Fighter Pilot Who Engineered a World Record!

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), a leading professional society for engineering and technology communityhosted its prestigious Lord Austin Lecture in the city yesterday at Infosys Limited, Electronics City. British Fighter Pilot and current world land speed record holder Wg Cdr Andy Green delivered an inspirational and educational lecture on project BLOODHOUND, a supersonic car aiming to set a new world land speed record of 1,000 mph (1,609 kmph).

The lecture witnessed a record audience turnout of nearly 1,000 attendees including school children, college students and professionals from various industries.

The lecture delved upon The BLOODHOUND Project, an international education initiative focused on setting a new World Land Speed Record. It highlighted the key technical challenges of Project BLOODHOUND and also touched upon the key contributions from India, as well as some major potential benefits to India through the BLOODHOUND education programme. Further, Andy emphasised on the team’s preparation to deploy the BLOODHOUND project to South Africa in autumn 2015 to begin high speed testing with the target of reaching around 1,300 km/h.

Wing Commander Andy Green, fighter pilot with the British Royal Air Force said, “It’s been a  tremendous privilege to deliver the IET’s 2014 Lord Austin Lecture and a real pleasure to talk to such a large, excited and intelligent audience who came up with some great questions about the World Land Speed Record. Project BLOODHOUND offers huge opportunities for engineering education not just in UK but also to Indian students and Indian organisations. It was great to see the audience so proud of the Indian inputs into BLOODHOUND through TATA steel and Jaguar. I was also particularly impressed by the student who in 20 years’ time intends to break our record and go even faster.”

Azra Fathima, Head – Marketing & Communications, The IET India said, “We are absolutely delighted to be able to bring the inspiration of Project BLOODHOUND to India with the IET Lord Austin lecture. The IET’s mission is to Inspire, Inform and Influence and we hope that Wing Commander’s Andy Green’s talk will inspire students and engineers to think about how we can focus on innovation and creativity for the betterment of society.”

The Lord Austin Lecture is an annual an international prestige lecture by the IET in honour of Lord Herbert Austin, founder of the Austin Motor Company.