Armstrong Siddeley Snarler

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The Armstrong Siddeley Snarler was a small rocket engine that the British manufacturer Armstrong Siddeley built for combined performance tests together with an early jet engine . It was the first airworthy British rocket engine for liquid fuel. Unlike other British rocket engine designs that used hydrogen peroxide as an oxidizer , Armstrong Siddeley's processed liquid oxygen . The snarler has a dry weight of 97.6 kg, a maximum thrust of 8.9 kN and a specific fuel consumption of 2040 kg / kN x h. Construction began in 1947 and flight testing of the final engine was carried out on March 29, 1950.

The prototype of the Hawker P.1040 Sea Hawk with the registration number VP 401 had a Snarler rocket engine with 8.9 kN thrust installed at the rear. The Rolls-Royce Nene jet engine with 23.14 kN thrust had a split outlet that released the exhaust gases on both sides of the aircraft fuselage. This combination was called the Hawker P.1072 . This resulted in approximately 50% more thrust, albeit with 20 times the fuel consumption. The aircraft was first tested on November 20, 1950 by test pilot Trevor “Wimpy” Wade . Half a dozen test flights were conducted before a minor explosion damaged the aircraft. In the P.1072, methanol was used as fuel, but kerosene could also be used for the snarler. It was eventually decided that an afterburner was a better way of increasing thrust for jet engines than rockets.

A remarkable detail on the machine was that the turbo compressor was driven externally by the gearbox of the jet engine.

variants

ASSn.1 Snarler
The prototype and the test machines (designation of the Ministry of Supply : ASSn)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ S. Allen: Rockets for Aircraft Propulsion . In: The Airplane . 7th December 1951.
  2. ↑ a b Snarler . (PDF) In: Flight . July 25, 1952, pp. 92-93.
  3. ↑ a b c d Armstrong Siddeley Snarler ASSn.1 (Chapter: Aero engines 1954) . (PDF) In: Flight . Aug 6, 1954, pp. 447-448.
  4. ↑ United Kingdom Aerospace and Weapons Projects: Rocket Engines . Skomer. Archived from the original on April 22, 2008. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 4, 2014.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.skomer.u-net.com
  5. ^ Armstrong Siddeley Snarler . (PDF) In: Flight . Aug 6, 1954, pp. 176-180.
  6. ↑ P.1072 Armstrong Siddeley Snarler ASSn.1 (Chapter: The Quest for Power ...) . (PDF) In: Flight . August 6, 1954, p. 444. “Transferring liquid oxygen from a BOC spherical tanker to the Hawker P.1072 in which the Sn rocket was tested. The gas is exhausting through the lower vents and rapidly evaporating. "
  7. ↑ As with any jet engine, the thrust of the Nene decreased with altitude, but that of the Snarler remained constant.
  8. ^ Armstrong Siddeley Screamer . (PDF) In: Flight . July 27, 1956, pp. 160-164.

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