Just after we shared the video of the Bloodhound SSC team testing their 1,000 mph-rated parachutes with a Jaguar F-Type comes some bad news on the land speed record project. According to a news release from the team, the official land speed record run has been pushed back to summer of 2016, the result of unforeseen complications brought on by the hydrogen peroxide pump for the rocket engines.
The Bloodhound SSC team says they will complete a sub-200mph test run at Newquay airport in Cornwall, UK later this year, which will be followed by the real 1,000+ mph test in South Africa in the summer. Project spokesman Richard Knight said they could theoretically finish the car in time for a high speed run in early 2016, but then they would run the risk of hitting Africa’s rain season.
The first high speed run was originally set for later this year, however the supercharged Jaguar V8 engine they use to deliver hydrogen peroxide to the rockets has created some problems for the team as of late.
“We discovered in testing that our HTP pump worked better than expected,” Knight said. “but as a consequence it put too much load on the rear bearing . . . by the time we had identified the problem, done the redesign and remanufacturing, we had slipped out of our original rocket test window.”
This wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t potentially put a damper on the SSC team’s goals. They had planned to simply crack their previous record of 763 mph set in 1997 by the Thrust SSC later this year and wanted to follow that up with a Mach 1.4 run (1000 mph) sometime in 2016. Now they may be forced to fit both runs into one trip to Africa, which Knight says admits may not be possible.
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