Brian Lecomber was a professional aerobatic display pilot for 25 years. He has been British Freestyle Aerobatic Champion, a best-selling author, and was voted Aviation Journalist of the Year.
Brian watched the Bloodhound project from inception for several years and published his articles here "from outside the box". They are all below as part of the project's history.
Brian passed away in 2015 after a short illness, and his insights to the project are missed by us all.
On this day the small plaza beside the BLOODHOUND Technical Centre slightly resembles a film set. Well, in fact at the moment it is a film set. A major international TV programme is filming a scientific documentary, and all the usual suspects on such a set are present and correct.
Whenever I walk down Gas Ferry Road in Bristol to the Doghouse – sorry, sorry, the BLOODHOUND Technical Centre – I cannot escape a feeling of walking into history.
There is a science in industry called Just In Time. Which carries the obvious acronym JIT. Or maybe it’s not a science – maybe it’s more exactly a methodology. Or maybe it’s an art-form in the industrial lexicon falling under the letter B – somewhere between Blackmail and Brinkmanship.
If you seriously intend to propel a car – such a crudity as an actual four-wheeled car – to Mach 1.4, whilst also wishing it to remain in contact with the surface of the planet at all times… why, guess what?
You are not a normal person.
There taketh place, from time to time, a phenomenon in the BLOODHOUND Project which I can only describe as Noble-ing. Not nobbling – very much the contrary – but Noble-ing.
Let me tell you an uncomfortable truth about HPs – HP meaning Heroic Projects. Such as BLOODHOUND. Indeed, especially BLOODHOUND.
So everything in the BLOODHOUND garden is rosy. Yes?
Well, of course, yes. A new sense of urgency. A hard-eyed re-evaluation of all the different design elements in progress. Budgets pinned down, critical paths decided upon, tasks and time-scales allotted to team members who mostly look only slightly stunned. Everyone completely focused on their targets. Everything rosy, hunky-dory, oojah-cum-spiff. Yes?
All iconic projects are led by visionaries.
And all iconic projects much resemble a large central cogwheel – called The Project – with other various-sized cogwheels engaging around its circumference. Some of these act as drivers, some of them act as brakes. And they vary. Some cogs can be brakes one week and drivers the next. Which can frequently become exasperating for those mortals faced with the nigh-impossible task of making everything rotate in harmony.
It is the intention of the BLOODHOUND Project to achieve many wondrous and awesome things. Many awesome things.
Progress in composite materials. Progress in ground-interaction aerodynamics. Progress in applied electronic solutions which would have been unimaginable a short decade ago. Huge progress in rocketry. Progress in acoustic vibration research. Progress in telemetry.
The BLOODHOUND project has a life and purpose of its own – a statement which, since you are reading this, you almost certainly understand. Equally, you also understand progress and pure human drive, and the connection thereof. And you understand the high points and low points which inevitably attend any iconic endeavour. And especially those branches of endeavour which come spiced with a quite obvious dollop of danger. You understand that.
If you wanted to be grossly unfair, you might compare BLOODHOUND with a sort of supersonic railway locomotive.
Okay, it has to be said that at this time there may not be a huge market for same. Use BLOODHOUND on the Chiltern Line from Aylesbury to Marylebone and yes, it would do the trip in 2 min 20 secs as opposed to an hour. But there is undeniably the odd downside – such as frying the coaches in the jet and rocket blast, tending to slightly catch up with the trains in front, knocking down half of Harrow and Neasden with the shockwave, and going straight through historic Marylebone station and ending up in Wapping if the brake-chutes fail. Not, let us admit, exactly great sales points.
I’ve said this before. All of the BLOODHOUND Team fully expect the car will run faultlessly from first crack out of the box to finally hitting 1,000 mph after maybe 50 runs. Just re-fuel it, shove in a fresh rocket, change the oil and coolant, give it a polish, and pat it on the head.
