Composite performance boosts Bloodhound build

Mark Chapman graduated from Bath University in 1992 with a BEng in Aeronautical Engineering. Having worked for Babcock, Ricardo Aerospace, Boeing and Rolls Royce Chapman joined the Bloodhound project full-time in 2008. He took on the chief engineer position in 2010

With Stuart Allen joining the team as senior composites engineer, the focus over the last few weeks has very much been to progress the front composite chassis sections.  His wealth of experience in both Formula 1 and Le Mans racing has rapidly moved on the existing concept into a scheme that will be in manufacture early next year with Umeco ACG.

Although we had completed a proof of concept study early on, the past year has been primarily focused on getting the rear metallic structure into manufacture with Hampson Industries.  The reason for this was two-fold; firstly, the rear structure holds the majority of the large mechanical components, and questions on their integration such as how we react the rocket thrust are key to the vehicle design, and secondly the underlying metallic structure is less sensitive to minor changes in the exterior surface profile, so we can finalise our external aerodynamics without affecting the structural solution.