26 July 2010
Bloodhound SSC's cockpit instruments
Bloodhound SSC's cockpit instruments:
1. Brake Pedal
2. EJ200 Jet Engine pedal. The first 60% of the movement controls the 'dry' power range, the final 40% controls the reheat
3. Green buttons – 2 brake chutes
4. Blue button – airbrake
5. Radio and abort buttons (not used in the Driving Experience)
6. Data input keypad – the data is shown below the keypad and will vary from run to run. This tells the Car where it is and what the driver intends to do during the run, so that all of the speed and distance cues are calculated correctly
7. Battery voltages (24V Car power system)
8. HTP quantity – this will read about one tonne at start up: enough for 20 sec of rocket firing!
9. Jet fuel quantity – this will start at 400 kg and around 150 kg will be used during a run
10. Pressures applied to the wheel brakes when the brake pedal is pressed
11. Brake disc temperatures – for carbon discs, this can be over 1000 deg C
12. Warning captions – in case any of the above gauges go out of pre-set limits
13. Brake temperature warning, in case the driver is particularly hard on the brakes – this will come on at around 1000 deg C
14. Hydraulic system pressures – each system has its own accumulator. If the main system fails, these gauges will show what has failed and what is still working
15. Vacuum pressure for the wheel brakes – much like a road car system
16. HTP tank pressure, and tank and pump temperatures – any increase in temperature and we will immediately abort the run and flush the tanks, just in case
17. The RPM and coolant temperature for our 800 hp piston engine Auxiliary Power Unit (APU), which drives the HTP pump
18. Warning captions, to highlight any gauge out of limits
19. FIRE captions to indicate a high temperature has been detected in one of the rear bays
20. FLUID caption, to show that there is a leak somewhere in the APU bay
21. Distance run indicator, to back up the mile markers on the track
22. The start of the purple sector on the speedometer is the Rocket idle firing cue (left trigger on the steering wheel)
23. The start of the purple sector on the speedometer is the Rocket full power firing cue (right trigger)
24. Green diamond – brake chute cue (if the airbrakes are not already out)
25. Blue diamond – airbrake deployment cue
26. Loads on the front and rear wheels. These wheel loads are the most important safety element in the Car. If these stay within limits, then all will be well – so I'll be watching them closely!
27. Airbrake position indicator
28. LOAD caption – in case the wheel loads start getting too low for comfort
29. ROCKET caption to indicate that the rocket safety systems have detected a problem and commanded an automatic rocket shutdown
30. Rocket power output. I may not use this much in the Car (the acceleration will let me know that it's working!) but it will help in the Driving Experience
31. EJ200 power output – the purple sector is the 'dry' range (i.e. engine RPM) and the blue sector is the reheat (it actually shows is the area of the nozzle at the back end of the engine – a good indicator of reheat power output)
Author
Andy Green
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