Bloodhound LSR Team Lands In Desert And Gears Up For High Speed Runs

Bloodhound LSR team arrives at Hakskeenpan desert in South Africa for testing · Car assembly begins after a successful journey overland from Johannesburg · Painstaking process of clearing desert floor for safe high-speed runs completed

The Bloodhound LSR car has arrived safely at the Hakskeenpan desert, Northern Cape, South Africa, which for the next month will be home for the team and the setting for the car’s first high speed test runs.

Before that can happen, the initial task is to re-assemble the car, which has travelled in a semi-dismantled state from Luxembourg to Johannesburg by airfreight before making the final 570-mile journey to the desert on the back of an articulated lorry.

The high-speed tests will see the Bloodhound LSR car blasting along the Hakskeenpan desert racetrack for the very first time, providing a spectacular showcase of British engineering to a global audience. The Bloodhound team’s primary objective is to engage and inspire people of all ages through the most extreme application of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The most powerful straight line car ever was transported on the same pneumatic tyres as the car ran on in Newquay and, as well as allowing the car to be manoeuvred on tarmac, they also increase the effective damping of the car, further protecting the car and systems from any shocks during its travels. Unable to stand up to the extreme stresses of highspeed driving, these will be swapped out for precision machined solid aluminium wheels ahead of launch.