UK Rocket Engines

[Apollo-phill]

Just returned from a pretty fanastic day at Rolls Royce Heritage Day in UK.

On display were dozens and dozens of RR jet engines, piston engines, RR cars and Bristol Siddeley and some Allison engines.

But,also on display were many many items from past UK rocket programmes - mainly engine and  components - such as Stentor, Black Arrow,Black Knight, RZ2 and some WWII German engines.

The guy is retired RR Ansty  rocket enginer John Scott who worked on engines for Black Knight rocket and Black Arrow launcher amongst others

The following images are just a selection I took. I may develop a short web page for rest . If I do - I'll post web page link here on Forum.


Phill Parker
UK

[Vahe231991]

Even though this thread is over a decade old, there's a book by C.N. Hill titled A Vertical Empire: History of the British Rocketry Programme, and I would assume that it contains info about rocket engines developed for the UK's space rockets. The prototype Hawker Sea Hawk jet fighter became the Hawker P.1072 after it was modified to have the Armstrong Siddeley Snarler liquid-fuel rocket motor installed in the tail, and when the P.1072 began flight tests in November 1950, the Snarler became the first ever British liquid-fuel rocket motor to fly.

[Dalhousie]

Even though this thread is over a decade old, there's a book by C.N. Hill titled A Vertical Empire: History of the British Rocketry Programme, and I would assume that it contains info about rocket engines developed for the UK's space rockets. The prototype Hawker Sea Hawk jet fighter became the Hawker P.1072 after it was modified to have the Armstrong Siddeley Snarler liquid-fuel rocket motor installed in the tail, and when the P.1072 began flight tests in November 1950, the Snarler became the first ever British liquid-fuel rocket motor to fly.

Great book.  However Fire across the desert, the official history of the Woomera test range, says that live firing the the RTV-1 occurred at Aberporth on July 1948, albeit not fully fuelled.  Fully fuelled launches of the RTV-1 at Woomera were carried out from December 1 1949 at Range G.  Vertical Empire says almost nothing about RTV-1 or it's precursor LOP/GAP (or LOPGAP).  Development of LOX-petrol engines began in 1941 with the first test firing of a LOPRGAP engine in 1946.

RTV-1s are preserved at Woomera, the London Science Museum, the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney,and the Vtocieran Museum, so I am surprised this work is not better known or documented. Fire across the desert is the mopst detailed account I have identified.  RTV-1 led to the long ranged surface to air missiles Thunderbird, Bloodhound, and Seaslug, characteristics of which are clearly carried over from the RTV-1 and RTV-2.

The first six photos are a frontal view of Woomera's RTV, followed by five photos along the vehicle.  The final one is of the RTV in the London science museum.

[Hobbes-22]

Even though this thread is over a decade old, there's a book by C.N. Hill titled A Vertical Empire: History of the British Rocketry Programme, and I would assume that it contains info about rocket engines developed for the UK's space rockets.

Yes, it contains some information on rocket engines. It's a high-level overview, so it doesn't go into a lot of detail.

370 pages. Chapters:
1. Intro
2. Rocket motors
3. Rocket interceptors (SR.53, SR.177, Avro 720)
4. Blue Steel
5-7 Blue Streak
8. BSSLV
9. ELDO
10. Europa
11-12 Black Knight
13. Black Arrow
14. Migh-have-beens
15 Conclusion
Appendices:
A. SR.53 and SR.177
B. K11 underground launcher
C. use of Spaceadam for space firings
D. Space and the future of ELDO
E. ELDO organization
F. Black Knight launcher
G. Timeline