Bloodhound LSR has a lot of cabling! The blue cable you can see here looped around the jet engine bay is ‘FireWire’, and there is a second FireWire-cabled zone in the cockpit. FireWire is a thermo-sensitive cable loop that will detect extreme heat and send a signal to warn the driver that the car is on fire.
The “I’m on fire!” signal can be used to automatically trigger fire extinguishers. However, on Bloodhound, following many safety meetings, it has been decided that this signal should simply put a big red ‘ENGINE FIRE’ signal on the dashboard screens. Andy will then immediately shut off the fuel to the engines and let out the parachutes or apply the brakes, depending on the speed.
The on-board fire extinguishers have limited capacity, so are most effective if they are deployed as soon as the car is nearly stationary – this controls the fire, giving crucial seconds at the exact time Andy would need to escape the vehicle.
Bloodhound is not a crazy cavalier project, far from it – as this example shows, every detail is meticulously thought through. Bloodhound LSR is a project with two clear goals: to globally showcase the best of British engineering; and to inspire the next generation of engineers and technicians, of all disciplines, who will invent, design and manufacture products and technologies for their future. Without them – the world will not develop.
