Following unusually heavy rains in southern Jordan, the British ThrustSSC supersonic car team have had to abandon their 1996 attempt due to flooding on the Jafr desert for the first time since 1991. In a short period 50% of the annual Jafr rainfall flooded the surrounding area, cut off access to Petra and Wadi Musa, and flooded the Jafr desert.
It took the ThrustSSC team 6 hours to evacuate their operational base on the Jafr desert - just completing within 20 minutes of the arrival of the flash flood. We had hoped that the desert would only partially flood and then dry rapidly - but in fact the floods continued, destroying the entire track system and we understand that it will take three weeks in favourable conditions for the surface to dry and then a further two/three weeks to reconstitute the track. We don’t have the resource to stay in Jordan for a further five weeks and so we are returning car and team to the UK as soon as possible to regroup for 1997.
The 26 man team is being split into two parties - the main group returning almost immediately with sponsor Royal Jordanian Airlines and the remainder staying at Jafr to return with the ThrustSSC jet car and 75 tonnes of equipment on the HeavyLift Antonov 124 freighter about the 10th December.
After 16 days of car and desert preparation the first run was achieved on the 12th November with a maximum speed attained of 230mph (370kph). Maximum subsequent speed achieved was 331mph where the car exhibited rear wheel shimmy. The next run was aborted for the same reason. Following frantic work in UK and in Jordan - the car was ready to run to prove the modified rear suspension geometry but the floods prevented the crucial development run.
Driven by British fighter pilot Andy Green, the 850mph (1370kph) ThrustSSC car weighs 10 tonnes and has 106,000hp making it the most powerful car ever built. The car is highly innovative featuring twin jet engines, hydraulic suspension, active computer controlled ride and rear wheel steering. The research period took 2.5 years and the subsequent build 75,000 man hours. The 26 person ThrustSSC team had been operating from King Faisal Air Base at Jafr Jordan - with its operational base on the nearby Jafr desert which offers a consistently hard desert surface with a longer operational weather window than the traditional US sites.
The Thrust SSC team are in competition with the US and Australian teams to achieve the first ever supersonic (750mph-1210kph) World Land Speed Record. The US team claims to have reached 675mph but subsequently crashed and are now into rebuild. It is expected that the Australian team will commence operations in January. The ThrustSSC team plan to be operational again in Jordan just as soon as the Jafr desert dries in the New Year.
The current World Land Speed Record is 633.468mph (1019.44kph) held by Richard Noble (Project Director of ThrustSSC) since Oct 4th 1983 - the second longest period in history.
ENDS
Day by day coverage and 600 page support material on the ThrustSSC project is available with 500 high quality JPEG copyright free photographs on the Internet. Access http://thrustssc.digital.co.uk (4.5 million page accesses - growth 50,000 accesses/day). Full media support service with photographic reproductions service (44)181-308-6520. Project Jordan office 009626-886141.
Royal Jordanian Airlines: (9626)607300 Fax. 678104
HeavyLift Cargo Airlines: (44)1279-680611. Fax 681663
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