Hello and welcome to Mach 1 News, the newsletter tracing the project progress of ThrustSSC, the car being built by Richard Noble with just one purpose - to set the world's first supersonic land Speed Record. Whether you've been with us since the project launch or have only recently become a member of our exclusive club, you are sure to find much of interest in this newsletter.
The people at DERA have shown both a keen interest and active involvement in this project from its earliest days. Their work is well known to all those with more than a passing interest in military aviation and weaponry and it was, of course, their centre for Human Sciences who put together and ran the driver selection programme that eventually led to Andy Green joining the team for his historic role. Appropriately enough, Andy is now taking a break from front-line squadron service and is based at Farnborough, one of DERA's sites, working on special projects. We are delighted that DERA have furthered their involvement by agreeing to produce this newsletter for you.
As you will read in Richard Noble's update, the big news in this issue is that despite tremendous progress and outstanding efforts to bring in more money, the build programme will not be complete in time to make it to the Black Rock Desert this year Getting there within one year of project launch was a just about attainable target, but records don't come quickly or easily and so we will now have to wait until next year for the first high speed trials. You continue to provide exceptional help and encouragement to the team and we promised to give you the good, and the not so good news. We can assure you that the delat has only served to encourage us to work even harder to catch up. Stick with us - as we said, record- breaking is never easy!
IN THIS ISSUE
The Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA), with 14,000 staff and a turnover of 1,000 million, is the largest research based organisation in Europe and is a prime provider of cost- effective, impartial technical and scientific advice together with extensive trials and test facilities. The principal customer is the UK Ministry of Defence but we are increasingly serving other customers in UK industry and overseas.
DERA has been pleased to assist the ThrustSSC team by providing them with some of the necessary test and evaluation facilities.
Our 1500 metre high-speed test track at Pendine in Pembrokeshire allowed the validation of computer modelling. The inbuilt static testing facility at Shoeburyness in Essex was used for testing of the Spey jet engines. Our centre for Human Sciences has worked closely with the team in setting up selection procedures for the driver of the car. Most recently, the Air Systems Sector of DERA has been working hard to construct a cockpit simulator for Andy Green to use in honing his expertise and building up data on the ergonomic design. This simulator is being loaned to the ThrustSSC team to show on their exhibition stand at this year's Motor Show at Earls court.
DERA has great depth and breadth of experience in simulation technology. In the military field we have the JOUST simulator facility which is designed to allow detailed modelling of beyond visual range air-combat scenarios, using high-fidelity, man-in-the-loop simulations of aircraft, radar avionics and air-to-air missiles. Indeed, Andy Green is an experienced flyer of JOUST and has demonstrated its capabilities to military personnel from around the globe.
HOVERS is a helicopter simulator which allows detailed modelling of helicopter operational scenarios. It has the realism of man-in-the-loop and uses state of the art graphic workstations to provide high fidelity representations of sensor and instrument displays and the outside world.
Both of these latter two simulators are sited at Farnborough in Hampshire. Just north of Bedford we have another simulator facility - the Advanced Flight Simulation complex. At this facility designers can explore and experience situations which may be difficult or dangerous to create in the real world. Such capabilities are of vital importance in the development of advanced, fly-by-wire control systems. Our simulator experts provide support in the design, planning and interpretation of trials.
 |
 |
 |
||
| Sponsored by | This site best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 | |||
 |
 |
 |
||