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Engineering

Southampton engineers go supersonic at Farnborough Airshow

Published: 21 July 2010

The BLOODHOUND Driving Experience launches at Farnborough International Airshow this week to give visitors a taste for driving a car at 1000mph. Designed by flight simulation experts at the University of Southampton, this provides an exhilarating insight into the human challenges of breaking the world land speed record - www.BLOODHOUNDSSC.com

Dr Kenji Takeda, from the School of Engineering Sciences, explains, "Our aim was to replicate the extraordinary challenge faced by Andy Green in the cockpit of the world's fastest car. The sheer workload, precisely managing a fighter jet engine, hybrid rocket, airbrake, parachutes and wheel brakes, to accelerate to Mach 1.4 and stop in time, is tremendous."

Powered by Intel, the Driving Experience software was designed by Cursive Simulation, led by Managing Director and Southampton PhD student James Kenny; James' PhD research is in ultra-realistic flight simulation physics modelling. The BLOODHOUND Driving Experience is built using state-of-the-art serious games technology, as used by the military for training simulations. The Gamebryo Lightspeed game engine, from Emergent Technologies, is easily able to keep up with the demands of simulating a 1000mph car.

The cockpit pod was built by The Race Centre, the UK's only race car simulator facility, in conjunction with the University of the West of England Bristol.

Dr Takeda, who is a member of the BLOODHOUND Education Team, adds, "By using our extensive expertise in flight simulation, we hope we have created an experience that will help to stimulate youngsters' interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics across the UK. We desperately need more scientists and engineers to build a new low carbon economy, and this is our educational vehicle to ignite the imaginations of tomorrow's problem-solvers."

BLOODHOUND SSC and the University of Southampton are exhibiting in the Futures Day Pavilion at Farnborough International Airshow from 19-25 July 2010.

For further information visit

www.BLOODHOUNDSSC.com

www.farnborough.com/Site/Content/Farnborough2010/default.aspx

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