Large backers, including Jaguar Land Rover, fulfilled their obligations and then dropped out. We kept going. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. "We've got a real problem in Britain, which is that we are totally and utterly risk averse," he says. Then and now, Noble candidly admits the problem was the familiar one: money.


18 November 2010 – the date on which Noble was awarded an honorary Doctor of Technology by the University of the West of England. Indeed, the Bloodhound project has inspired STEM initiatives wherein kids learn about things such as Newtonian laws with model rockets. "It's a big project to produce a supersonic vehicle, the same really as making a supersonic airplane, and somehow you've got to keep the cash coming in," he says. 7 mph – the amount of additional speed (11 km/h) at which Thrust 2 would have been liable to take off, according to modern computational fluid dynamics (CFD). But inside the low-rise industrial unit is a hive of activity, with the mostly built aluminum chassis looking, unsurprisingly, like an aircraft fuselage. Mind you, you don’t know what the future holds. "We think a wheel bearing failed," he says.

The team’s entrepreneurial spirit has also helped to keep costs under control, most obviously through the secondment of the RAF technicians, plus four more from the British army’s Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineer Corps. Entrepreneur Ian Warhurst purchased Bloodhound and funded a testing trip to South Africa, where the car ran at 628 mph under jet power. There, on a specially prepared 12-mile-long course on the Hakseen Pan, a natural salt flat, Bloodhound will attempt to break the 800-mph barrier, before returning next year with a more powerful car to try for 1000 mph. 12 ft – the width of the car (3.66 m). By itself the jet engine will produce 20,000 pounds of thrust, with each NAMMO adding 27,500 to that. Transport - Andy Green and Richard Noble - Brooklands. The numbers are beyond impressive, and most of the way to being downright scary. Thrust SSC is the first and only Land Speed Record car to have used rear-wheel steering.

It was a terrific team, and they wouldn't give up.". 375 mph – the decelerated speed (604 km/h) at which the three drag parachutes could be deployed. 59 seconds – the time it took to accelerate to 650 mph from a standing start (9 seconds to reach 200 mph, 20 seconds to reach 400 mph, and 40 seconds to reach 600 mph). All third party trademarks are hereby acknowledged. "It just went, the car spiraled in the air, and of course the fundamental problem with a jet car is that it keeps [accelerating] even if the wheels have left the ground." Thrust 2's record still stood when Noble decided to aim for a more ambitious goal. While designing and building Thrust 2 was hard work, Noble remembers the battle for funding as even more difficult. "I needed about £100,000 [$160,000] worth of fuel, and nobody was going to help," Noble says. 7 ft 0 in – the height of the car measured to the top of the fins (2.1 m). Sadly the original, and compellingly mad, idea of using a Cosworth Formula 1 engine as a pump for the peroxide used as an oxidizer by the rocket motors has been canned. 12 miles – the length (20 km) of flat, dried-out lake bed available to the team at Black Rock. Andy Green, the person who was supposed to drive the SSC during its 1000-mph record attempt, says the car is now up for sale after the program's bankruptcy. Their next venture, called Bloodhound SSC, aimed to push the record to 1000 mph. The British have a long history of slightly unhinged motorsport projects, from shed-built hill-climb specials through to the Garagista teams who reinvented Formula 1 and sports-car racing in the 1950s and ’60s. He survived the wreck unscathed, sold the remains to a scrap merchant for about $300, and immediately began to plan his next car. As per the original plan, Bloodhound will use both jet and rocket power, and be driven by Andy Green, the serving RAF pilot who drove Thrust SSC …

Noble says the U.K.'s lengthy withdrawal from the European Union diverted attention. Thrust SSC holds the world land speed record, set on 15 October 1997, when it achieved a speed of 1,228 km/h (763 mph) and became the first land vehicle to officially break the sound barrier.. That didn't pan out. 1977 – the year in which Thrust 1 crashed during a run at RAF Fairford, due to a seized wheel bearing failure. Even with idling the team estimates the engine will run for less than two hours throughout everything from shakedown testing to the attempts on 1000 mph, which will be done with speed building incrementally over successive runs.