One month on from our last post about Bloodhound, the date for the first record attempt has been set. October 2017 will see the first land speed record attempt for 20 years.

The signing of a major deal means that the project has now secured funding to complete the car and start preparing for their testing in South Africa next year.

When Bloodhound went on display in 2015 it was as a trial build and without fluids. This was done to make sure that the 35,000 individual and bespoke parts actually fitted together. Brackets were checked to see if they were in the right places leaving enough room for service and maintenance activity as well as checking the tolerance of manufactured parts.

It is normal practice in the motor manufacturing industry to build multiple prototype vehicles to finalise and fine tune details. However, there is only one Bloodhound SSC and it will need to be disassembled piece by piece and every step documented in detail to produce a user manual.

It is highly likely that engineers will need to work on the car at all sorts of hours and a detailed and illustrated guide will be essential for such a complex car.

Once complete Bloodhound will be reassembled and transported to Newquay Aerohub for testing with its EJ200 jet and Nammo rocket system in place. Once testing of the jet engine is complete and signed off for use in the car, it is anticipated that Bloodhound will run slow speed shakedown tests at Newquay in June 2017. In addition to testing the car’s functionality, the June runs will allow engineers to test the live streaming and data feeds from the car.

If all goes well, Bloodhound will then be loaded onto a Boeing 747 and airlifted to South Africa along with multiple containers of equipment.

The unique access to the Bloodhound SSC project has meant that it has captured the imagination of adults and children alike, with thousands of school children currently racing model rocket cars as part of a competition. The winners being rewarded not only with a financial prize for their school, but also with attendance at that shakedown testing session in June next year.

The current land speed record is held by Thrust SSC and is set at 763.035 mph.

Read the full news release on the Bloodhound SSC site