Bloodhound Project set to stay on track

By adjusting elements in the car's rear end, designers say they have established a way to manage the shockwave passing under the vehicle as it goes supersonic. The modelling work was run on Intel's network and investigated 55 configurations within two months. Now the team has settled on an exterior surface, the next step will be to work on the main chassis structure and interior packaging of components within the vehicle. Bloodhound's technical director, John Piper told BBC News that at Mach 1.3, the designers are close to zero lift. Piper said: "Up until this point, we've had some big issues. We've had lift as high as 12tonnes, and when you consider the car is 6.5tonnes at its heaviest - that amount of lift is enough to make the car fly. We're very close now to fixing the exterior aero surface, which really opens the floodgates to the rest of the design work to really get going." The Bloodhound SSC is due to attempt the land speed record in late 2011 in Hakskeen Pan in South Africa.