The Crazies Are Back

These guys are truly lining up to die.   They're a small gaggle of, let's call them eccentrics, preparing to break the 15-year old
land speed record.

The current record of 1,228 kmh., a tad over 763 mph., is held by a Royal Air Force fighter pilot, Andrew Green.   Now Green is preparing to fly drive a new car that he hopes will be 300 mph. faster.

Bloodhound

The new car, the Bloodhound, is powered by a 20,000 lb. thrust jet engine on loan from Green's employer, the RAF, coupled to a 27,500 pound rocket engine for a combined 135,000 horsepower.

And then there's Waldo.   He's Waldo Stakes, CEO of California's Land Speed Research Vehicles.   Waldo's car, the Sonic Wind, relies on the main rocket engine from the venerable X-15 that puts out a somewhat impressive half-million horsepower.   Stakes is shooting for 2,000 miles an hour, almost triple the existing record.

The field now includes two Australian cars, one from New Zealand, and the Ameri-Can North American Eagle built from a surplus RCAF CF-104 minus its wings and horizontal tail.

This stuff is like roller derby.   It becomes amazingly popular and then its gone for another 20-years.   Of course it's not quite the same.   You might break an arm in roller derby.  In the land speed contest you break everything, the lot.