Jet Car Breaks Sound Barrier

GERLACH, Nev. - The sleek, black, jet-powered Thrust SSC screamed across the Black Rock Desert faster than the speed of sound, then turned around and did it all over again.

"It wasn't all that difficult, really," said driver Andy Green, a pilot in Britain's Royal Air Force, after he nabbed the land speed record yesterday, trailing a huge plume of dust across the desert's talc.

"It's been a magic morning," said beaming owner Richard Noble. "It's a hell of an achievement."

Noble's car, powered by two jet engines, ripped along at 759.333 mph on its first run and 766.609 mph on the second in cool, clear weather. Under a formula used by the U.S. Automobile Club, which times the runs, the record was set at 763.035.

The speed of sound, which varies according to weather and altitude, was calculated at the time at 748.111 mph.

Noble had set the speed record here just over 14 years ago at 633.46 mph.

Fifty years and one day earlier, Chuck Yeager was the first pilot to break the sound barrier. He did it in an experimental rocket-powered plane.

The new land-speed mark broke the old record, set by Green just three weeks ago, by nearly 49 mph.

The two runs had to be made within an hour of each other for the record to be official.

The racer broke the sound barrier twice on Monday but missed the record books because a problem with a drag parachute delayed the team and it took 61 minutes to start the second run.

The Thrust is a massive vehicle, measuring 54 feet long and 12 feet wide, and weighing 10.2 tons. It's powered by two 110,000-horsepower Rolls-Royce Spey 205 engines.

Despite all the hoopla about breaking the sound barrier, some say the achievement was first accomplished on land 18 years ago.

Yeager says Hollywood stuntman Stan Barrett reached a top speed of 739.666 mph using a hybrid liquid-and-solid-fuel rocket engine at Edwards Air Force Base in 1979. The speed of sound was 731.9 mph that morning.

Air Force radar-tracking units confirmed the vehicle broke the sound barrier, according to state Sen. Pete Knight, who was then vice commander at Edwards. But the car piloted by Barrett never fulfilled the requirement to make the run in two directions within an hour.