How It Works-Amazing Vehicles

Jet engine

Designed for the

Eurofi

ghter Typhoon plane,

the Rolls-Royce EJ200 will

accelerate the Bloodhound

to 563km/h (350mph).

Hybrid rocket

The largest in the UK, the

rocket burns solid fuel with

a liquid oxidiser to produce

a peak thrust of 122kN

(27,500lbf).

Aluminium alloy wheels

Forged from an aerospace alloy of

aluminium and zinc, the solid discs

must cope with forces in excess of

50,000 g at the rims.

Jet-powered cars

A sonic boom echoed off the stone cliffs of the

Black Rock Desert in Nevada, USA, as the British-

made Thrust SSC became the fi

rst land vehicle to

break the sound barrier back in 1997. To qualif y for

a land-speed record of 1,149 kilometres (763 miles)

per hour, the car needed to have four wheels and

be under complete control of the driver. It also

needed to withstand air pressure upwards of ten

tons per square metre. To improve stability, the

rocket-shaped car was equipped with twin

Rolls-Royce Spey jet engines, one on each side.

Each engine produced 89 kilonew tons (20,

pounds-force) of thrust, roughly equal to 145

Formula One cars. The next-generation

Bloodhound SSC – pictured here – aims to exceed

1,600 kilometres per hour (1,000 miles per hour) in

2014 with a Eurofi

ghter Ty phoon jet engine and a

hybrid rocket strapped to its sleek carbon-fi

bre

and titanium cage frame. The Bloodhound will

rocket from zero to 1,690 kilometres (1,050 miles)

per hour in just 40 seconds on 900-millimetre

(2.9-foot) aluminium alloy wheels.

BLOODHOUND SSC

Top speed (projected)

1,690km/h (1,050mph)

Cost

£15mn ($25mn)

Weight

7,78 6 kg (17, 16 5 l b)

Power

Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet engine

and hybrid rocket

Length

13.5m (44ft)

Number of passengers

1

DID YOU KNOW? NASA’s unmanned X-43 reached Mach 9.8 in 2004 with a scramjet engine breathing supersonic air as an oxidiser