Even if it wasn't in a Triumph, a British Car
once again holds the World Land Speed Record!
And to think that my TR6 uses Castrol oil, too!
(From Reuter's news service at
http://www.yahoo.com/headlines/news
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Monday October 13 8:41 PM EDT
Jet Car Breaks Sound Barrier
By Adrian Croft
GERLACH, Nev. (Reuters) - The jet-engined British Thrust SuperSonic
Car broke the sound barrier twice on land Monday, but under
international racing rules, it failed by one minute to set a supersonic
land speed record.
It took British fighter pilot Andy Green 61 minutes to drive a car
twice at the land speed of sound in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. But
the rules require him to do it twice in one hour -- even though he
was the first person ever to accomplish the feat.
Team leader Richard Noble said, "We were so near but yet so far."
He said the team was considering trying again Tuesday, the 50th
anniversary of the first supersonic flight, by Chuck Yeager.
Yeager will celebrate his accomplishment of Oct. 14, 1947, by
repeating it at ceremonies at California's Edwards Air Force base.
The speed for the British car's first run was 764.168 mph. The
second run reached a speed of 760.135 mph.
The speed of sound, which varies according to altitude and
temperature, averaged around 760 mph during the two runs.
The first run was about 1 percent higher than the speed of sound
and the second run just fractionally over. Each run was accompanied
by two short pops, indicating that the supersonic barrier had been
broken on land.
Green began his first run when his girlfriend, Jayne Millington,
operating the desert track's sound system, said, "SSC (SuperSonic Car)
clear for supersonic (run) at your discretion." Then he roared
off, sending up black dust clouds.
When the timekeepers announced that Green had broken the speed
of sound on land, scores of onlookers and journalists cheered
and crowded around team leader Noble, who said: "It is quite
a moment. We have actually achieved the first ever timed
supersonic run in history. It is a great moment."
Green and Noble have worked for years to achieve their dream.
Critics have said it is risky to drive a car through the sound
barrier, when a vehicle is under enormous pressures that would
normally try to lift it into the air.
The Thrust SuperSonic Car set a world land speed record of
714 mph on Sept. 25, shattering the previous record of 633 mph
set in 1983 by Noble.
The Thrust car consists of a pencil-shaped fuselage flanked by
two huge Rolls-Royce engines from a Phantom jet fighter. The
10-ton vehicle has the power of 1,000 Ford Escorts or 141
Formula One cars.
Thrust is more like an airplane than a car, and many of the
experts and engineers on the team have an aerospace or Royal
Air Force background.
Green, selected to drive the car after reading about Noble's
project in a newspaper, is on leave from the RAF. He has not
shown any sign of nerves about his assignment, of which he
says, "This is just like driving a jet fighter and nothing
like driving a saloon (sedan) car."
Team officials will not reveal the total cost of the project
but say it is in the millions of dollars.
The project was started in 1993, when Noble heard rumors that
rivals planned an assault on the speed record he had set
10 years earlier when he drove Thrust's predecessor, Thrust 2,
in the Black Rock Desert.
This time Noble decided he needed to devote himself full time
to getting the car built and raising money, tasks at which he
worked tirelessly, and he regretfully handed over the driving
to Green. Noble is now 51 and Green 35.
Unlike most such projects, the Thrust SuperSonic Car has no one
major sponsor. British companies Castrol and BTR are the largest
corporate sponsors. Around 230 companies from Britain and other
countries donated money and services.
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Kenneth B. Streeter | EMAIL: streeter@sanders.com
Sanders, PTP2-A001 |
PO Box 868 | Voice: (603) 885-9604
Nashua, NH 03061 | Fax: (603) 885-0631
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