Andy Green: In the background here behind me we're building the world's first 1000
mile an hour car. Bloodhound Supersonic Car, a car that was designed to inspire a generation.
And we're doing that on the basis of all the experience we learned setting the current world land
speed record with Thrust SSC. That project in turn used all of the experience that Richard
Noble gained breaking the land speed record in Thrust 2 30 years ago. We wouldn't be here
today without that. Richard Noble: Well, it's just a flood of
memories. The extraordinary thing is I fit exactly as I did last time, so I'm really
pleased about that. And, particularly the smell, this car has got a special smell about
it. It's solvents. It's hydraulic fluid. It's an airplane smell. There's a bit of fear in
that as well. This is a wonderful car, an absolutely wonderful
car. We started the Thrust 2 program in 1979. All we had in the world was £175. That's
where we started. We built the car on the Isle of Wight. The designer was a very clever
guy called John Ackroyd. We couldn't even afford to have a telephone. It was a huge
fight. It took four years to get the car built. Then, basically, we took it to Bonneville
in 1981. We got it all wrong. We were trying to run the car with solid wheels on the salt,
and that didn't work. The car hammered like hell. But, what we did get was one 500 mile
an hour run. That was really great. That really was great. Because then we could show we really
could do it. Then, the desert flooded and we had to go
home. When we got to Bonneville in 1982 it flooded immediately. So, it was hopeless.
We couldn't even get the car off the trailer. So we searched around. We found this
wonderful place called the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. This had got a different surface. Instead
of it being the hard, hard salt we got an alkali playa desert which is more like a dried
mud lake. We got going. We got the car up to 615 miles
an hour which was really good. It was all going well. But, then it rained. It was too
late. It was the end of the season and everything else.
So, we then had to go back to England again. We came back finally in 1983. We pushed it
and we pushed it and we pushed it. Eventually, we got up to our peak speed of 650.88 miles
an hour and a new world record of 633. We'd done it.
Andy Green: The size of the achievement is amazing. Only six men in history have done
more than 600 miles an hour on land. I'm lucky enough to bring the skills of a fighter pilot
to Bloodhound SSC. I am used to the idea of travelling at 600, 700, 800mph, supersonic
travel, jet engines, etc. I've got the background of Thrust SSC behind me as well.
He was learning this stuff from a book, learning this stuff from films of Bonneville in the
1960s. That in itself I still find quite astonishing.
Richard Noble: So, you'd be out about midday. It was very hot. As you start off from the
start of the run between 0 and 300 miles an hour the car's all over the place. It's got
these big, big fins at the back, but they don't really work until you get to 300 miles
an hour. Then, it starts to settle down. The interesting thing about it is 300 to 550
is boring. It's really boring. It's just more of the same, but faster.
Then, when you start going up to 550 and towards 600, something happens. Here, just on here,
you see the shock wave build up as the air flow builds, at the top of the intake here,
and goes supersonic. On one particular day the whole car was clouded in a very fierce mist
from the change in pressure which was causing this from the shock waves.
It's a very interesting experience, because your mental processes speed right up. Everything
happens in very, very slow motion. At 650 miles an hour you can see every single detail
on that track come up and go under the car. You go through the measured mile, and then
the fun stops because you've got to think about stopping.
Stopping these cars is not easy. What we do with Thrust 2 is you come back on the throttle
to cancel the afterburner. Then, we've got to give the engine three seconds to cool,
which seems an eternity at these speeds. Only at that point can you shut the fuel to the
engine which you do with your right foot. With your right finger you press on the button
on the steering wheel to fire the parachute. Bang, and you've got 6G deceleration. You're
losing speed at 130-odd miles an hour per second.
Andy Green: The acceleration and the deceleration is like the most violent fairground ride you'll
ever get on. It's a long period of acceleration followed by a long period of deceleration.
Your inner ear is now lying to you. It's called the somatogravic illusion.
Richard Noble: It upsets your inner ears, and it gives you the impression that you're
driving vertically straight down into the middle of the earth.
Andy Green: He admitted afterwards, he said I thought I was going mad, but I didn't dare
tell anybody. What on earth is going wrong with me? Eventually, one of the other drivers
out at Bonneville said yeah, when you put the parachutes out that always happens.
Richard Noble: Then, you're down to 400 miles an hour. And, 400 miles an hour is so slow
that you want to open the door and get out. Then, you're down to 200 miles an hour and
you bring the wheel brakes in. Bring it to a halt.
Then, what you've got to do is get your notebook out and write everything you can possibly
remember. The next thing is that the engineering team's alongside in the Jaguar and basically
then we're comparing notes and getting ready to turn around and go back in.
Interviewer: How'd that feel, Richard? Richard Noble: Great, absolutely bloody marvellous.
We ought to get it out of the museum and run it.