In 1997, Andy Green hit 760.3mph in his car, Thrust SSC, in the Black Rock Desert in the USA, setting the current land speed record.
Now, it seems, he's planning on breaking his own record, and this week he visited the site of his next attempt.
A team of three-hundred previously unemployed people have cleared ten million square metres of desert race track in the Hakskeen Pan in South Africa. It is on this 500m wide, 12-mile long stretch of track that Green plans to hit 1000mph.
The car in which Green plans to break the 1000mph barrier, Bloodhound SSC, is pretty impressive and is fitted with three engines. The first, a turbofan jet engine from a Eurofighter Typhoon, will take the car up to 300mph. After this, a custom-built rocket will take the car up to 1000mph and, on top of this, a 2.4-litre Cosworth F1 engine is used as an auxiliary power unit to feed power to the rocket.
Bloodhound SSC will be able to accelerate from 0-1000-0mph in 120 seconds -- which makes a Bugatti Veyron look pretty pathetic -- and Green will experience forces of up to 3g during his run. The car will also generate the thrust of 180 Formula One cars and its wheels will spin at up to 10,200 rpm, generating 50,000g at the rim.
The Bloodhound team should begin testing the car next year, with a view to setting the new land speed record in 2014.
