Bloodhound SSC to start on road to 1000mph in spring 2017

The project's first test will be a mere 200mph, at a track in Newquay, Cornwall next Easter

The Bloodhound project aims to crack 1000mph, well beyond the speed of sound

The British Bloodhound SSC project, aiming to break the 1000mph land speed barrier, has been slowed by funding issues. But now, after fresh funding has been obtained, the 13.5m vehicle can fire up its motors and start speed testing.

The first test will be a mere 200mph, at a track in Newquay, Cornwall next Easter. From there the team moves to a salt pan in South Africa to achieve a run which should hit 800mph. The current record is 763mph. But they’re not resting there. The aim is to crack 1000mph, well beyond the speed of sound.

The pilot – driver? – will be Andy Green who is aiming to break his own land speed record. Andy Green is the only man to have gone supersonic in a car but Bloodhound SSC aims to go far faster than Thrust SSC did when it set the current record in 1997.

So how do you get a vehicle to go that fast on land? Well, you need a supercharged 5.0-litre V8 producing 550bhp. But that engine, taken from a Jaguar F-Type, isn’t used to propel the vehicle. That’s just to pump fuel into the hybrid rocket.

The hybrid rocket is like you’d find in a rocket used for launching missions into space, and it has a relatively short, intense burn which is why it needs that V8 to pump in 40 litres of propellant every second. But that’s not enough, and that only comes in when the vehicle is travelling at hundreds of miles an hour already.

Launching the Bloodhound and taking it up to 650mph on its own is a jet engine, taken in this case from the Eurofighter Typhoon. So the jet engine builds it up to 650mph then the rocket comes in to boost it significantly higher.

To get from standstill to 1000mph is projected to take just 55 seconds. That’s the easy bit. The hard part is stopping. That will take all of Andy Green’s skill as various braking systems are slowly deployed – you don’t stand on the brakes at 1000mph.

In all Green will have to juggle 133,151bhp. The whole attempt, from launch to standstill, should take a little over two minutes. Andy Green is going to be very busy and under intense physical and mental strain for that short period, but if it all goes to plan Britain will hold a new Land Speed Record. Again.