The fastest car on the planet: Part two

So, it hasn’t got any records, is clean out of funds and is parked alongside the last two LSR record holders…

‘It’s a safe space,’ says Mark Chapman, Bloodhound chief engineer. ‘It’s more a case of the project being stalled rather than being dumped in a museum. There were lots of people interested (and still discussions going on with potential funders), but there are far more important things going on in the world right now.’

It was a positive test, though, and a lot was learned, but then chief executive Ian Warhurst, the turbocharger spares magnate, who had stepped in to save the team when all seemed lost, never made any secret that his funding would only last to get the team out to Hakskeen Pan for the first trials, after which the car and the intellectual property rights embedded in it would go back on the market.

‘It’s very much still a live project,’ he posted on the team’s website last year, but no one has put their hands in their pockets so far, though you might reasonably point out that since 2019 we’ve had a world pandemic, war in Ukraine, spiked energy prices and a much greater appreciation of the effects of climate change. It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that this sort of ultimate speed record has had its day and, whisper it, seems rather beneath the more serious deliberations of the 21st century.

Yet the roots of the Bloodhound 1000mph LSR attempt lie very much in this century. It came out of a chance meeting in 2007 between Richard Noble, Thrust SSC team principal, Andy Green and Lord Drayson, then UK Government minister for defence equipment and support (and no mean race driver himself). What Paul Drayson wanted, besides the thrilling spectacle of a team chasing a four-figure speed on land, was to recreate what’s become known as the ‘Apollo Effect’; the apparent correlation between the numbers of PhDs awarded to American students during the years of the US manned space programme from 1961-72. In those 11 years, PhDs rose from 12,000 to 30,000 a year and fell away in 1972 with the last Apollo 17 moon shot.

The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the whole of the UK was (and remains) short of engineers and Drayson believed an iconic LSR project would inspire a new generation of engineers – he even defined the age range: 5-19 years.

So, from the outset, Bloodhound was no mere quixotic tilt at a four-figure land speed, it was an education project/recruitment sergeant, with tacit Government support. From the off, 5500 schools, colleges and universities signed up and there was some independent research showing the beginnings of a ‘mini–Apollo Effect’ already taking place.

As Noble pointed out at the time: ‘Young students can’t get into the bones of highly advanced defence projects or Formula 1 racing because of the secrecy involved, but with the Bloodhound project, they can see everything right down to the computational fluid dynamics.’

I used this justification to support the many Bloodhound stories I filed at The Telegraph on the basis that ‘if you haven’t heard of this, your children certainly will have.’

Chapman asserts that education is still a strong driver for the Bloodhound team. ‘The education thing is entirely genuine,’ he says, ‘and while it was initially aimed at primary and secondary schools, I would say it’s now far more holistic and does things like showcasing technology and industry that everybody is very much behind.’

Inspirational and educational, Bloodhound has ticked those boxes. I’ve seen school children building their model record breakers at Goodwood and if you just attend the Straightliners Speed Events at Elvington Aerodrome, you’ll see the very real lure of speed. My nephew Robbie English was part of a team that holds the current world record for the world’s fastest toilet, the Highly Advanced Water Closet (HAWC) Mark 1, which in September 2018 achieved a mean speed of 70.545mph over a two-way run. The four-strong team, all engineering enthusiasts at Harington School in Rutland, were supported by their teachers. ‘This real-life engineering project was a fantastic extension to their academic work,’ said a school spokesperson.

But environmental? Can an LSR car really give us lessons in staving off the worst effects of climate change? Well, yes, and as Chapman says: ‘With the fuel price, it is becoming more relevant.’

The move from hybrid rocket motor to mono propellant means Bloodhound will be burning High Test Peroxide (HTP), so the only emissions will be steam and oxygen. Moreover, the supercharged V8 Jaguar engine, which would have provided the power to the rocket’s fuel pumps (it was originally going to be a racing-spec V12) has now been replaced with an electric motor and a lithium-ion battery.

There’s also the question of the fuel for the Rolls-Royce EJ200 low-bypass turbofan engine from a Eurofighter. Initially it was suggested that the team use biofuel to replace its normal kerosene diet, but since biofuel suitable for jet engines is only available in Europe, the logistics of getting the fuel to Hakskeen Pan would have negated any environmental benefit from using it.

‘Now we’re looking at Synthetic Aviation Fuel (SAF),’ says Chapman. ‘What’s interesting about this fuel is you are gathering CO2 from the atmosphere, then combining it with hydrogen hydrolysed using renewable electricity, so it’s very low carbon.’

There’s also a legacy issue since the team would be making the fuel on site in South Africa with equipment and technology it would be bringing and leaving for the locals to use.

‘And that’s quite a big step to the project,’ says Chapman. ‘A lot of people would say that given the world crisis, the team has a timing issue, but on an environmental basis, Bloodhound is sending powerful signals that you can break a Land Speed Record without using petrol, diesel, kerosene or biofuel.’

But then there’s the money. Any student of LSR attempts will know that raising funds is a continual chore and getting and keeping sponsors is key to any successful attempt.

Even Donald Campbell, with his famous family name, struggled at the beginning in 1949 when he and Leo Villa disinterred his father Malcolm’s old boat, Bluebird K-4, and realised that the old man had sold the three experimental Rolls-Royce R engines to a car dealer as a job lot for £150. Turns out it was a canny move: to get them back, the dealer charged Campbell £750 along with one of his father’s Bluebird cars.

When Bloodhound was bought out by Warhurst it was claimed the funding shortfall was £25 million. Isn’t this supersonic car all about the money?

‘No,’ says Chapman, ‘I don’t believe it is and if it was about the money, we would never have got to South Africa in the first place.’

He defends the Bloodhound team from the criticism that they are merely indulgently beating their own records. ‘It’s all about advanced capability, new ideas and their dissemination,’ he says.

There are those who claim that speed record breaking has forwarded the performance of safety harnesses, crash helmets and fireproof clothing, but that could be the same for any of the equipment the attempt uses. As Wales said in the Brooklands debate: ‘The challenges are big and it’s the pushing at the boundaries that happens in these record-breaking attempts, which in turn allows us to push the boundaries of the technology.’

Put another way, whatever materials and technology you are using in your record attempt, you’ll be pushing at their performance limits and improving them. In the case of Bloodhound, that technology is extraordinarily complex. As Green pointed out at the debate: ‘By the time we launched Bloodhound 10 years ago, between 20,000 and 30,000 people had been involved in this “secret” project; that’s how complicated that level of tech is.’

Last year, Ian Warhurst posted that he felt the educational aims of the project would be best served by a temporary home at Coventry Transport Museum. ‘I want to make it clear that the museum is not a permanent home for the car,’ he said. ‘With such a strong following, the car should be on display and accessible to those who want to see it and visitor numbers at the museum over the past month have benefitted as a result. Its new location also gives Bloodhound Education a second base centrally located allowing them to continue their fantastic STEM inspiration in collaboration with the museum. Now that the car is on display, the team can focus its attention on raising the necessary funds to complete the final record-breaking phase.’

And if they are helping to develop the capability of a jet engine to run on zero carbon fuels then that’s a real benefit, though whether it’s the most effective way of developing that tech is a moot point.

And perhaps the biggest funding hurdle for Bloodhound is that the project’s benefits aren’t necessarily accruing directly to those who put up the money. Drayson might have wanted an Apollo Effect, but the schools, colleges and universities, which have benefitted aren’t fronting up the cash to fuel the Rolls-Royce EJ200, or pay the wages of the engineers. Nor, apart from a training/transport presence from the British Army, did the Government do much to keep the lights on.

It’s pretty clear that Bloodhound might never run again, although as Chapman points out: ‘This is a fantastic opportunity and when you look at the level of funding required to break the land-speed record from here on in, it’s a world-beating bargain. For the price of the Dieselmax [350mph, 750bhp streamlined record breaker powered by twin JCB engines, driven into the record books in 2006 by Andy Green], you could hold the world Land Speed Record, probably in perpetuity.’

And what would that record be? Chapman thinks for a minute.

‘Around the mid 800s,’ he says, thoughtfully, ‘and that would be to draw the line under it; to get to 1000mph we’d need a hybrid rocket. And even if you are going to get to 800mph plus speeds, it’s got to be thrust powered.’

Not even having a crack at the record would be a tragedy not just for Green, Chapman and the rest of the team, but also for anyone with even a hint of high-test peroxide in their veins – public support for the project has been phenomenal. But even Chapman reckons it’s probably the last of the speed-of-sound breakers, more dinosaur than dragon, then. At one time, these were the acme of white-hot technological development and glamour, but speed record breaking continues to have its place as battery electric, hydrogen fuel cell and various other slower records (even water closets) tempt those with a point to make and a war chest with which to make it.

So, given the jeopardy the great red-and-white beast is in, doesn’t Chapman regret not pushing that bit harder at Hakskeen Pan in 2019?

‘To be honest, I think the limit with just the jet engine would have been 650mph,’ he says. ‘After that we needed a rocket, for which the car was designed. There was also an issue with stopping as we were only running with one parachute.

‘The speed was limited and we wouldn’t have got any benefit from going faster than we did. We got all the aerodynamic data to reassure us that we could go faster and to prove our predictions and frankly we needed time to reflect on what we’d found out. I think the team did a fantastic job.’

Yes, they did, but I wouldn’t be alone in hoping they get a chance at the record. The team all got Montezuma’s revenge while out in Hakskeen Pan, but I’d risk even the dickiest of tummies to be there when Andy Green triggers the rocket motor and scorches across the desert to what might be the ultimate speed record ever posted…