Pupils from the Braambos Primary School on Air Force Base Makhado received a visit from the Rolls-Royce ambassadors last Thursday.
They primarily talked about the cutting-edge engineering that Rolls-Royce is currently providing to support the Bloodhound Project, an international education initiative focused on a 1 000-mile-per-hour world land-speed record attempt. A Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet engine will be used in conjunction with a custom-designed hybrid rocket to propel the car to over 1 000 mph (1,600 km/h or Mach 1.4). Much like their support of the Bloodhound Project, the pupils learnt, Rolls-Royce also provides technical engine support to the fighter jets at the air force base.
Rolls-Royce has a long and distinguished association with speed-record breaking on land, sea and in the air. In the 1930s its 'Type R' engine powered Sir Malcolm Campbell's Bluebird cars and boats, Capt. George Eyston's Thunderbolt car, Sir Henry Segrave's Miss England II boat and the Supermarine S6B seaplane of Flt-Lt John Boothman, outright winner of the Schneider Trophy in 1931.
More recently, in 1983, Richard Noble, now Bloodhound's project director, used a Rolls-Royce Avon 302 1983 in Thrust 2 to set a record of 633.047 mph (1,019.47 km/h) while two Spey 202 turbofan engines, as used in a McDonald Douglas F4 Phantom, enabled Wing Commander Andy Green to become the first, and so far only, person to break the sound barrier on land in Thrust SSC, which set the current record of 763.035 mph (1,227.986 km/h) in 1997. The company did not, however, officially sanction or endorse any of these activities.
This year, the Bloodhound will run for the first time on a specially created track on South Africa's Hakskeen Pan (Northern Cape). The team will be targeting 500mph – a key milestone on the journey to setting the new world land-speed record.
Back at AFB Makhado, the students also had the opportunity to build their very own "Bloodhound", while learning all these interesting facts. Students, although their mini versions of the Bloodhound were built from carton and propelled by a balloon, enjoyed it immensely to race their individual creations against fellow classmates.
The officer commanding AFB Makhado, Brig-Gen André Barends, thanked the Rolls-Royce team on behalf of all the students.