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Transportation

Bad News For Land-Speed Record Fans As Bloodhound Goes Up For Sale (arstechnica.com) 63

Posted by BeauHD from the insert-coin-to-continue dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Bad news, land-speed record fans: the project to set a new 1,000mph (1,609km/h) speed record is yet again in serious doubt. On Monday morning, the Bloodhound Land Speed Record Project revealed that it's looking for a new owner in order to try and break the existing record. Whoever steps in will need pretty deep pockets, too -- almost $11 million, in fact. Trying to set a new land-speed record is probably one of the harder activities one can engage in. You need to design and build a vehicle capable of going faster than 763mph (1,228km/h), twice within an hour. You need to find somewhere flat enough to run the car, presumably away from neighbors who might get annoyed by the window-shattering sonic booms. And while all that sounds like a serious challenge, perhaps the biggest problem is finding the money to make it all happen. [...]

2019 was a good year for Bloodhound. It found a new owner who saved it from life as a museum curio, and it even arrived in South Africa for the start of high-speed testing. Although it was only equipped with its Rolls Royce EJ200 jet engine, Bloodhound still reached 628mph (1,010kmh) that year. But going faster will require integrating Bloodhound's other propulsion source, a monopropellant rocket made by Nammo (a Norwegian aerospace and defense company). And the cost to do that and then conduct the test program to set a new record will require about $11 million, according to current owner Ian Warhurst. In a statement, he said: "When I committed to take the car high-speed testing in 2019, I allocated enough funding to achieve this goal on the basis that alternative funding would then allow us to continue to the record attempts. Along with many other things, the global pandemic wrecked this opportunity in 2020 which has left the project unfunded and delayed by a further 12 months. At this stage, in absence of further, immediate, funding, the only options remaining are to close down the program or put the project up for sale to allow me to pass on the baton and allow the team to continue the project."
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Bad News For Land-Speed Record Fans As Bloodhound Goes Up For Sale More

Bad News For Land-Speed Record Fans As Bloodhound Goes Up For Sale

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  • Are bloodhounds fast? I think they're slower than most big dogs.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Maybe it's an ironic name. In which case they should name it after the slowest land mammal, the Greater Lumpy Creimer.

    • Bloodhounds are slow, but as long as they have a scent... they're very persistent.

      Does anyone actually care about land speed records anymore? This seems like an anachronistic throwback to a bygone era.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jd ( 1658 )

        I don't think it's about the record, that seems like an excuse to me. This seems to be about developing highy reliable, energy-efficient, technology for transmitting fuel, and for looking at the behaviour of air at supersonic velocities when air is not free to move in all directions equally.

        Not a whole lot is known about supersonic airflows under such conditions, although a lot was learned by studying the shockwaves left in the ground by Thrust-SSC. Does it matter? Actually, yes. There are situations where

    • They should rename it to the fastest animal in the world: Chicken-in-Ethiopia.

    • It's named after the Bristol Bloodhound SAM [wikipedia.org]. Ron Ayers, the chief aerodynamicist of Bloodhound SSC worked on the Bloodhound SAM.

      By the time the missile has just cleared the launcher it is doing 400 mph. By the time the missile is 25 feet from the launcher it has reached the speed of sound (around 720 mph). Three seconds after launch, as the four boost rockets fall away, it has reached Mach 2.5 which is roughly 1,800 mph

  • Those developers figured out a way to make semi trucks go much faster than that [wikipedia.org] (in reverse, no less), I'm sure they could help with this problem as well.

    • The problem is apparently no "wall street billionaire" wants to pay for it.

      • Spend all that money for a vehicle that they will never drive.... not happening.

        • I was going to say something along the lines of

          seeing as people are willing to spend $84.6m on a 1981 Francis Bacon painting, surely somebody would be willing pay to have kudo of their name alongside 'the 1st car to break 1,000 mph' in history books, even if they're not the driver.
          My uni named the business school after the man who donated 5 milllion GBP*

          But then reality struck. people who have the money and the interest are (were) already doing these kind of things - Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Paul Allen, et a

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tragedy ( 27079 )

            Something important to consider there is that if you buy a painting for 84.6 million dollars, you have not actually made a dent in your net worth. Someone with a net worth of one billion dollars might have one billion dollars in cash, but they're more likely to have something like $50 million in cash, $200 million in real estate, $550 million in stocks/bonds/other investment vehicles and $200 million in rare art, cars, etc. So, they aren't spending wealth in the same way the rest of us might spend our wealt

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Land speed records are not sexy enough, they all want to launch phallic objects into space.

      • C'mon, if you got a thousand dollars, you won't buy an eleven dollar trinket for your girlfriend?

    • Why spend $11M going at 1,000 mph across a desert in what is really just a low-flying rocket with wheels rather than a car when you can send your actual car towards Mars at over 40,000 mph? It's certainly not a land-speed record but it's definitely a lot more impressive and, as a test of an interplanetary launch system, far more useful.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jd ( 1658 )

        Actually, the car was a complete waste of everyone's time and was hardly useful. They could have launched bags of cement with equal effect.

        Bloodhound, on the other hand, pushes engineering to new levels and provides new, valuable, data on supersonic fluid dynamics. Both of these will contribute to technology in many fields, whereas the bag of cement with wheels contributes nothing.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tragedy ( 27079 )

          Relax. The car was just a little bit of fun. They needed some mass for the test, so they used a car instead of some other inert payload. Sure it would have been better if they had some sort of useful satellite they could have sent, but they didn't. So they used a car. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by idji ( 984038 )
      The real problem is that no-one cares and the entire exercise is irrelevant. Just this week China unveiled superconducting levitating trains that will eventually do faster-than-plane travel. We are waiting for scram jets to be real and single-stage-to-orbit to happen. Orbital Class rockets landing on boats is now ho-hum. We are waiting to see starships refuel each other in space and land after achieving orbit, and then relaunch within hours. Racing across a salt flat is so 1950s.

      • Re:11 mil? Pennies to our Wall Street billionaires (Score:5, Informative)

        by jd ( 1658 ) <imipakNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Tuesday January 26, 2021 @06:10AM (#60992580) Homepage Journal

        You won't get scramjets that can carry much of anything until we understand what went wrong with NASA's attempts.

        We won't understand that until we understand better supersonic airflows and improve our modelling of them.

        We won't have the engineering skills needed until we understand better what defects are acceptable and what tolerences we can get away with. Bloodhound delivers all of this.

        It is not, and never has been, about the record. I am ashamed to be associated with geeks who look only at the PR and not at the technology and science.

        • You won't get scramjets that can carry much of anything until we understand what went wrong with NASA's attempts.

          We won't understand that until we understand better supersonic airflows and improve our modelling of them.

          We won't have the engineering skills needed until we understand better what defects are acceptable and what tolerences we can get away with. Bloodhound delivers all of this.

          Horseshit. Bloodhound isn't operating in the same environment as the scramjets, and NASA (and the DoD) are pouring enormous amounts of money into their projects. (And using the supercomputers and experienced aerodynamicists and engineers that Bloodhound doesn't and never will have.) Pretty much the same thing goes for the engineering. (Bloodhound is the peak of 1950's, maybe 1960's engineering.)
           
          Bloodhound is not a serious engineering or research project. It's an amateur affair on the cutting edge of decades old technology.
           

          It is not, and never has been, about the record. I am ashamed to be associated with geeks who look only at the PR and not at the technology and science.

          Someone who has no clue as to the engineering and science shouldn't be looking down on people who very obviously do.

  • Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill. $11 million is hardly a lot of money, 1 benefactor or a small collection of minor ones can easily cover that, it is chump change for most car sports outfits and as for places to run it that is also a long solved problem with a few sites around the world that are appropriate. The only true problems here are the engineering ones.

    • Most potential investors look for some return from their investment. They want to either get money, useful knowledge or recognition. Obviously the speed record won't generate money, knowledge gained is extremely niche and fame from it is likely just a short mention in very many news sources (in curios section) that likely won't even mention the sponsor name.

      Basically you need someone that is rich and personally interested in such project, which is no longer so easy.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mattr ( 78516 )

        Like Netflix..

      • Dudes absolutely cray cray if he thinks someone would PAY money to buy it off from him.

        Maybe it should have been a foundation structured thing in the first place, easier to get money from donators.

        More than that he already sold all the sponsorship placements on it didn't he? Why the f is everything perpetual in the future anyway hasnt this been like a decade plus long business venture at this point

    • Their history shows otherwise. The program has been financed by a selection of minor sponsors plus crowdfunding for years. At some point (2019, IIRC), they were unable to find more sponsors to fund the final push (test campaign, rocket integration, record campaign). A millionaire bought the project and funded the test campaign, he's the one trying to sell the project now.

  • Not a real land speed record anyway (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WierdUncle ( 6807634 ) on Tuesday January 26, 2021 @05:31AM (#60992520)

    The last real land speed record was 403.1 MPH in 1964, Bluebird, driven by Donald Campbell. That was when land spreed record vehicles had to derive forward thrust from driven wheels. The rules then changed to allow rocket and jet propulsion. Since then, there has been a succession of aircraft that fail to take off, which is cheating, in my opinion.

    The "failing to take off" aspect is interesting, though. Look at how racing car body design has changed since the 60's. Streamlined "teardrop" shapes were common back in the day. Modern cars are wedge-shaped, with negative wings to create downthrust. Engines are now so powerful that air friction losses are less of a problem than staying on the track.

    • Re:Not a real land speed record anyway (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jd ( 1658 ) <imipakNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Tuesday January 26, 2021 @06:17AM (#60992590) Homepage Journal

      That may have been the last direct drive land speed record, but all classes of land speed record are still land speed records.

      So what if it's a GEV? The fact is, the record is immaterial. We simply don't know how theory compares with practice for a GEV at 1000 MPH. Nor do we understand the implications on engineering.

      Take Thrust SSC for example. It can't do another run, the damage done to the vehicle meant it was lucky to complete two without breaking up. That taught us an enormous amount. As did the shockwaves left in the ground. We now know far more about supersonic airflow when constrained than we ever did before.

      If you want to build a waverider, that's quite handy. Likewise, if you want a horizontal takeoff spaceplane. Without Thrust SSC, you could build them (eg: HOTOL) but any attempt to do so would require you learn exactly the same things. Only in a much more expensive vehicle with a greatly reduced chance of discovering what went wrong.

      • Arguments over the definition of "land speed record" go back almost to the beginning. For example, when Craig Breedlove broke the 400mph barrier in the Spirit of America, the FIA refused to recognize it as a record because the vehicle only had 3 wheels, not the 4 required.

        The FIM was more than happy to qualify it as a motorcycle, though :-)

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • a succession of aircraft that fail to take off, which is cheating, in my opinion.

      Given the difficulty of achieving "fail to take off" at 1000 km/h, I don't consider it to be cheating. IIRC on Bloodhound, a 1degree difference in the angle of incidence is the difference between the car trying to tunnel (due to 5 tons of downforce) or taking off. It's quite a feat of aerodynamics to do this safely.

      • My "aircraft failing to take off" comment was meant partly in jest. Achieving this is indeed a major engineering problem, and not to be trivialised.

        I read some time ago that the downthrust on an F1 car is about a ton. My investigation was into power dissipation in dampers on the suspension. Due to continual vibration as the wheels go over a slightly uneven road surface, the dampers have to dissipate a lot of power, and they get hot. Similar problems of heat dissipation occur on heavy goods vehicles suspensi

    • I think I agree with this. It seems a lot more impressive to me to see a glorified race car go >400 mph than a rocket on wheels go >700 mph.

      That said, both have interesting and unique engineering challenges that may inform real-world applications. So I'm all for bloodhound continuing its efforts. I just wish the direct-drive land speed record was still being pursued. (Maybe it is and I'm not aware of it)

      • Re: Not a real land speed record anyway (Score:5, Interesting)

        by hackertourist ( 2202674 ) on Tuesday January 26, 2021 @07:32AM (#60992670)

        The DD record is still being pursued [gregwapling.com], it currently stands at 738 km/h (for turbine-powered cars) and 706 km/h for piston-powered cars.

        These are far more low-key affairs than Bloodhound, mostly limited by available engine power using off-the-shelf engines (usually derived from dragracing engines).

        • The DD record is still being pursued [gregwapling.com], it currently stands at 738 km/h (for turbine-powered cars) and 706 km/h for piston-powered cars.

          These are far more low-key affairs than Bloodhound, mostly limited by available engine power using off-the-shelf engines (usually derived from dragracing engines).

          Here is an interesting story about one that pegs the fun meter. [bringatrailer.com]

          Fair warning to gearheads: Bring a Trailer is a great timewaster as you lust for the cars on it...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 )

      The last real land speed record was 403.1 MPH in 1964, Bluebird, driven by Donald Campbell. That was when land spreed [sic] record vehicles had to derive forward thrust from driven wheels.

      The fastest wheel-driven piston powered vehicle in history is George Poteet's Speed Demon. Official two way average speed was 470 MPH in August 2020.

  • I'm all for these efforts as they push engineering limits and inspire future engineers. Does anyone know of concrete examples where these pursuits (Bloodhound or other LSR efforts) have provided valuable feedback to aerodynamic or flow models, or rocket or vehicle design outside of LSR? e.g. have they discovered the models underlying CFD calculations break down at a certain flow velocities, leading to improvements in the CFD calculations. (Just an example, no clue if that's even an real issue)

    I'm just tryi

    • Thrust SSC was instrumental in validating early CFD software. The chief aerodynamicist made CFD a condition for doing the project ('if we can't prove it's safe, we're not doing it'). They worked with Swansea University, doing the CFD and then validating their result with sled tests, which showed their CFD results were viable. Both the Thrust and Bloodhound worked with industry and universities to share knowledge.

      Earlier project were often much more 'by the seat of the pants' (although e.g. Sunbeam used LSR

  • So that Tesla owners can dream

  • Little more than a vehicle for the Brits to carry on feeding their delusions of grandeur.
  • How do you sell an attempt to beat a record? How do you buy one? What does it even mean to own an attempt to do something? It's not worth anything, it's a money-pit vanity-project.

    In other words - shouldn't they be looking for sponsors instead of buyers?

  • Spend the night with me and you just stay happy! I am waiting for you here ==>> http://bit.do/fMXmu [bit.do]

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