Bloodhound SSC

Not strictly ‘historic’ but there are historic connections.

I went to a lecture by Richard Noble in Coventry yesterday evening. About half of it dealt with ‘history’ of the “Thrust” series of cars, all of which used old military aero engines to power them.

I wondered why the name of the proposed 1,000+ mph car was “Bloodhound”? Yes, there is a connection with the Bristol missile. The cars designer is Ron Ayres (spelt right?) who was the aerodynamascist on the Bloodhound missile.

The project is estimated to cost £6.5m and it will be built in Bristol. What impressed me is the way it has become a learning resource – already 2000 schools in the UK are linked and 70 engineering ambassadors are on board and thats just for starters.

Richard Noble is on a great crusade – and here is a bit more history. Recent reports have shown a ‘lost generation’ of engineers aged 25 to 40. Graphs show what is called “The Apollo Effect” with the numbers of new PhDs in Science and Physics rising sharply year on year during the Apollo space programme (1962 – 1971). Science then dropped off creating this ‘lost generation’. Incidentally Noble said that the end of the Apollo programme released so many highly qualified engineers and that created the IT revolution which has benefitted us all. He also said that a meeting at MoD with Lord ?? explained the difficulty in finding/recruiting enough engineers. I think this led to the making available of three ex-development EJ-200 engines for the (then) new born project (but no money).

I think the project deserves support – for more info go to:
http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/

Roger Smith.