Vehicle speed 1,600 mph - a reality!

In the next year planned to complete the construction vehicle capable of speeds up to 1,600 km / h. The goal set itself the project of "Bloodhound SSC", developed in the UK.
According to Richard Noble, Project Manager, full-sized version of the car to be established in January 2011 and will attempt to set a speed record in 2012. Noble himself once already had the record for the highest speed, but now he aims with this project to promote science and art of engineering among young people.
The material body is planned to use a thin alloy, a 90-centimeter-wheel weighing 97 kg will be cast from aluminum alloy. On the choice of the alloy depends on many things, so research on its election is still last. Wheel speed will be a record for our time of 10 200 rpm (170 revolutions per second), while the rim will have an impact load of 150 MPa.
Importance of choosing the alloy due to the fact that the race will be scheduled on the surface of a dried-up lake, and therefore damage the surface of the wheels are inevitable. That would protect the alloy wheels from damage, especially since the planned number of races. Now the walls of the Cambridge University Cavendish Laboratory Specialists make tests to identify the impact of sand on the different types of alloys.
As the motion speed car will result in two engines: a jet engine fitted to fighter Eurofighter Typhoon, and the rocket engine Falcon. The first way to create thrust at nine tons, the second will add an additional 12 tons of thrust.
As a platform for establishing a new world record will be used dried-up lake bottom Hakskeen Pan, which is in South Africa (Northern Cape). To determine the speed record for an hour will be two-dimensional distance of the race at a mile, then their results will be determined by the average velocity. After the first arrival will be replaced by a jet engine, the wheels also hope to save at the second race.
Route length of 20 kilometers, width - 1.5 km. At a speed of 1,600 km / h any clash with stone would have disastrous consequences not only for the wheels, but for a car. Therefore, to clean up the highway from the stones have already begun about 300 workers who were hired by the local population. At the same time in the UK has started a company search assistants predlagyuschaya "free and hard work in conditions of constant heat, in a remote but beautiful place."
The current speed record was set at 19,997, the Thrust SuperSonic Car, and is 1 228 km / h. People working at the time of Thrust, now working in the project Bloodhound. This is a project manager, Richard Noble, an expert on aerodynamics, Ron Ayres and pilot car Andy Green.
Wishing to sponsor the project has more than enough, so the project does not suffer from a lack of funding. Although the project is private and not commercial, it nevertheless received support from the government and the United Kingdom, which provided two jet engines Typhoon. Among other sponsors are present Hampson Industries, manufacturer of engines F1 Cosworth, aerospace company Lockheed Martin.