In 1997, RAF pilot Andy Green drove the twin jet engine Thrust SSC as it accelerated through the Jordanian desert and reached never-before-seen speeds of over 760 mph. Green and the SSC team are now back to break their own record in the all-new Bloodhound SSC, and they are getting awfully close to their planned high speed run in 2016.
There’s lots that goes into building and testing a vehicle such as the Bloodhound SSC, much of it things you would never consider yourself. For example, the team needed a way to ensure their parachutes would deploy properly at speed, so they called up fellow British firm Jaguar to build them a car capable of doing so.
Jag ended up delivering the SSC team a 540 horsepower F-Type R with a parachute rig jetting out the back window. No, it can’t reach the same four-digit speeds the Bloodhound SSC presumably will, but it’s more than enough to make sure the parachutes deploy as they are intended to.
Watch as Andy Green tests his braking system in the video below, and if we’ve piqued your interest in regards to the Bloodhound SSC, you can check their Twitter account for updates as the project continues.
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