Record attempt in Hakskeen Pan

Imagine driving at 13 times the speed limit with no speed cops around.

This is exactly what a British pilot will experience when he tries to set an international land speed record of 1610km/h - faster than a bullet fired from .357 magnum gun.

The Bloodhound supersonic car team has picked Hakskeen Pan, a dried-out mud flat in a sparsely populated region of Northern Cape, as the location for their attempt to take a 7t, 13m car - the engine of which generates enough power to drive an ocean liner - 382km/h over the current land-speed record of 1227km/h.

The car will accelerate at up to 80km/h every second. When braking, its speed will decrease at up to 100km/h a second.

To reach top speed, the Bloodhound uses a Typhoon fighter jet-engine mounted above a hybrid rocket engine so powerful that a Formula1 racing car engine is needed to pump oxidiser into it.

Together, the engines produce roughly the same power as 180 Formula1 cars.

Andy Green, a Royal Air Force pilot and current land speed record holder, will have travelled the length of one-and-a-half rugby fields every time he blinks.

But Green, who broke the sound barrier with the same team in 1997, said yesterday at a publicity presentation in Johannesburg that the record attempt was about more than just "going really fast".

The project's principal goal, he said, was to "engage pupils in an engineering adventure".

"It's science made real," he said, adding that young people were "not getting excited" about careers in science, technology, engineering and maths.

He said there were "critical" shortages in all these fields in South Africa and the UK.

Asked if he were afraid, Green said: "In simple terms, it will be very noisy, very hot and there will be huge amounts of [acceleration pressures]. Apart from all that, it won't be too bad."

Northern Cape Premier Hazel Jenkins said she was excited by the project and the choice of her province for the record attempt. About 300 people have been hired to clear the 16km runway of rocks and pebbles.

The team hopes to make the record attempt in 2013 or 2014.