
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