Speaker 1: I and welcome to the fast Track. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Scott Benjamin, and today we've got a topic that is
Speaker 1: something that has just been fascinating to me from the
Speaker 1: very beginning, since I was a really young child. And
Speaker 1: I want to tell you a little bit about that
Speaker 1: in just a moment. But I guess there's a couple
Speaker 1: of kind of housekeeping things that I want to get
Speaker 1: out of the way early on, because you're gonna hear
Speaker 1: some some paper shoveling along the way here. I'm looking
Speaker 1: at a sea of notes in front of me. I've
Speaker 1: got a laptop, I've got my phone going, I've got
Speaker 1: all kinds of things happen here. And I just wanted
Speaker 1: to tell you that if you do hear some of
Speaker 1: that paper shoveling, that is me going through a series
Speaker 1: of notes, are looking for information that um is all
Speaker 1: over the place because there's a lot there's a lot
Speaker 1: of information about today's topic. And and today's topic is,
Speaker 1: by the way, uh, the fastest car on Earth. And
Speaker 1: it's the outright fastest car, the outright record holder, the
Speaker 1: land speed record holder. And I'll give you some history
Speaker 1: about it. I'm going to talk about the car itself,
Speaker 1: the driver, you know, the search for the driver, you
Speaker 1: know how all that happened. And it's something that has
Speaker 1: just fascinated me from the very beginning, because when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, and this goes way way back into
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen seventies, early nineteen seventies. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: how long ago this was. I for Christmas, I wanted
Speaker 1: a gift that was a hard copy version or hardcover
Speaker 1: version of the Guinness Book of World Records, and right
Speaker 1: that right there shows you how long ago this was.
Speaker 1: You can just look that up online now, of course.
Speaker 1: And I did get that as a gift, and one
Speaker 1: of the first things that I flipped to would be
Speaker 1: the automotive records, anything that was, you know, the fastest,
Speaker 1: the longest cars, you know, the most outrageous cars, most expensive,
Speaker 1: whatever it happened to be at the time. But one
Speaker 1: of the things that really piqued my attention was the
Speaker 1: fastest car in the world. Of course, and at the time, uh,
Speaker 1: there was a car that was out there that was
Speaker 1: called the Blue Flame and it was the nineteens. The
Speaker 1: records broken nineteen seventy. But this is a rocket powered
Speaker 1: car and it achieved a speed of about six hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty two miles per hour. And that was again
Speaker 1: back in nineteen seventy. Uh, that's really moving even now.
Speaker 1: That's really really fast for now. But that record held,
Speaker 1: I believe, until about nineteen eighty three. And so you
Speaker 1: can hear this one. That paper shuffling happened right now.
Speaker 1: That record was broken by a guy named Richard Noble,
Speaker 1: or at least he held the record in three I
Speaker 1: should say, in a car called the Thrust two, and
Speaker 1: that achieved about six thirty four miles per hour. So
Speaker 1: we're not talking about a huge, huge increase there. We're
Speaker 1: talking about it like twelve miles per hour was all
Speaker 1: he bested the other record by at that point. And
Speaker 1: then fourteen years later along comes a guy named Andy Green.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about Andy Green in another section here
Speaker 1: in this show. But you know the search for him
Speaker 1: and who he is and and uh you know why
Speaker 1: he was qualified to drive this vehicle. But he is
Speaker 1: the current outright Lands speed record holder right now for
Speaker 1: the one mile and the one kilometer, the flying mile
Speaker 1: and the flying kilometer. And these are f i A records,
Speaker 1: their official records. They were time by USAC officials. These
Speaker 1: that's the United States Auto Club, and that is the
Speaker 1: the officiating group that makes all of this, um well official,
Speaker 1: uh you know, they're the ones that have to measure
Speaker 1: the record in order to make it, to make it so,
Speaker 1: and of course gain US you know, records this as well.
Speaker 1: But in October of n so that's fourteen years after
Speaker 1: Richard Noble broke the record, um you know, by again
Speaker 1: twelve miles per hour, along comes Andy Green in the
Speaker 1: thrust S s C. And the thrust S SC is
Speaker 1: the vehicle that we will focus on today. But the
Speaker 1: record that he he achieved on that day, or on
Speaker 1: October fifteen, and there were many many runs which I
Speaker 1: guess we'll we'll talk about a little bit, but not
Speaker 1: in depth. We want to talk about the main record
Speaker 1: breaking runs. But the the average speed that he achieved
Speaker 1: on October was seven one hundred and sixty three point
Speaker 1: zero three five miles per hour. That is a supersonic speed.
Speaker 1: So this car was designed with the idea that they
Speaker 1: were going to go supersonic. And it's again that's another
Speaker 1: little something we're gonna touch on here. And you know
Speaker 1: what what it takes to go supersonic in a car.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. The the the engineering that has to go
Speaker 1: into this vehicle in order to make this happen. I
Speaker 1: should tell you that the the average I say it's
Speaker 1: the average speed, UH is seven sixty three point zero
Speaker 1: three five. Because you have to make two runs. You
Speaker 1: have to make a run both directions. You know what,
Speaker 1: it's north south east west in this case, I believe
Speaker 1: it was a north south run. So the first run
Speaker 1: was run at seven hundred and fifty nine point three
Speaker 1: three three miles per hour. The second run was seven
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty six point six zero nine. They average
Speaker 1: the two together to get the seven sixty three. Again,
Speaker 1: that is a you start measuring in mock speeds at
Speaker 1: that point, so this is mock point one zero two zero.
Speaker 1: So they just broke the sound barrier in this vehicle,
Speaker 1: which is incredibly impressive for a vehicle. Now this is
Speaker 1: a of course, it's a vehicle that has to be
Speaker 1: um on land when it breaks this. It can't be
Speaker 1: a low flying aircraft, which we'll also discuss. You know, actually,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to talk about that right now,
Speaker 1: because I think this is one of those like fascinating
Speaker 1: little bits of information that comes up. Uh that that
Speaker 1: maybe not a lot of people understand. The car looks
Speaker 1: like a like like a jet. If you look up
Speaker 1: to thrust SSC, which I encourage you to do on
Speaker 1: um you know, just Google, image search or whatever, it's
Speaker 1: very simple to look it up. Um. The car, of course,
Speaker 1: it was designed by math and science. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that's why it shaped the way it is. But it's
Speaker 1: two enormous engines, which which we'll talk about in a
Speaker 1: bit too, which is the uh the giant Rolls Royce
Speaker 1: jet engines. And then there's like a pencil shape in
Speaker 1: the middle like a fuselage. And it's a very very
Speaker 1: long vehicle. I want to say, it's like fifty four
Speaker 1: ft long. Well, we'll talk about length and in a
Speaker 1: moment as well. Boy, I'm promising a lot. I hope
Speaker 1: I get to all this. I really do. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll see. I'll do my best to get to everyone
Speaker 1: that I say we'll talk out. But the car itself,
Speaker 1: it looks like it does look like a rocket ship
Speaker 1: on land or or jet on land. And one of
Speaker 1: the fascinating things about this is that the car does
Speaker 1: have to remain in contact with the Earth through the
Speaker 1: whole run through the entire measured mile or measured kilometer
Speaker 1: as it may be that we're going to talk about, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, how they how they get this and how
Speaker 1: long it takes to get up to speed and all that,
Speaker 1: but uh, they do actually look the full distance and
Speaker 1: make sure that you know that the cars leaving a treadmark,
Speaker 1: not treadmarks, but but tire marks on the surface for
Speaker 1: that whole time. Now, one thing that complicated this is
Speaker 1: that you know, and you know other vehicles they're they're
Speaker 1: measuring to make sure that you know it's again, it's
Speaker 1: not like a low flying aircraft. They don't just fly,
Speaker 1: you know, like a foot above the ground for that
Speaker 1: distance because then there isn't the rolling resistance that there
Speaker 1: would be with any uh you terrestrial vehicles. So the
Speaker 1: one thing that complicated all this with with this vehicle
Speaker 1: is that because there was there was a sonic boom
Speaker 1: that was associated with this vehicle. And of course you
Speaker 1: know it's a it's a an arid environment. It was
Speaker 1: the record is broken in the Black Rock Desert in
Speaker 1: Nevada Lass, not Las Vegas, but in Nevada um north
Speaker 1: kind of like the northwest corner of Nevada. And one
Speaker 1: thing that the Sonic Boom did was it's sort of
Speaker 1: not disintegrated, but it kind of it kind of made
Speaker 1: the tire tracks difficult to see. I mean it kind
Speaker 1: of blasted them away as it went over as well. So, um,
Speaker 1: it was difficult for them to to to prove, but
Speaker 1: they did in fact see that there were tire tracks
Speaker 1: the whole way. So I always find that fascinating. And
Speaker 1: I think maybe we can talk about wheels in just
Speaker 1: a moment too, because the wheels are interesting on this car.
Speaker 1: Everything about this vehicle is fascinating. I've been reading some
Speaker 1: of these these websites that are you know, like maybe
Speaker 1: engineering sites or you know sites were they're just fans
Speaker 1: that are just as deeply excited about this as I am.
Speaker 1: And you know they'll they'll talk about these little tiny
Speaker 1: things that make this car different to unique and and
Speaker 1: special in some way. And um, the course it's out
Speaker 1: like any other car that you would see on the road,
Speaker 1: it's it's a lot different. Um. I said that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's powered by jet engines and in fact it's two
Speaker 1: rolls Royce spay Turbofan engines. And initially they were the
Speaker 1: Rolls Royce Spay two two models, and then eventually they
Speaker 1: went up to the Rolls Royce Spay two oh five models.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of interesting facts about those engines
Speaker 1: and the speeds and you know, the um all kinds
Speaker 1: of things we need to talk about. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: I mentioned just a moment ago that this car did
Speaker 1: break the sound barrier, and one thing that we should
Speaker 1: note here is that the sound barrier varies by by
Speaker 1: altitude and even by temperatures. So, uh, you know, when
Speaker 1: we're talking about the place that this vehicle broke the record,
Speaker 1: I think it was, the altitude is something like and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember this off the top of my head,
Speaker 1: but it's like three thousand nine feet above sea level.
Speaker 1: So at sea level, the sound barrier is something like
Speaker 1: seven hundred and sixty one and it has to be
Speaker 1: fifty degrees fahrenheit. So that's how particular that is, right,
Speaker 1: So it changes. So if you go up to between oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you a meters uh measurement here,
Speaker 1: not feet. I don't know why I'm doing that, but
Speaker 1: eleven thousand to twenty thousand meters above sea level, the
Speaker 1: speed drops down to about six hundred and sixty miles
Speaker 1: per hour at negative seventy degrees fahrenheit, So the temperatures
Speaker 1: very greatly, the speeds very that's almost that's almost a
Speaker 1: hundred miles per hour off when you get to a different,
Speaker 1: different altitude, so very specifically for this record, you know,
Speaker 1: at three thousand, nine hundred feet above sea level, when
Speaker 1: you know Andy Andy Green piloted this vehicle at seven
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty three miles per hour. He was breaking
Speaker 1: the speed barrier, the sound barrier, which I think is
Speaker 1: is just fascinating. All that, you know changes, so you know,
Speaker 1: when people try to break this record elsewhere, uh, they're
Speaker 1: gonna have to deal with with stuff like that as well.
Speaker 1: Now this happened again. This happened on October fifteenth, and
Speaker 1: of course there was an official press release that went
Speaker 1: out and I'll read just a little bit of this
Speaker 1: because this is how kind of the world became aware
Speaker 1: of this. It says the World the World Motorsport Council
Speaker 1: hamligated a new world land speed records set by the
Speaker 1: team thrust S sc of Richard Noble, who is the
Speaker 1: owner of the team or the founder of the team,
Speaker 1: along with about three other people by the way, driver
Speaker 1: Andy Green on fifteenth of October at Black Rock Desert, Nevada, USA.
Speaker 1: This is the first time in history that a land
Speaker 1: vehicle has exceeded the speed of sound. The new records
Speaker 1: are as follows, and they give the flying mile and
Speaker 1: the flying kilometer. Of course they measure different ways. Of course,
Speaker 1: this is a British team, and you know here in
Speaker 1: the US we don't necessarily measure kilometers all the time.
Speaker 1: We go with with miles and feet and all that.
Speaker 1: And just for a heads up for everybody out there,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the we're talking about the difference
Speaker 1: between the metric system and the imperial system. I think
Speaker 1: everybody knows that. But one kilometer is equivalent to about
Speaker 1: zero points six miles, which is about three thousand, two
Speaker 1: eighty feet if you want to break it down that way,
Speaker 1: and one mile, of course um is about five thousand,
Speaker 1: two hundred and eighty feet if you're using the imperial system.
Speaker 1: And the way that they break this down again, the
Speaker 1: flying mile and the flying kilometer, these are the measured
Speaker 1: distances where the actual record is taking place. So you
Speaker 1: know there's a ramp up to speed at full speed.
Speaker 1: They measure it from a starting point a finished point
Speaker 1: and uh, and then there's a slowdown area. And of course,
Speaker 1: you know, the only thing that they really care about
Speaker 1: is that one mile or that one kilometer, and they
Speaker 1: called the flying mile or the flying kilometer. The flying
Speaker 1: mile speed we've already talked about many times, seven hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty three point zero three five miles per hour.
Speaker 1: The flying kilometer again, that shorter distance is about seven
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty point three four three miles per hour,
Speaker 1: so that means he was gaining speed as he was
Speaker 1: going farther and farther. Now, the end of the the
Speaker 1: end of the press release, it's a very short line.
Speaker 1: It just says in setting the record, the sound barrier
Speaker 1: was broken in both the north and south runs. And
Speaker 1: this is from Paris, the eleventh of November, so roughly
Speaker 1: about a month after the you know, to verify all
Speaker 1: the speeds everything, um, I will tell you this. I
Speaker 1: will tell you that I did a quick thing. I
Speaker 1: went to a speed distance time calculator and I inserted
Speaker 1: the numbers and it just gave me a rough number.
Speaker 1: Because the numbers are so large that it doesn't exactly
Speaker 1: give me. It doesn't give me the most detailed number
Speaker 1: that I that I wanted. It's more rounded two seconds.
Speaker 1: But um, I put in the numbers and the speeds
Speaker 1: for the mile, and the the speeds given, and according
Speaker 1: to this this car, this thrust s sc went through
Speaker 1: that one mile uh section, So you know, one mile
Speaker 1: from start to finish, exactly one mile five thousand feet
Speaker 1: in roughly you know, four and a half seconds something
Speaker 1: like that, So a full mile. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: we can all picture what a mile is and imagine
Speaker 1: that going by in about four and a half seconds.
Speaker 1: And the kilometer speed, of course was even even faster
Speaker 1: than that. I think there was about three seconds. Of course,
Speaker 1: that's only just a little bit over half a mile
Speaker 1: in distance really if you want to look at it
Speaker 1: that way. Um, but the kilometer, the flying kilometer was
Speaker 1: done and just over three seconds, so really really fast.
Speaker 1: I mean again, nothing really can relate. You can't really
Speaker 1: relate to anything like that on Earth, so it's it's
Speaker 1: a very difficult thing to relate to. But but just
Speaker 1: picture that the next time you're traveling on the road,
Speaker 1: and you can kind of if maybe you can even
Speaker 1: look ahead a mile and imagine being at that point
Speaker 1: you know, in in four and a half seconds. It's
Speaker 1: just it's a mind blow. It's an astounding record that's
Speaker 1: been broken. And we've got a lot more to cover here.
Speaker 1: We've got, you know, several other topics that I want
Speaker 1: to talk about. In fact, i'd like to talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, getting somebody to drive this thing, somebody who
Speaker 1: can pilot this thing successfully and uh, and the steps
Speaker 1: and processes that they went through to do that. And
Speaker 1: we will do that in just a moment after we
Speaker 1: take a break for a word from our sponsor. And
Speaker 1: we are back and you're listening to the fast Track,
Speaker 1: and I'm your host, Scott Benjamin, and we were just
Speaker 1: before the break saying that we were going to to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about UM, how they found the driver,
Speaker 1: how they how they selected somebody to drive this uh,
Speaker 1: this incredible machine. UM had such an amazing speed on land.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna get to that, I promise you I will.
Speaker 1: But there's a couple of things that I think I
Speaker 1: may have kind of skirted over here at the at
Speaker 1: the beginning that I need to go back to. And uh,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the engines just a little bit,
Speaker 1: and ways we said that it's Rolls Royce Spay two
Speaker 1: oh five turbo jet engines. These things, between the two
Speaker 1: of them produced an approximate one hundred thousand horse power.
Speaker 1: I've seen numbers a little bit higher than that, a
Speaker 1: hundred and ten thousands something like that, but we're talking
Speaker 1: about a ballpark of about a hundred thousand horse power
Speaker 1: between them. And I know that they're typically measured in
Speaker 1: thrust output and all that, but to be honest, for
Speaker 1: a lot of us, it doesn't really make a whole
Speaker 1: lot of sense of exactly what that what that means.
Speaker 1: And um, the reason that they um are have to
Speaker 1: be so powerful is because well, you know, as you
Speaker 1: as you get going faster and faster and faster, and
Speaker 1: we've seen this with you know, some of the other
Speaker 1: land speed record attempt so you know, with with other
Speaker 1: vehicles with piston engine vehicles, with wheel driven cars, and
Speaker 1: that is that the faster you go, the more wind
Speaker 1: resistance there is against you. And and it just it's
Speaker 1: like this this um this give and take, this push
Speaker 1: and pull that happens where you need more power, but
Speaker 1: there's more force coming against you and more power more
Speaker 1: forced against you. And even in a car that shaped
Speaker 1: the way that the thrust SSC is shaped, which is
Speaker 1: very I mean extremely aerodynamic. You wouldn't think you could
Speaker 1: design a vehicle more aerodynamic than this if you were
Speaker 1: to look at it. Um, it's it's unbelievable how much
Speaker 1: pushback there is against this vehicle. I mean, I've seen
Speaker 1: numbers and they like to do you know, comparisons like
Speaker 1: this number of tons that you know, tons of force
Speaker 1: that are against the vehicle and at that speed, you know,
Speaker 1: at the at the high rate of speed that it's
Speaker 1: going seven sixty plus miles per hour, it's something like
Speaker 1: it's got the equivalent of like like pulling three three
Speaker 1: and a half full size elephants behind it or something
Speaker 1: like that. You know, it's like that's the amount of
Speaker 1: drag on the vehicle as it's trying to push itself forward.
Speaker 1: So um, it's it just becomes expon actually more and
Speaker 1: more difficult the faster that you go. And I figured
Speaker 1: I just mentioned that at at this point because we're
Speaker 1: talking about some of the more interesting numbers. I guess
Speaker 1: that go along with us. And at the rear of this, uh,
Speaker 1: this whole thing at the rear of the craft. Um
Speaker 1: and they do call it a craft, not a car.
Speaker 1: That's a craft. Um, the temperatures can be more than
Speaker 1: three hundred degrees celsius and to the rest of us
Speaker 1: using the Imperial system, that is five hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: two degrees Fahrenheits. So it's incredibly hot back there at
Speaker 1: the back. Of course, as you would expect the materials
Speaker 1: that have to be used. You know that all of
Speaker 1: this has to be considered that you don't just melt
Speaker 1: the back end of the vehicle as soon as you
Speaker 1: fire up the engines because they are after burner engines
Speaker 1: um or or jets rather and um. There's also a
Speaker 1: good bit of noise that goes along with this. As
Speaker 1: you might expect, um, the sound levels are just unreal.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a hundred and seventy five deciples at
Speaker 1: at speed, and I'll tell you that the air begins
Speaker 1: to heat up just because of the sound at a
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy four deciples. So it's like, um, I
Speaker 1: think it's the equivalent of if you can imagine this
Speaker 1: a quarter stick of dynamite igniting, only it's a continuous sound.
Speaker 1: It never lets up. There's not like one moment when
Speaker 1: you know it's it's it's intolerable and then it goes away.
Speaker 1: It's like that's a continuous roar at seventy five decibels,
Speaker 1: it's just uh, I think a hundred and sixty three
Speaker 1: you can actually break glass. So you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: just one of those crazy, crazy things. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the other things that's a little bit nuts
Speaker 1: about this whole thing are the wheels. And you wouldn't
Speaker 1: really consider the wheels to be um as important as
Speaker 1: they are. Maybe that's not the right way to say this,
Speaker 1: because you know, wheels, of course are important, but it's
Speaker 1: not the standard wheels that you're thinking of for an
Speaker 1: automobile as well. Now these are not driven wheels, and
Speaker 1: that's another thing we've got to talk about. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot um the car is not. The engines aren't
Speaker 1: driving the wheels in order to make this go. It's
Speaker 1: simply relying on thrust. The wheels are there to keep
Speaker 1: the vehicle on track, to keep it straight, and you know,
Speaker 1: of course that's a function of the chassis and of
Speaker 1: course of the driver has a huge input into that
Speaker 1: as well, obviously, But the wheels themselves are made of
Speaker 1: not of rubber. Of course they could, they wouldn't stand
Speaker 1: seven hundred and sixty three miles per hour. There's no
Speaker 1: way that they would do it. Because, um, these wheels
Speaker 1: are subjected at speed and when they when they're at
Speaker 1: top speed, they're rotating at eight thousand, five hundred RPMs.
Speaker 1: So the tires are spinning that quickly at seven hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty three miles per hour, and of course that's
Speaker 1: far greater than any kind of you know, rubber or
Speaker 1: carbon fiber or anything like that would stand up to.
Speaker 1: They are made of solid aluminum and it's something called
Speaker 1: L aluminum. I don't know exactly what LN aluminum stands for,
Speaker 1: but there they were forged by a company called h
Speaker 1: d A Forgings, and then they were machined by another company,
Speaker 1: and that's Dunlop Aviation, and they tested them on a
Speaker 1: dynamometer at speeds of up to RPMs. They exceeded what
Speaker 1: they expected to to reach out in the desert, and
Speaker 1: they actually achieved that. It was successful to as obviously,
Speaker 1: but you know, the wheels come along with other things
Speaker 1: as well. That now it's strange enough that they're solid
Speaker 1: aluminum and you can find again, you can find you know,
Speaker 1: google images of this on online. You can find um
Speaker 1: you know. Actually there's a pretty interesting short documentary that
Speaker 1: I'll point you to in just a moment about the wheels,
Speaker 1: just the wheels themselves, in the shape of the wheels,
Speaker 1: because that's important. But you have to remember that these
Speaker 1: also have to have different different roller bearings. They also
Speaker 1: have to have um some type of lubrication to keep
Speaker 1: them going. So that was another company, and there's a
Speaker 1: company called s KF that that created these special tungsten
Speaker 1: carbide roller wheel bearings for these for these wheels in particular,
Speaker 1: and for the lubrication, the lubrication technology that allows them
Speaker 1: to continue to spin at that fast you know PM
Speaker 1: in the desert. So you gotta imagine the environment that
Speaker 1: they're in as well, you know, the sand and the
Speaker 1: dirt and rocks and all that. The company that was
Speaker 1: I guess awarded the contract to to do this was Castrol.
Speaker 1: So Castrol developed lubrication tech analogy that that that that
Speaker 1: lubricated the wheels in order to allow them to go
Speaker 1: this fast. Now, now the wheels themselves, I don't think
Speaker 1: I mentioned this. They weigh about three hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: three pounds each. So these are substantial pieces of metal.
Speaker 1: And I mentioned just a moment ago that you know,
Speaker 1: there's a a short documentary that you can watch, and
Speaker 1: it's an easy thing to search online if you just
Speaker 1: search thrust SSC wheels or you know wheel technology or
Speaker 1: something like that. You know, anything point you to the
Speaker 1: right place. The company that that did these, they're the
Speaker 1: one that machine them. I guess it was Dunlop Aviation
Speaker 1: and h d A h d A for genes. They
Speaker 1: together went out and tested these as as they do
Speaker 1: out in the desert, and they found that the first
Speaker 1: set of wheels that they were using, uh, the profile
Speaker 1: of the wheel was digging into the surface too deeply.
Speaker 1: It was going down to the bedrock this just below
Speaker 1: the surface, and um, it was actually damaging the wheels
Speaker 1: as they spun. And they knew that you know, at
Speaker 1: a certain speed or above the speed that they could
Speaker 1: even test it at um because they're just dragging trailers
Speaker 1: behind them with these wheels, you know, with with weight
Speaker 1: on top of it, you know, the approximate weight of
Speaker 1: the vehicle um in water ballast, and that's how they
Speaker 1: test them, how how far they sink down into the
Speaker 1: earth and so that you know, the dragon it with
Speaker 1: a van or truck or whatever. And they realized they
Speaker 1: were sinking too deep. So they went back and they
Speaker 1: changed the profile of the wheel, came back for more testing,
Speaker 1: and finally determined that yeah, it does allow this thing
Speaker 1: to have the grip that it needs as well as
Speaker 1: you know them the ability to sink in just the
Speaker 1: right depth. Thing. You know, it won't it won't go
Speaker 1: in too far. It won't it won't stay you know,
Speaker 1: too far on top as well, because that would allow
Speaker 1: the vehicle to kind of you know, slide and skirt
Speaker 1: all over the place, and and that would be no
Speaker 1: good as well. Um boy, okay, so the wheels are
Speaker 1: one thing that I found fascinating. There's gosh, there's so
Speaker 1: much here I think I might even just have to
Speaker 1: skip over this. But there's a scale model test that
Speaker 1: was done, a one scale model that was it was
Speaker 1: built and it was tested on a military rocket sled.
Speaker 1: That's how they tested the design, the shape of this
Speaker 1: whole thing and to understand you know, that how this
Speaker 1: thing would i would operate at supersonic speeds, that the design,
Speaker 1: how it would hold up. Again, one scale model, and
Speaker 1: there's again more information about this. I encourage you as
Speaker 1: I always do in all of these podcasts, and I
Speaker 1: do this every single time that we'll we'll talk. I
Speaker 1: hope I remember too, but I but I say that
Speaker 1: this podcast is probably just a good starting point for
Speaker 1: you to kind of dig in and do your own
Speaker 1: research on a lot of these things. That a lot
Speaker 1: of these topics because I just simply don't have enough
Speaker 1: time to to talk about everything as in depth as
Speaker 1: I would like to. Because each one of these things,
Speaker 1: you know, the wheels, the driver, the car itself. I
Speaker 1: think you know some of the three D printing technology
Speaker 1: that went into even the steering wheel of this thing. Um,
Speaker 1: all of this is stuff that that it deserves, you know,
Speaker 1: its own its own show, really and uh and I
Speaker 1: would love it if you would dig into it and
Speaker 1: maybe you know, get back to me with questions or
Speaker 1: maybe we can even focus on it in future shows. UM.
Speaker 1: But but again, use this as kind of a springboard
Speaker 1: to dig into these topics much much deeper, because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of information out there. And UM, I do
Speaker 1: want to talk about the um the driver and and
Speaker 1: how they selected that driver. But um, first you know
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about this, and one place that
Speaker 1: I would like to point you before we go much
Speaker 1: much further here is back to I have another podcast
Speaker 1: that's called Car Stuff, and Car Stuff is is coming
Speaker 1: back very soon. But we had done a podcast for
Speaker 1: a good nine years up until about the very end
Speaker 1: of Seen, and we had myself and my co host,
Speaker 1: his name is Ben Bolan, and we we had an
Speaker 1: archive of material that has at least eight hundred, maybe
Speaker 1: even nine hundred shows, and you can find all of
Speaker 1: those on our on our website. It's called Car Stuff
Speaker 1: Show dot com, and if you go to car Stuff
Speaker 1: Show dot com, you can search all of our podcasts
Speaker 1: going all the way back to the very beginning. And
Speaker 1: there's a couple that are related that I think you
Speaker 1: would be interested in if you're if you like the
Speaker 1: land Speed Record Show and you want more information about
Speaker 1: land Speed Record anything that was related to it. We
Speaker 1: did a full show on another car that we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about at the end of this podcast called the Bloodhound.
Speaker 1: SSC also did a show on belly tank racers, which
Speaker 1: are just that's another really interesting one, mostly salt flat racing,
Speaker 1: but again fascinating I think. And then we also did
Speaker 1: a show on the ten fastest cars on land and uh,
Speaker 1: ten fastest cars in the world whether and even you
Speaker 1: know what, even going so far, we've we've done you know,
Speaker 1: high speed trains, you know, so we've talked about some
Speaker 1: incredibly fast vehicles and uh and I think that's a
Speaker 1: good place to go. So go to car stuff show
Speaker 1: dot com and and search the archives and you'll find
Speaker 1: some other land speed record information that that I think
Speaker 1: you'll like a lot. And um, you know, there's just
Speaker 1: so much, as you can tell. I'm I'm kind of
Speaker 1: all over the board on this one. There's a there's
Speaker 1: a lot of information about this car that every little
Speaker 1: tiny thing is just fascinating about it. And and I
Speaker 1: a couple of things that I really want to get
Speaker 1: out there that I again I hope I do. And
Speaker 1: one thing and I don't want to neglect here is
Speaker 1: the aero dynamics of the whole thing. And and I'll
Speaker 1: just be real brief about this because there's there's again
Speaker 1: a lot to say about it, but let's just get
Speaker 1: past this one thing because I found it fascinating. Um,
Speaker 1: it's so important you know that that this thing, of
Speaker 1: course remains remains on the ground, it remains in contact
Speaker 1: with the earth. And that's for control, you know, so
Speaker 1: that the driver is able to you know, reasonably directed
Speaker 1: in the in the direction he wants to and hopefully,
Speaker 1: you know, reliably steering in the direction that he wants to.
Speaker 1: But the other reason is that you know, this is
Speaker 1: essentially a rocket. You know, it could be like a
Speaker 1: flying ship at any moment. You know, we've all seen
Speaker 1: race cars that catch a little bit of air underneath
Speaker 1: them and they fly, uh, they go, they're going so
Speaker 1: fast that they take off in the air. They do flips. Um,
Speaker 1: they become if they've spin around backwards, they become you know,
Speaker 1: instead of being the having the down force, they have
Speaker 1: more of an upthrust that brings them up into the
Speaker 1: air and sometimes you know, even headed forward. If you
Speaker 1: get our you know, air underneath, the same thing happens.
Speaker 1: They take off into the air. That's exactly the case
Speaker 1: with this. Now imagine you know, it's seven hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty miles an hour. If if this car were to flip,
Speaker 1: that would be a well, it's a life ending event, really,
Speaker 1: I mean, it is really not a whole lot you
Speaker 1: can do. If you're if you're you know, you're already
Speaker 1: on the ground in this thing. There's no chance for
Speaker 1: um um fuel dumping. There's no chance for an injector
Speaker 1: seed or anything like that. They and they thought about
Speaker 1: that in in this case, and to be honest, they
Speaker 1: decided that, um, they're just really at this speed and
Speaker 1: at this at this height, which is you know, just
Speaker 1: a couple of feet above the ground, you know where
Speaker 1: the driver is that uh, it's really difficult to survive
Speaker 1: a wreck at this at the speed, So they can't.
Speaker 1: They they countered that by just going over the top
Speaker 1: with stability and control and trying to make this the
Speaker 1: safest vehicle to drive as far as um, you know,
Speaker 1: maintaining control instead of you know, building a roll cage
Speaker 1: that wouldn't do anything in the end other than add
Speaker 1: weight and and you know, complex nature to the design
Speaker 1: of the vehicle. So you know, the driver, the poor
Speaker 1: driver this thing has to get into this this vehicle
Speaker 1: knowing that you know, a wreck is essentially a life
Speaker 1: ending event, or it can be, um likely would be
Speaker 1: at that speed and you know, again you're already on
Speaker 1: the ground. You can't deject, you can't do any of
Speaker 1: that stuff. Um but but just so you understand what's
Speaker 1: going on, and there are a couple of countermeasures. So
Speaker 1: there's a I guess they call it the responsible aerodynamic system,
Speaker 1: and I don't know exactly what that means. But this
Speaker 1: thing can be uh it's not even activated by the driver.
Speaker 1: It's just an automatic thing that happens, but it can
Speaker 1: be activated within ten milliseconds. And it adds an extra
Speaker 1: three tons of down force to the vehicle almost immats.
Speaker 1: So that's immediate. Um, something goes wrong, you know, like
Speaker 1: so let's say this thing just goes a few degrees
Speaker 1: off of course, and you know things are not going right,
Speaker 1: and you know, the systems can tell. I mean they
Speaker 1: read it instantly, ten within ten milliseconds, an extra three
Speaker 1: tons of down forces added to this And and I
Speaker 1: found this pretty interesting too, someone said one of the engineers.
Speaker 1: Just I don't remember who exactly said this, but I
Speaker 1: wrote it down because I found it was fascinating, you know,
Speaker 1: in just a moment. But right now, let's take a
Speaker 1: break for a word from our sponsor. Vehicle as it
Speaker 1: travels through the speed the air at the speed and
Speaker 1: on the ground at the speed, if it's one degree
Speaker 1: off upwards. Uh, it's gonna take off if it's one
Speaker 1: degree downwards. He said, it's like you're mining, which I
Speaker 1: thought was kind of a funny way to say it,
Speaker 1: but it truly would. It would dig itself into the
Speaker 1: ground at that speed. So um, just again, so many
Speaker 1: fascinating little things that go along with this ten milliseconds
Speaker 1: for an extra three tons of down force in this car.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. There's so much information about this car out
Speaker 1: there that that it's a wealth of information that, you know,
Speaker 1: an embarrassment of riches. I guess maybe is what I
Speaker 1: have here in front of me. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'm gonna be able to get to all of it.
Speaker 1: But I did want to talk about the driver for sure,
Speaker 1: because I've been promising it, not only from the being
Speaker 1: in the show, but just because it's kind of a
Speaker 1: fascinating story about how they got to the person that
Speaker 1: they eventually chose to drive this thing. And you can
Speaker 1: imagine it's not a decision that they take lightly. That's
Speaker 1: something that you know you have to be chosen for.
Speaker 1: And uh, there's more of a process to it than
Speaker 1: than what you might think. And I'll get to that
Speaker 1: in just a second, but we've already mentioned who this is.
Speaker 1: Who the driver is. His name is Andy Green, and
Speaker 1: Andy Green was born in Warwickshire. He's an English born
Speaker 1: wing commander for the Royal Air Force. He's a fighter pilot,
Speaker 1: and it kind of makes sense that they went to
Speaker 1: a fighter pilot for this instead of a driver. I mean,
Speaker 1: this thing is is more or less again like a
Speaker 1: like a jet on the ground really with wheels and
Speaker 1: and that's really essentially what it is. So he has
Speaker 1: quite a bit of experience operating vehicles that you know,
Speaker 1: are powered by jets and and has um you know,
Speaker 1: the know how and the and the ability to control
Speaker 1: these types of vehicles at these types of speeds. He's
Speaker 1: a good choice and you'll find out why in just
Speaker 1: a second as we as we go through this. But
Speaker 1: I do want to tell you that the the one
Speaker 1: of the founders of the company here, the one that
Speaker 1: you know the thrust S sc the um, the initiative
Speaker 1: to go supersonic in a vehicle. His name is Richard Noble,
Speaker 1: and I mentioned Richard was the current record holder. He
Speaker 1: was the you know, the guy that drove the vehicle
Speaker 1: that was called the Thrust two back in three to
Speaker 1: his own land speed record and the one that Andy
Speaker 1: would eventually break in this vehicle. And so Richard was
Speaker 1: of course heavily involved with the choice of who would
Speaker 1: be behind the wheel for this one. And you know,
Speaker 1: initially it was thought that maybe Richard would do it himself.
Speaker 1: But Richard decided that he needed somebody that had even
Speaker 1: more skill than he had with this and maybe he
Speaker 1: was getting a little too old. I don't know exactly
Speaker 1: what he was thinking, but he needed somebody that had
Speaker 1: what he called exceptional skills in order to be able
Speaker 1: to achieve this goal. And so he decided that he
Speaker 1: didn't have the skills to do this one, which is
Speaker 1: pretty incredible to begin with, and they needed a driver.
Speaker 1: The reality is that they went to somebody. You know,
Speaker 1: they went to a lot of people that had experience
Speaker 1: going fast, and so they selected a group of about
Speaker 1: thirty people. Well, thirty people applied, or thirty people wanted
Speaker 1: to do it. They might have gone to more than that,
Speaker 1: but thirty people did apply for this. And you'll find
Speaker 1: it as you might expect. It was drag racers and pilots,
Speaker 1: and it was all drag racers, all pilots that that applied,
Speaker 1: But they did have to kind of decide how they're
Speaker 1: gonna whittle down this group, and they said the most
Speaker 1: obvious thing to do was to give them all a
Speaker 1: sanity test and then and take the ones that This
Speaker 1: is kind of funny, let me tell you, this is
Speaker 1: like a tongue in cheek team. But they said the
Speaker 1: most obvious thing to do was give them a sanity
Speaker 1: test and then take the ones who failed, which I
Speaker 1: kind of understand. You know, to drive a car, so
Speaker 1: you know, supersonic on on land, it's it definitely takes
Speaker 1: someone who's uh, a little bit out of their mind, right.
Speaker 1: But I don't want to say too much about Andy's
Speaker 1: mental state at this point, but I think he's fine.
Speaker 1: Everybody head, He's fine. We'll we'll find out what he
Speaker 1: went through in just a moment. But again, the thirty
Speaker 1: were first narrowed down to about sixteen and they were
Speaker 1: given a lot of different intelligence and personality tests along
Speaker 1: the way, so you know, it's not just getting behind
Speaker 1: the wheel and seeing what you could do. That was
Speaker 1: a big part of it. Of course, they took them
Speaker 1: to several different circuits and allow them to drive, you know,
Speaker 1: formula race cars and all kinds of crazy things like
Speaker 1: that and allow them to you know, kind of show
Speaker 1: what they have their skills behind the wheel. But a
Speaker 1: lot of it was intelligence and personality tests, and the
Speaker 1: reason is that they were trying to find someone that
Speaker 1: was very analytical, somebody that could be trusted to make
Speaker 1: changes not only on the fly, but to be able
Speaker 1: to help the team, to be able to contribute the
Speaker 1: most too, you know, solving problems and controlling the vehicle,
Speaker 1: and you know, it kind of had to be a
Speaker 1: well rounded person, somebody that could do all of these
Speaker 1: things all at once and do them quickly and efficiently,
Speaker 1: and you know, just make sure that they could trust
Speaker 1: this person's opinion as well. You know that the recommendations
Speaker 1: that they give we were spot on. So once they
Speaker 1: got down to finally eight, once they you know, they
Speaker 1: would hold down again from thirty to sixteen down to eight.
Speaker 1: And when they got to eight, here's the interesting thing
Speaker 1: is that only pilots remained at this point. They remained
Speaker 1: in the top eight spots. So all of the drag
Speaker 1: racers and some of the pilots were gone at this point,
Speaker 1: so there was down to just pilots at that point.
Speaker 1: It turns out that they were the ones going to
Speaker 1: kind of handle like the extreme stress and discomfort. And
Speaker 1: one way that they did this was they put them
Speaker 1: through a couple of surprise tests. So you know, they
Speaker 1: had a couple of days and a couple of nights
Speaker 1: where they're at this place they got they called the
Speaker 1: Center of Human Sciences, and the team spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time, you know, working on with them, uh you know,
Speaker 1: training and you know how they would deal with you know,
Speaker 1: the the hot desert environment and how that would affect
Speaker 1: their mental capacity and you know whether or not they
Speaker 1: would affect them as far as you know, like you know,
Speaker 1: some of the decisions that they would make. And as
Speaker 1: a surprise, they were kept awake all night one night
Speaker 1: in the in the heat chamber. They put them all
Speaker 1: in a heat chamber and they were filmed at various
Speaker 1: times and they were given computer based tests at different
Speaker 1: intervals and they were kind of tested at that point
Speaker 1: to see how they dealt with like fatigue and stress,
Speaker 1: and you know, how the performance was was measured at
Speaker 1: that point, um, you know, based on all of the
Speaker 1: stuff that they were they were subjecting them to, and
Speaker 1: a couple of the people you know, there there were
Speaker 1: maybe three or four people that kind of rose to
Speaker 1: the top during that, and then you know, after that,
Speaker 1: then they did some more driving testing and just on
Speaker 1: and on and on they they finally got to the
Speaker 1: point where just one man out of all these contenders
Speaker 1: finally comes out on top. And again it was this
Speaker 1: British Royal Air Force jet fighter pilot by the name
Speaker 1: of Andy Green. And Andy Green, I think I met
Speaker 1: this already. But he was born in nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 1: And um again he's he was he was made in
Speaker 1: n SO the year after he was um, a year
Speaker 1: after this record was made. Uh, he was made an
Speaker 1: Officer of the Order of the British Empire, which is
Speaker 1: a prestigious award. And if you're looking for more information
Speaker 1: about Andy Green and uh, and I think you might
Speaker 1: be after you kind of find out exactly what he
Speaker 1: had to go through with all of this, you could
Speaker 1: find it all over the place. Of course, there's a
Speaker 1: thrust SSC website you can go to. It's just thrust
Speaker 1: s SC dot com. Actually, just do a keyword search
Speaker 1: for him in Google and you'll find a lot of
Speaker 1: information about him everywhere. He's done many talks of course,
Speaker 1: there's there's documentaries about him. In fact, I watched one
Speaker 1: that was really really fascinating. There was there's one that
Speaker 1: was actually cockpit recording of the day that he made
Speaker 1: the final run, the one that was the record breaking run.
Speaker 1: It's just really interesting. He also is in the shop
Speaker 1: talking about it in front of another vehicle. This is
Speaker 1: one of the most fascinating bits of footage that I
Speaker 1: found of Andy Green because combines both what he did
Speaker 1: in the vehicle and you know, him outside of the
Speaker 1: vehicle being able to kind of like calmly describe what's
Speaker 1: happening at at what points. It's just it's really interesting
Speaker 1: because you know, he tells you exactly how he begins
Speaker 1: the run, how you know he's getting up to speed,
Speaker 1: what's happening at the time, the radio commands that are
Speaker 1: going back and forth between him and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the the base camp or whatever they call the the
Speaker 1: encampment of people that are that are watching this whole
Speaker 1: thing from a distance, of course, but it's it's fascinating
Speaker 1: to see how he brings the vehicle up to speed,
Speaker 1: and that's alone that is interesting because it doesn't just
Speaker 1: take off like a like a rocket. Like you would
Speaker 1: think it would. He has to slowly creep up to
Speaker 1: speed so that all of the debris from the desert,
Speaker 1: you know, the rocks and the sand and all that
Speaker 1: doesn't get into the engines. And there's a certain point
Speaker 1: I think it's about eighty miles an hour that he
Speaker 1: can start to really kind of you know, open it
Speaker 1: up and let it go, and then the speed comes
Speaker 1: incrementally faster. I mean, it's it's amazing how quickly this
Speaker 1: thing it gets up to speed, and once it's at speed,
Speaker 1: how quickly it gains speed. But it's again, it's interesting
Speaker 1: to watch. And one thing I'll I don't think I'm
Speaker 1: ruining anything when I tell you this, but there's a
Speaker 1: series of gauges on the on the dash that are
Speaker 1: in front of you, and actually the view out the
Speaker 1: windshield is it's difficult to see, and I would guess
Speaker 1: that it would be difficult for him as well. He's
Speaker 1: mostly doing this by gauges and um a little bit
Speaker 1: by sight. But he's got his hands on the wheel
Speaker 1: and it's it's not a typical steering wheel. It's not round,
Speaker 1: it's got it's kind of a yoke design almost At
Speaker 1: some point and he's going incredibly fast at this points,
Speaker 1: still gaining speed. The vehicle does start to track a
Speaker 1: little bit off. It's not exactly on the line that
Speaker 1: is supposed to be on. And he's talking about this
Speaker 1: very calmly when he's in the shop, but you know,
Speaker 1: in the car he's just as calm. And that's so
Speaker 1: impressive because here's what happens. The nose of the vehicle.
Speaker 1: I can't remember which direction is headed. I believe it's
Speaker 1: headed off one one direction or the other by several degrees.
Speaker 1: And he's got to have so much steering input into
Speaker 1: this thing. You would think it would just be you know,
Speaker 1: you know, mashing the throttle forward and hanging on and
Speaker 1: just going straight and that's it. But there's a lot
Speaker 1: of input on the steering wheel by Andy Green, and
Speaker 1: a lot of effort put in, you know, with what
Speaker 1: he's doing controlling all this. At one point he has
Speaker 1: got ninety degrees of input into the steering wheel, so
Speaker 1: his left hand it's in the twelve o'clock position instead
Speaker 1: of being over at the nine o'clock position. That's how
Speaker 1: much steering him put he's in. He's got into this thing,
Speaker 1: and he's traveling again at more than five miles an hour,
Speaker 1: faster than a jet would travel in the air, a
Speaker 1: commercial jet would travel in the near and he's on
Speaker 1: the ground on a desert like a sandy sandy surface,
Speaker 1: in a vehicle with metal wheels, two jet engines that
Speaker 1: are that are full throttle. It's just, it's it's an
Speaker 1: unbelievable moment, and he maintains control and regains control and
Speaker 1: then completes the run. It's it's so impressive to watch,
Speaker 1: and it's more impressive to see how he is able
Speaker 1: to control the situation and keep it all kind of
Speaker 1: reined in. He's a he's so calm under pressure. That's
Speaker 1: exactly one of the reasons why they chose him and
Speaker 1: why some of those tests that they gave him early on,
Speaker 1: the intelligence tests, the kind of the analytical things, you know,
Speaker 1: the personality tests, all that, um, they knew that, you know,
Speaker 1: if something like that did have up and he wouldn't
Speaker 1: just simply give up, and you know, that's it. He
Speaker 1: tries to maintain control, he tries to fight to get
Speaker 1: it back under control, and he does so and then
Speaker 1: makes it successful. And it's just it's again, it's it's
Speaker 1: ultra impressive. It really is to to watch how calm
Speaker 1: and collected this guy is under pressure, and again to
Speaker 1: to watch the final run and him just to describe
Speaker 1: the process of you know, the the ramp up, the
Speaker 1: flying mile, the shutdown, and then you have to turn
Speaker 1: the car around hundred and eighty degrees and go back
Speaker 1: the same direction to do the exact same thing again
Speaker 1: with different wind currents. And uh, it's just it's it's
Speaker 1: an unbelievable thing to watch, and it's it's really easy
Speaker 1: to find online. You can you can check that out. Um,
Speaker 1: but again to search for Andy Green and you'll find
Speaker 1: all of this. It's uh, he's he's just an impressive
Speaker 1: person all around. And and I like hearing him talk anyway.
Speaker 1: I mean you watch, um, some of the other talks
Speaker 1: that he's given when he's in front of a large
Speaker 1: group of people, sport coat and tie and discussing the
Speaker 1: land speed record very calmly. It's it's it's he's just
Speaker 1: an impressive person to it to listen to. And of
Speaker 1: course he's got some great stories as well, so um,
Speaker 1: there's that. And uh again just check him out if
Speaker 1: you get a chance. And I would like to talk
Speaker 1: about another project that's coming up, and it's something that
Speaker 1: we've heard about for cash. We've heard about it seems
Speaker 1: like for decades now, not kidding, like almost decades now.
Speaker 1: And it does involve Andy Green. It does involved land
Speaker 1: speed record and uh, and we'll get to that, but
Speaker 1: right now, let's take a break for a word from
Speaker 1: our sponsor. And we're back and you're listening to the
Speaker 1: fast Track, and I'm your host, Scott Benjamin. And just
Speaker 1: before the break there, we were talking about Andy Green
Speaker 1: and the amazing process that he had to go through
Speaker 1: in order to be selected as the as the pilot
Speaker 1: of this vehicle as actually I will call it a pilot,
Speaker 1: not a driver. He was a pilot of this vehicle. Really, Um,
Speaker 1: I do know that you drive, because he was technically
Speaker 1: touching the ground, but he's he's a lot like a
Speaker 1: pilot in this in this situation. Fact Um, that's what
Speaker 1: his experience was. And I got all the tests and
Speaker 1: you know some of the stressors that they put them
Speaker 1: through in order to be selected. It was just an
Speaker 1: unbelievable process really, I mean it was incredible. I found
Speaker 1: a couple of other little notes here that I want
Speaker 1: to mention before we get into the successor of the
Speaker 1: thrust s SC and really not a whole lot on these,
Speaker 1: but um, something that I found really really fascinating as
Speaker 1: as I dug through some of this, one thing was that,
Speaker 1: you know, of course, the vehicle wasn't wasn't built here.
Speaker 1: It wasn't created here in the United States where the
Speaker 1: record was broken. It was from overseas. It was as
Speaker 1: an English built vehicle. They had to have it transported
Speaker 1: over somehow, so they used this enormous cargo plane. And
Speaker 1: I find this really funny is that, you know, the
Speaker 1: cargo plane that brought the team and the vehicle over
Speaker 1: here was only capable of doing something like three and
Speaker 1: forty miles per hour in the air. It's bringing a
Speaker 1: car that you know it does more than twice that,
Speaker 1: you know, more than twice that on the ground. It's
Speaker 1: just it seems like a funny. It's just a funny
Speaker 1: image in my head. I don't know why I thought
Speaker 1: that was hilarious, but I wrote a quick note that
Speaker 1: I should mention that. Um. But maybe one of the
Speaker 1: other more maybe more fascinating, I don't know, or something
Speaker 1: that you might have more interest in. Here. It was
Speaker 1: about the fuel, and we haven't really talked about the
Speaker 1: fuel a whole lot. And as you can imagine, it
Speaker 1: takes a lot of money to run this program. I
Speaker 1: mean it takes as the as the program progressed the
Speaker 1: thrust s SC people realized exactly how much that was
Speaker 1: gonna be. And it's it's tens of millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: It's really really expensive in order to put forth an
Speaker 1: effort like this. You know, that's that's everything that's paying
Speaker 1: for the team, that's paying for the testing, and the
Speaker 1: vehicle itself. And you know, fuel is one of those charges.
Speaker 1: And it's going to take an awful lot of fuel
Speaker 1: to do this in order to even make an attempt
Speaker 1: at this run. And that's not not just one run,
Speaker 1: it's it's many many runs. I think that the thrust
Speaker 1: SSC ended up making something close to seventy runs. The
Speaker 1: record breaking runs were somewhere in the sixties, so they
Speaker 1: made you know, like sixty five and sixty six. I
Speaker 1: think those are the record breaking runs. But that's the
Speaker 1: number of times they're traveling, you know, twelve miles across
Speaker 1: the desert and then twelve miles back. That's you know,
Speaker 1: that's one run or two runs rather, but it takes
Speaker 1: a lot of fuel in order to do that, and
Speaker 1: so on the website. Early on, in the early days
Speaker 1: of this project, they started mentioning that it was going
Speaker 1: to take a total of about two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand gallons of fuel in order to do this, in
Speaker 1: order to to make this effort work. So once they
Speaker 1: got to the United States that the Black Rock Desert
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty thousand gallons of fuel in order
Speaker 1: to make it happen. Then it's jet fuel. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's very expensive fuel, and there was no single source
Speaker 1: to provide this. There was no one that was, you know,
Speaker 1: offering up the money in order to be able to
Speaker 1: do it. So they put out a guess would be
Speaker 1: like an early go fund me thing, really, if you
Speaker 1: want to think of it that way. But people were
Speaker 1: donating money, and this is the strangest thing. There was
Speaker 1: no single source against So so they said, you know,
Speaker 1: if you could just help out by buying maybe twenty
Speaker 1: five gallons of fuel for this program, that would be helpful,
Speaker 1: or you know what, five gallons or whatever you can
Speaker 1: afford to pay for, please help us out. And it
Speaker 1: became kind of like a a national pride thing. You know,
Speaker 1: the British were chipping in to be able to say that,
Speaker 1: you know, I helped fund uh this this um this
Speaker 1: effort in order to maintain uh, the the land speed
Speaker 1: record in the British name, because you know, there's something
Speaker 1: that is very it's it's typically a very British record.
Speaker 1: And again two and fifty gallon or two or fifty
Speaker 1: thousand gallons of fuel to do this. And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you if I found a number here that was astounding
Speaker 1: that is related to fuel, and I want to share
Speaker 1: that with you. Um Now we're talking about you know,
Speaker 1: the two rollsories engines at speed for for long distances.
Speaker 1: We're talking about twelve miles at a time at full
Speaker 1: output the twin engines. The thrust that they're developing is like,
Speaker 1: you know, fifty thousand pound feet of force, which is
Speaker 1: the equivalent of about a hundred and a hundred thousand horsepower.
Speaker 1: The amount of fuel that is burned at speed is
Speaker 1: just unreal. Here four point eight gallons per second, so
Speaker 1: that's four point eight gain. So imagine I think we
Speaker 1: all can can picture like a five gallon bucket. It's
Speaker 1: roughly that much fuel every second that this thing is
Speaker 1: in operations. So even even at you know, top speed
Speaker 1: in that measured mile, that flying mile, at four or
Speaker 1: five seconds, they burned twenty five gallons of fuel in
Speaker 1: that four or five seconds. You know that that it
Speaker 1: took them to do that record run. It's just one
Speaker 1: of those facts and figures they come out of this
Speaker 1: whole thing that you'll find there. There are hundreds of
Speaker 1: these if you if you really dig into the thrust
Speaker 1: SSC program, you know it has its own um place
Speaker 1: in a museum. Now you might wonder where the vehicle is,
Speaker 1: and the thrust s SC is at the Coventry Transport
Speaker 1: Museum in Coventry City Center in England, and it's part
Speaker 1: of the permanent collection there. They have a huge collection.
Speaker 1: So I guess if you get there, if you get
Speaker 1: to the Coventry City Center in England, you should check
Speaker 1: out this this display. They've got something like two hundred
Speaker 1: and forty cars, like two hundred motorcycles. Of course they've
Speaker 1: got the thrust s SC on display. And I believe
Speaker 1: this is also the claimed birthplace of the bicycle, so
Speaker 1: they have something like two hundred bicycles on display as well.
Speaker 1: It's just a really interesting place. It must be a
Speaker 1: massive collection, but again it's it's now a museum piece
Speaker 1: and you can go and visit it and look at
Speaker 1: it and over it and you know, check it all out.
Speaker 1: I don't think that they will allow you to get
Speaker 1: into it or anything like that. I'm sure you're kept
Speaker 1: at a distance, but it's still a fascinating vehicle to look.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit it's also a little bit sad
Speaker 1: to see a vehicle like that parking museum. Sometimes I'm
Speaker 1: a little bit sad that it's not going to be
Speaker 1: out and and doing this thing anymore. But I guess
Speaker 1: that's what happens to some of these older cars, you
Speaker 1: know that maybe maybe it might not be safe to
Speaker 1: you know, continually run it, you know, year after year
Speaker 1: after year. So maybe that's maybe that's the best place
Speaker 1: for it at this point. But they're almost immediately, almost
Speaker 1: immediately after the thrust s sc had broken this record,
Speaker 1: there was a call for someone to break the record again,
Speaker 1: as there always is. There's always someone who's gonna want
Speaker 1: to top that, you know. We always try to go fast,
Speaker 1: a little bit faster, a little bit higher, a little
Speaker 1: bit longer, you know, whatever it is. But this car.
Speaker 1: There's another new vehicle out there, and this is the
Speaker 1: new name of it. It's the Bloodhound LSR, which stands
Speaker 1: for Land Speed Record. But the Bloodhound is something that
Speaker 1: we have been hearing about for approximately I'm gonna say ten,
Speaker 1: maybe even fifteen years now, maybe even twenty years at
Speaker 1: this point. It seems like it's been mentioned for a
Speaker 1: long long time. The interesting thing about this is that
Speaker 1: they're not only trying to break the record by a
Speaker 1: few miles per hour or you know, maybe a hundred
Speaker 1: miles per hour, whatever it is. They're a shatter this record.
Speaker 1: They want to achieve above one thousand miles per hour
Speaker 1: in this vehicle. Now we're talking about a car that again,
Speaker 1: it meets every requirement that the thrust s sc met
Speaker 1: as far as you know, stand on the ground and
Speaker 1: you know, traveling, the flying mile, the flying flying kilometer, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But it has to go um a thousand miles per
Speaker 1: hour in order to achieve the goal that this one
Speaker 1: is looking for. It's as similar, and I will say
Speaker 1: it's similar in design, but it's different in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways as well. And this one has a couple
Speaker 1: of different things going for it. It's not only powered
Speaker 1: by a jet engine, a single jet engine in this case,
Speaker 1: it's also powered by a hybrid rocket. So this is
Speaker 1: a jet powered and rocket powered vehicle combined into one.
Speaker 1: And I believe there's even a piston engine in there somewhere.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a big Jaguar V eight that runs
Speaker 1: like the auxiliary power or something like that. It's a
Speaker 1: it's just an incredible machine. There's a there's a whole
Speaker 1: episode of car stuff, as I mentioned on on the Bloodhound.
Speaker 1: I think it was called the Bloodhound s SC when
Speaker 1: we did this, but now it's called the bloodhoud An LSR.
Speaker 1: And the reason is because the ownership of this company
Speaker 1: has switched over. There have been plans to run this
Speaker 1: car for a long time. It's been in development for
Speaker 1: a long long time, you know, at least maybe ten, fifteen,
Speaker 1: even twenty years. But recently, very recently, and I believe
Speaker 1: the program went into what they call administration. They were
Speaker 1: running out of money real quick, and they needed an
Speaker 1: additional thirty million US dollars in order to operate to
Speaker 1: run I think it's like twenties six millions sterling pounds
Speaker 1: or something like that. It was a lot of money.
Speaker 1: A guy by the name of Ian Warhurst stepped in
Speaker 1: at the last minute and he bought the entire project.
Speaker 1: Instead of just donating the thirty thirty million that they needed,
Speaker 1: he bought the whole thing. He bought all intellectual property,
Speaker 1: the car itself, the team members, you know, everything, everything
Speaker 1: involved with the program and as far as far as
Speaker 1: I know, as as late as March of two thousand nineteen,
Speaker 1: they had formed this new company called Grafton LSR, which
Speaker 1: later became known as just the Bloodhound LSR team, and
Speaker 1: they are planning, or they have been planning as as
Speaker 1: late as March is nineteen, to make a record run
Speaker 1: in this car. So they're gonna make a go of it.
Speaker 1: And you'll see this car testing. Could find images of it,
Speaker 1: you can find video of it running, and it'll be
Speaker 1: running on rubber tires, which is not going to in
Speaker 1: the desert, but it's gonna have a similar set of
Speaker 1: tires as as the thrust as the c did. So
Speaker 1: those tires and wheels, I guess, I guess you can
Speaker 1: call wheels really in this case will be used and
Speaker 1: it's just it's it's got a whole new set of
Speaker 1: not only features, but also problems that come along with it.
Speaker 1: So the bloodhound is another thing you need to look
Speaker 1: at with a whole different group of facts and figures
Speaker 1: and information that is just again just fascinating. One thing
Speaker 1: that I should mention here, and you'll see this in
Speaker 1: one of the animations that they sent out I think
Speaker 1: it was. This goes back to about two thousand eight
Speaker 1: when I saw first saw this animation, so it tells
Speaker 1: you it's a long time ago. But at a thousand
Speaker 1: miles per hour the goal speed that they're they're hoping
Speaker 1: to travel and this is gonna happen in South Africa,
Speaker 1: by the way, this this will all go down in
Speaker 1: South Africa. Um again, on a desert situation, a flat
Speaker 1: area that is the car at speed will be traveling
Speaker 1: faster than a bullet that is shot out of a
Speaker 1: three fifty seven magnum So it's literally a car that
Speaker 1: is faster than a speeding bullet, as they like to say.
Speaker 1: So um, it's and again in the animation they kind
Speaker 1: of describe exactly how that happens and everything. It's all
Speaker 1: of this is just extremely interesting to me, and I
Speaker 1: hope it's been interesting to you as well. Um, again,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of information out there, and just use
Speaker 1: this as a springboard to dig into any one of
Speaker 1: these little topics that I've just only briefly covered, and uh,
Speaker 1: and really find out you know about the body, the chassis,
Speaker 1: the power trains, you know, even the dimensions of it,
Speaker 1: the history of it, the people that are involved. It's
Speaker 1: just every bit of this thing is just fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: And I hope you found some of it interesting as well,
Speaker 1: if it's not all of it. You know, if you
Speaker 1: like to reach out to us and contact there's there's
Speaker 1: a few different ways you can do that. And of
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Speaker 1: so we've got a Facebook and Instagram where we are
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Speaker 1: to us on Twitter or check us out there, we
Speaker 1: are are the fast Track Pod. And we have a website.
Speaker 1: Of course, we've got a new show website that you
Speaker 1: can check out and that's The fast Track Show dot com.
Speaker 1: And of course you can always leave a review on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or on on the I Heart radio app
Speaker 1: or wherever you have been to listen to your podcasts.
Speaker 1: And if you likely you've heard, tell your friends we're
Speaker 1: always trying to get new listeners and you know we're
Speaker 1: We're happy the year here as well, so I hope
Speaker 1: you keep listening and uh having as much fun as
Speaker 1: we've had making the show. Thanks a lot,