Britain's Richard Jenkins has just broken the world land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle. The high-tech contraption he used is called the Greenbird, which is the fifth wind-powered ride Jenkins has built. The resourceful Brit designed Greenbird himself over the course of a decade and built the machine almost completely from carbon fiber. Interestingly, Greenbird was sponsored by Ecotricity, the company currently working to build an electric Lotus that will be charged using wind-generated juice.
On a dry lake bed in Nevada, Jenkins managed to get Greenbird up to an amazing 126.1 miles per hour, handily breaking the old record of 116 mph, which was set in 1999 by Bob Schumacher, an American. According to Jenkins, the feat itself was rather uneventful, saying, "things couldn't have gone better."
Now that Jenkins has successfully broken the elusive record on land, he's reportedly turning his attention to the ice, where he plans to break the record for that surface using a second, different Greenbird. The ice vehicle exchanges wheels for blades and has a symmetric layout, with outriggers extending from each side of the fuselage, unlike the land car's asymmetric design, "There's still some debate as to whether traveling on ice or land will be faster," he said. Should be interesting to find out, no?
[Source: BBC]
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