Thrust SSC, or Thrust SuperSonic Car, is a British jet car developed by Richard Noble, Glynne Bowsher, Ron Ayers, and Jeremy Bliss. It holds the world land speed record, set on 15 October 1997, when pilot Andy Green drove it at 1,228 km/h (763 mph), becoming the first land vehicle to break the sound barrier. Alongside Thrust2, it is displayed in the "Spirit of Speed Gallery" at the Coventry Transport Museum. The car measures 16.5 m long and 3.7 m wide, weighing 10.6 tons, with a thrust of 223 kN, powered by jet engines optimized for high-speed performance while managing ground effect.
Details
The jet was driven by Royal Air Force fighter pilot Wing Commander Andy Green in the Black Rock Desert in the US state of Nevada. It was powered by two afterburning Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan engines, as used in the British version of the F-4 Phantom II jet fighter. The twin engines developed a net thrust of 223 kN (50,000 lbf) at the measured record speed of 341 metres per second,3 burning around 18 litres/second (4.0 Imperial gallons/s or 4.8 US gallons/s) of fuel. This was about 4,850 L/100 km (0.06 mpg‑imp; 0.05 mpg‑US).
After the record was set, the World Motor Sport Council released the following message:
The World Motor Sport Council homologated the new world land speed records set by the team ThrustSSC of Richard Noble, driver Andy Green, on 15 October 1997 at Black Rock Desert, Nevada (USA). This is the first time in history that a land vehicle has exceeded the speed of sound. The new records are as follows:- Flying mile 1,227.985 km/h (763.035 mph)
- Flying kilometre 1,223.657 km/h (760.345 mph)
The complete run history is available.4[self-published source][non-primary source needed][dead link]
Legacy
In 1983 Richard Noble had broken the world land speed record with his earlier car Thrust2, which reached a speed of 1,019 km/h (633 mph). The date of Andy Green's record came exactly a half century and one day after Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in Earth's atmosphere, with the Bell X-1 research rocket plane on 14 October 1947.5
Both Thrust SSC and Thrust2 are displayed at the Coventry Transport Museum in Coventry, England. Visitors can ride a 4D motion simulator depicting a computer-generated animation of the record-breaking run from the perspective of Green.6
Several teams are competing to break the record, including the Bloodhound LSR project, launched in 2008,7 and previously the North American Eagle Project, from 2004 until the project's abandonment after a fatal crash in 2019.8
Richard Noble – Orange-Intel dispute
In June 2012, a television advertisement for the Orange San Diego mobile phone, containing an Intel processor, was broadcast on British television and featured a fast car in computer generated imagery. Richard Noble claimed that the car was a representation of Thrust SSC and thus these companies had used his intellectual property without permission, putting the future of the Bloodhound LSR project in doubt. The Advertising Standards Authority rejected the Bloodhound team's complaint, claiming that intellectual property disputes were not in its remit. According to BBC News technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones, Intel and Orange responded that their production team had researched different styles of "superfast vehicles" and developed their own Orange-branded land speed car, and that the advertisement and phone were not connected to Noble or Bloodhound LSR.9
See also
- Air speed record
- Budweiser Rocket
- List of vehicle speed records
- RAF High Speed Flight
- Rocket car
- Bloodhound LSR
Notes
- Richard Noble: Thrust: The Remarkable Story of One Man's Quest for Speed, Hardcover: Partridge, 1998, ISBN 1-85225-268-5; Paperback: Bantam, 1999, ISBN 0-553-81208-4
External links
- Media related to ThrustSSC at Wikimedia Commons
- Official Thrust SSC website (no longer being updated)
- Richard Noble
- Coventry Transport Museum where Thrust SSC is on display
- Photo-Diary by John Coppinger – including the aerial photo by Richard Meredith-Hardy showing the shock wave as Thrust SSC narrowly exceeds the speed of sound
- Thrust SSC the car and the run
- Thrust SSC Photos Pictures from Blackrock, Nevada – 15 October 1997
- Speed Record Club – The Speed Record Club seeks to promote an informed and educated enthusiast identity, reporting accurately and impartially to the best of its ability on record-breaking engineering, events, attempts and history.
References
ThrustSSC team, archived from the original on 27 April 2018 https://web.archive.org/web/20180427140909/http://www.thrustssc.com/thrustssc/Team/team.html ↩
Michelle, Walker. "Thrust SSC takes to the road". Retrieved 15 February 2017. https://www.collett.co.uk/thrust-2-and-scc/ ↩
The ThrustSSC Story, archived from the original on 12 May 2000 https://web.archive.org/web/20000512021948/http://www.thrustssc.com/thrustssc/contents-story.html ↩
Thrust SSC Run database, archived from the original on 5 February 2013[self-published source][non-primary source needed] http://www.thrustssc.com/Latest_News/Status-19971015.html ↩
Gill, Kathy. "First supersonic flight in rocket-powered research plane". WiredPen. Retrieved 15 October 2022. https://wiredpen.com/2022/10/14/first-supersonic-flight-in-rocket-powered-research-plane/ ↩
Coventry Transport Museum – Landspeed Gallery https://www.transport-museum.com/visiting/biffa_award_land_speed_record_exhibition.aspx ↩
Noble, Green and Team Target 1,000mph Record. Bloodhound Ssc (23 October 2008). http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/news/noble-green-and-team-target-1000mph-record ↩
Nash, Jim. "Rocket Man: Land-Speed Racer Pushes 1,000 MpH Barrier". Scientific American. Retrieved 9 March 2016. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/1000-mph-car-land-speed-record/ ↩
BBC News – Orange, Intel, and a fast car furore. BBC. (27 June 2012). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18607081 ↩