BRAMBLETYE ENTERTAINED BY RICHARD NOBLE’S LATEST WORLD LAND SPEED VENTURE

Brambletye School were fortunate to welcome back a past parent, Richard Noble, OBE to talk to pupils and parents about his latest World Land Speed Record project, Bloodhound SSC (supersonic car). During the afternoon, years 7 and 8 had a presentation from Richard’s Education Programme Director, Dave Rowley who talked the children through the project and described how they proposed to build a car powered by jet and hybrid rocket power plants which was capable of achieving 1050mph (faster than a bullet from a 357 Magnum). The children had plenty of questions to ask afterwards and even had an opportunity of building their own balloon powered Bloodhounds. They were particularly impressed to hear some of the statistics – as powerful as 180 Bugatti Veyrons, 0-1000mph in 42 seconds and able to cover a distance of four and a half football pitches per second. This was top trumps at its best! Bloodhound SSC aims to demolish the existing record of 763mph (which was set by Richard’s Thrust SSC team in 1997) over a ten mile track in South Africa in eighteen months time. At 1000mph, Bloodhound will also beat the low level jet fighter record. The audience wished the driver the best of luck and hoped that the deployment of airbrakes at 860mph, parachute at 600mph and disc brakes at 200mph all went to plan!

In the evening, Richard opened Brambletye’s newly redeveloped science labs and then gave a similarly fascinating talk to parents, pupils and friends of the school. His mission is that through the Bloodhound project they will “confront and overcome the impossible using science, technology, engineering and mathematics and motivate the next generation to deal with global 21st century challenges”. Richard originally took the World Land Speed Record in 1983 when he drove Thrust 2 to 650mph. He was then Project Director of Thrust SSC which was the first car to break the sound barrier in 1997. It was an inspirational day, full of fun and of great interest to pupils and adults alike. We wish Richard and his team the very best of luck.

Further information can be found at www.bloodhoundssc.com