Watch this supersonic car hit 300 mph in less than 20 seconds
Science
You're looking at what in all likelihood is the fastest car on the planet.
If you haven't heard of the bloodhound LSR I'm stoked to get to tell you about it.
These guys are on a mission to break the current land speed record which was set back in 1997 at 760 miles per hour.
But saying breaking it might be an understatement.
[SOUND] The bloodhound team is hoping to hit 1000 miles per hour on the ground.
Think about that.
That's nearly twice as fast as a normal cruising speed of a Boeing 787.
The team spent the last week doing test runs on the LSR in a South African desert.
In case it's not obvious, LSR stands for Land Speed Record.
They started at 200 miles per hour and are incrementally going up by 50 miles per hour in each run.
The point it is, is to see how the onboard equipment holds up and how the [UNKNOWN] responds to these high speeds in different Conditions.
Now, speaking of conditions, to make sure that the vehicle has as smooth of a run as possible, they cleared out more than 16,000 tons of rock from a dry lake bed.
Those people in the orange are the workers who get all that labor.
And if you're like me, you're wondering just how much space you need for something like this.
Well, that track they cleared out is 12.4 miles or about 20 kilometres.
But to give you a reference to just how fast this thing is going, even with all that space the team is still worried about running out of desert That's why they're testing a two parachute braking system along with the traditional friction brakes.
Okay let's watch now as the LSR hit its fastest speed yet, going from 50 to 334 miles per hour in 13 seconds.
Let's go.
That's really good.
[SOUND]
[INAUDIBLE]
[MUSIC]
Now for this round of testing, the team is targeting a top speed of 500 miles per hour, and they've got some serious experience on their side.
The man behind the wheel is former Royal Air Force pilot Andy Green.
He set the current land speed record more than 20 years ago in the Thrust SSC.
Not only did that car set the record, it was also the first vehicle to break the sound barrier without leaving the ground.
Okay, back to the Bloodhound.
So right now, it's powered by a Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet engine.
[MUSIC]
That's the same engine found on a Eurofighter typhoon.
That gives it nearly ten tons of thrust, but when the team eventually tries to hit the 1,000 mile per hour mark, they're going to add a rocket propellant system.
Now, we don't have too many details on that just yet.
The wheels are solid aluminum discs.
That means there's no risk of a blow out.
The flip side of that being that they don't provide too much grip.
Okay, so what's next?
This around the testing is scheduled to wrap up in November then Blood Hound says it hopes to break the current land speed record late next year.
As far as that goal of hitting a thousand miles per hour, well there's no timetable for that just yet.
But I, for one, can't wait to see how this plays out.
That's gonna do it for this week.
I'm Andy [UNKNOWN], I'll see you in the future.
[MUSIC]
