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Bloodhound SSC, the world's fastest car, is recently introduced to Chinese fans by its driver, Andy Green. Photo provided to China Daily |
Andy Green can move faster than sound even on the ground.
The 52-year-old British has held the world record for speed on land－by traveling in a vehicle－for the past 18 years.
He was in Beijing recently to introduce to Chinese racing fans a supersonic car named Bloodhound SSC that seeks to break his last record.
In 1997, Green broke the world record in Thrust SSC by achieving a speed of 1,228 kilometers per hour, becoming the first person to travel faster than sound at ground level. Now he is targeting a speed of more than 1,600 km/h with Bloodhound SSC. The car has the engine of a jet plane and can be controlled both manually and by a computer.
Bloodhound will be tested in the United Kingdom before it aims to set a new world record in South Africa this summer. Live videos and updates will be provided from the racing track as well. Using technology developed over decades, the Bloodhound team, led by Richard Noble (who was also the project director for Thrust SSC), is working with companies and UK universities on the speed project.
Green says his team is trying to reach the same audience globally in the digital age that NASA reached in 1969 when it made the United States the first country to send people to the moon.
The history of land speed records date back more than a century. In 1898, the world's first such record was made at 63 km/hr, slightly slower than the bicycle record at the time. The speed zoomed in the 20th century with the invention of jet engine. The British have dominated the field for most of its history, according to Green.
Green says that he is as nervous as an astronaut awaiting a space flight because the driving and the car design have to be really good to get the job done.
Recalling his past experiences in the cockpit-like area of such speedy cars, he says that the heat generated inside was usually overwhelming, and the jet engines were very noisy.
But those are common occurrences inside such high-speed cars.
