This Is What a 1,000-MPH Car Looks Like
This is the Bloodhound SSC. When finished, it will be powered by a jet engine bolted to a rocket. Together they will produce 47,500 pounds of thrust. And the retired Royal Air Force pilot who plans to strap himself into it hopes to hit 1,000 mph. The team behind the, er, car hasn’t tested it. In fact, they’ve only started building it. But they’re sure it’ll work. Well, pretty sure. We first told you about this madness when team leader Richard Noble announced the crazy plan almost two years ago. Noble and his crew unveiled a full-size mock-up of Bloodhound this week at the Farnborough International Air Show near London. That’s fitting, because the Bloodhound SSC is essentially a fighter jet without wings. There’s really no other way to describe something capable of covering 1,540 feet per second.
|
You Built What?! A Backyard B-50 Bomber
Four years ago, engineer Tony Nijhuis was visiting an aviation museum in Duxford, England, when he spotted his next project: the iconic World War II–era Boeing B-29 Superfortress. Nijhuis has been building electric models since he was a boy, but he had been thinking about doing something bigger. Much bigger. The result is a replica that— with a 20-foot wingspan, period decals, and loudspeakers that blare sounds of the real engine—boasts nearly everything but the bombs. Nijhuis decided to go with a variant of the B-29, the B-50, because of its aerodynamic design and because it was more novel. The real bomber had four engines, so he hunted down four of the biggest electric motors he could find. He created 2-D sketches of the body, wings and tail using AutoCAD and commissioned a laser-cutting company to handle the more than 300 custom segments he needed.
|
Pilot Ejects An Instant Before Jet Crash
Capt. Brian Bews ejects as his CF-18 fighter jet plummets to the ground during a practice flight at the Lethbridge County Airport earlier today for the weekend airshow in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. Amazing gallery below. The pilot was taken to Chinook Regional Hospital with undetermined injuries.
|
OnStar Gets Smart
General Motors is bringing OnStar to smartphones with apps that will let drivers do things like lock their doors, turn on their A/C or even start their cars from miles away. And why would you want to do that? Well, imagine you’re about to catch a flight and can’t remember whether you locked the door of your Cadillac CTS-V coupe. Fire up the app, enter a PIN and voila — the car’s secure. Leaving the ballpark on a hot day and don’t want the seats in your Buick LaCrosse to sear your thighs? Start your car from the stands and have it icy cold by the time you get there.
|