Supersonic car targets 1,000mph

Urwumpe

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Hopefully among the last.
I mention him as he was probably the "heroic" type that was around when I was growing up. Endeavours are more calculated these days.

The lake surface on the first run look perfect, sadly not on the return.

M.

Its pretty bad if you make your own waves, but it was claimed that this was not the problem - rather him not being able to take ballast to make sure he has stability while getting lighter by burning fuel. I would maybe think about using hydrofoils there instead of gliding, gliding requires VERY careful balance already at low speeds.
 

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Bluebird looks incredibly stable at the first run, it looks almost out of the water.

N.
 

Urwumpe

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Bluebird looks incredibly stable at the first run, it looks almost out of the water.

N.

Yes, its gliding on the surface of the water and a cushion of air. That is also the problem - you get lighter, your CoG shifts and the center of pressure of the air cushion or the water can move pretty chaotic (In the sense of: Small change of CoG, big change of CoP)

If the CoP suddenly moves a large distance aft because of a almost invisible wave for a standing observer (which is a pretty steep wave for a Mach 0.5 fast boat), your bow will crash into the next wave and start to bounce, in the worst case at increasing amplitude.

That is pretty much what he reported via radio during his final seconds of life: He entered an instable regime and did not draw the right conclusions there, he should have aborted instead of throttling up. Instead, he increased the thrust, which increased the torque that pushed the bow down into the waves, worsening the oscillation. And then his engine failed deep in a wave, which then allowed it to bounce up too high to stay stable.

But as I see it, even with the engine running at full thrust, it was just a matter of time until his boat would have failed aerodynamically.
 

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Doesn't seem intuitive, you would think the rolling motion of the wheel would have less friction than sliding?

Why not just put skids on?

N.
 

Urwumpe

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Doesn't seem intuitive, you would think the rolling motion of the wheel would have less friction than sliding?

Why not just put skids on?

N.

I suspect the issue is what happens to the air around the wheel - at one point, you are no longer touching the ground, you are surfing on a small layer of air.
 

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It's a bit like space exploration. Technically you can do it uncrewed. But you can't then say "first man to be faster than ... on land" or "first man to land on the Moon". Loses it's meaning.
 

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A 1,000mph race car project has been saved after an entrepreneur stepped in to buy the business.
The Bloodhound supersonic vehicle - built with a jet engine bolted to a rocket - is all but finished.
Its future was in jeopardy amid a failure to secure investment which forced the firm financing it into administration.
But Yorkshire-based entrepreneur Ian Warhurst has bought the project for an "undisclosed amount".
Administrator Andrew Sheridan, said: "Ian has a strong background in managing highly successful businesses in the automotive engineering sector and he will bring considerable expertise to bear in taking the project forward.
"He will be outlining his plans for the project in detail early in the New Year."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-46591860

Hurrrah!

N.
 

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The 334mph run starts at around 4:20
 
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Urwumpe

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Only 200 mph faster than a Bugatti...
 

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Yes, and nearly as pretty.
 

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There getting faster 501mph and to think it has not got its booster yet (Hybrid Rocket Motor)

 

RisingFury

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Among bits and Bytes...
Now they only have to deal with:
- 4 times the drag
- 4 times the forces on the wheels
- trans sonic and supersonic effects
- increased control issues
- increased run length
- twice the speed
- twice the dippers

Oh... and they have yet to stick a rocket engine on it.
 
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