What's the fastest you've ever driven in a car? 100 miles per hour? 120? Maybe you've seen 150 if you've driven something capable enough on a closed circuit or a derestricted (or otherwise empty) stretch of highway, like Germany's Autobahn or northern Australia's Stuart Highway. But 600 mph? Sorry to break it to you, but the fact of the matter is that none of us will ever reach a speed that high. Not on land anyway, and not while manning the wheel ourselves. That's what makes this video such a rare glimpse into what might as well be another universe.

The 360-degree video – less than three minutes long – was captured inside the cockpit of the Bloodhound LSR while undergoing testing in South Africa in preparation for an eventual, much faster run.

Manning the controls is none other than Andy Green – that's Wing Commander Andrew Duncan Green to you – a man who knows a thing or two about going fast. He's a former fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force, flying jets like the F-4 Phantom and F3 Tornado during his service. But since retiring from the RAF, he's been setting a series of land speed records.

Green became the first person to break the sound barrier on land in 1997, when he piloted the ThrustSSC in Nevada's Black Rock Desert to a record 714.144 miles per hour. He also set the record for diesel power in 2006 when he cracked 350 mph in the JCB Dieselmax. But the Bloodhound will take him even faster, aiming to top 1,000 mph.

It'll be a while longer before the Bloodhound team is ready for the record attempt, supported by Jaguar (which produces the F-Type R, among other seriously fast cars) and the aerospace counterpart of Rolls-Royce (producer of the Wraith fastback). But you can already see how much concentration it takes to keep it on the (proverbial, if not actual) straight and narrow in this clip.