Reaction Engines SABRE engine (Skylon Spaceplane)

GTX said:
Surprised it took this long
Click to expand...
35 years without managing to create a sellable product was pretty good going for a supposed manufacturing company.

They were really a research company though. Hopefully their SMEs in HX design etc. find employment in other companies and carry their expertise with them to find exploitation routes.
 
red admiral said:
35 years without managing to create a sellable product was pretty good going for a supposed manufacturing company.

They were really a research company though. Hopefully their SMEs in HX design etc. find employment in other companies and carry their expertise with them to find exploitation routes.
Click to expand...
I remember having a tour a few years back and thinking 'woo hoo space planes' and then they talked about kettles.
 
Mike Pryce said:
Also this: https://breakingdefense.com/2024/10...chains-after-collapse-of-hypersonic-supplier/

Article has a picture of something that shows how far they had come from the Skylon dream.

View attachment 746106
Click to expand...
I would like to know, what kind of propulsion we see on this pic, maybe a wet cycle gas turbine?

***Edit: I believe, this should demonstrate their cooler in a hydrogene fuel cell application.***

Somewhere here in this forum, I saw an old pic for different cooler configurations for radial engines, the 360° outlet variants were less efficient than those with two outlets (like the FW-190). The 360° outlet (I miss the flaps), does make it easier to get an even flow distribution in the cooler but produces more turbulence and hence skin friction on the fuselage/nacelle
 
Last edited:
I am glad that the Radiator Exchangers Ltd (aka Reaction Engines Ltd) house of cards finally collapses.

For those of you who still don't seem to get it: there is no "SABRE engine technology", only propaganda.
All they managed in 35 years is a simple tubular heat exchanger, and some fancy artist impressions of space planes.

They have been running a scam for many years but many did not want to hear it.
I got attacked here many times by aggressive fanboys for pointing that out.

Now I hope that the mislead stakeholders will initiate a criminal investigation against the CEO and CFO of this Theranos lookalike.
 
scautomoton said:
Yeah, let's face it, why sweep in and save the company when you can wait and buy all the IP for sod all
Click to expand...
Let's be frank; there weren't much to save. Their progress for 35 (!) years was next to nonexistent. Basically all they have is an engine concept - not even prototype! - and a probably-innovative heat exchanger that kinda sorta seems to work on testing. That's all they got for third-of-century and hundred of millions worth of time and efforts. Whatever their ideas may be, their engineering process was extremely inefficient and disorganized; they moved on literally glacial pace, and doesn't seems to find this alarming at all.
 
Dagger said:
They have been running a scam for many years but many did not want to hear it.
I got attacked here many times by aggressive fanboys for pointing that out.
Click to expand...
Well, I believe that they were sincere enough when they started, but quickly realized that SSTO space jet idea is too great to handle, and decided to concentrate their efforts on the engine concept - basically hoping that they would be able to attract commercial and government interest by mere idea, and got enough money to somehow make engine work.
 
I wonder what will become of the whole spaceplane concept now that Reaction Engines has bit the bullet? Will the other companies shy away from them knowing what happened to Skylon or will Elon Musk and SpaceX step into the fold and replace Reaction Engines, only time and money will tell.
 
In the 1990's I enjoyed reading about the Skylon SSTO project, a follow-up by some of the British engineers responsible for the earlier HOTOL, and I hoped Skylon would successfully fly, to further the general goal of space achievement. I heard the postmortems that HOTOL simply could not work (although I withhold judgment until I can read Dan Sharp's presumably detailed and informative HOTOL book, forthcoming). But the Skylon design took those problems into account, especially by moving the engines to the wingtips. I understood that the subsequent failure to build a Skylon was due to British and EU reluctance to pay the billions necessary, rather than to any shortcomings with the concept and design.

Dilandu says about the Skylon engine's innovative precooler that "apparently it didn't work", and Dagger agrees, although no references are cited. I remember articles in both Flight International and Aviation Week around mid-2019 that a funded two-year program would imminently begin, to bolt a Reaction Engines' helium precooler in front of a EJ200 jet engine, the engine used in the Eurofighter Typhoon. These apparently would be ground tests only, but the articles hinted that, assuming good results, there was RAF interest in adding precoolers to their in-service fighters for improved performance. Thereafter I saw no articles about subsequent results of this British test program, if it indeed happened. Anybody hear what the actual results were? Please: informed answers only.
 
Dilandu said:
In later years - when the funding run dry and they still produced absolutely nothing worthy of 100+ millions spent - they tried to present the heat exchanger (apparently the only thing developed to some meaningful extent) basically to anyone who may be interested. Apparently it didn't work.
Click to expand...
"Didn't work" is, I believe, an incorrect reading of what's out there about RE. It seems more like their architecture worked in testing, but it needed substantial investment to bring from laboratory to high-TRL. RE had money, at times, but not anything like what was required. Their partners seemed to hope they'd scrape it together, possibly from the UK itself, but none was willing to be the one carrying the financial load themselves.
 
Indeed they had a lot of research contracts from the US DoD, as well as working on the British Hypersonic programme and for example BAE had given them one just last month for putting their intercooler into Marine Engines, but they weren't bringing in enough money to sustain their wider research from low rate production. I understand the main reason the UAE acquisition approach failed was because the government didn't want the technology escaping and told RR and BAE not to support it. Indeed it wasnt like the technology wasnt being used commercially at all, Mercedes-Benz are using it in their Formula 1 engines and several other teams were planning to use it next season. I believe someone is likely to buy them out of administration with their outstanding debt burden lifted.
 
REL precooler and Skylon design were validated by an ESA assessment study. I presume they know their technical stuff. It was the real missed opportunity, to bounce of this technical endorsement. Another correct move was looking for applications of the pre-cooler tech, as a cash-machine to keep the company afloat. They did it, but in a rather chaotic and unefficient manner.

How about a stepped aproach ?
1-precooler applications outside aerospace: F1, nuclear powerplant, ammonia-to-hydrogen in-flight cracking...
2-SABRE Mach 5.5 demonstrators: to ride on the hypersonic craze (Hermeus !)
3-SABRE Mach 5.5 operational vehicles for military applications
4-TSTO with US companies, perhaps with REL's Fluyt upper stage (of Skylon studies legacy)
5-Skylon (depends from TSTO in-flight experience)
 
Last edited:
Until now, we don't know how the de icing should worked, is there no patent for it?

I would also like to know, how to seal the turbines, so that no mixing of air/H2/lO2/He would happen as well as no leakage of Helium.

In the video (#64) Mr. Bond talked about building a prototype engine (as I understand it, only for the thermodynamics) in the 3. step of the developing process, did it ever happen?
 
Nicknick said:
Until now, we don't know how the de icing should worked, is there no patent for it?
Click to expand...

I suggest you and others reread all my previous posts which started here:

The only reason I started posting about the REL fraud in may 2022 was because I picked up a rumour that they were planning an IPO (Initial Public Offering) in order to seize 1 to 2 billion pounds from institutional and private investors by selling them basically worthless shares, because the original stakeholders (BAe, RR, UKSA, ESA, ....) no longer wanted to drop money into that black hole.
A couple of months later they officially announced that there would be an IPO in 2024. Luckily that never happened.
 
Nicknick said:
Until now, we don't know how the de icing should worked, is there no patent for it?

I would also like to know, how to seal the turbines, so that no mixing of air/H2/lO2/He would happen as well as no leakage of Helium.

In the video (#64) Mr. Bond talked about building a prototype engine (as I understand it, only for the thermodynamics) in the 3. step of the developing process, did it ever happen?
Click to expand...
The anti icing invention is patented (over several patents) and is deliberately presented in a defensive way to make the solution they’re using difficult to establish. This is quite a commonly used practice to balance protection and confidentiality. I have a thought on what their anti icing approach but absolutely no validation.

I remember attending an RE presentation where a question from the audience was asked about leakage between systems. The answer suggested the solution was in balancing elements of the design solution in many areas to keep mixing percentages within safe limits during the engine running time. They also said tip leakage for an He turbine was seriously challenging, indeed probably the next most important after precooler ice prevention. I believe He turbines have been successfully demonstrated in the nuclear industry but they’re very niche, with not a lot of information available.

I got the impression things were not right at RE when work on the Westscott test facility stalled in early 2019. That was critical for doing Sabres working elements (step) testing. I remember being told it was a pause but it never got going again.
 
Last edited:
Sounds to me, they didn't have break through solutions for those problems and were hoping to manage it somehow.

As I remember, the later versions wouldn't cool down the air so much, so that icing was simply avoided by less cooling performance.

For the He/H2 turbines, not only the tip seal is important, but also the shaft sealing. It might be done by a rotating liquid ring, but I'm not sure if it would work in the extreme temperatures. The mentioned He turbines in Nuclear power stations are completly casuled, so there is no leakage to the outside.

In the end, they managed to built some microtube coolers, nice, but even here they are not without competition (Mezzo coolers). The rest of the system was propably never buit and testet.

There is no indication that they ever matured the idea significantly over all the years.
 
Last edited:
Dagger said:
I suggest you and others reread all my previous posts which started here:

The only reason I started posting about the REL fraud in may 2022 was because I picked up a rumour that they were planning an IPO (Initial Public Offering) in order to seize 1 to 2 billion pounds from institutional and private investors by selling them basically worthless shares, because the original stakeholders (BAe, RR, UKSA, ESA, ....) no longer wanted to drop money into that black hole.
A couple of months later they officially announced that there would be an IPO in 2024. Luckily that never happened.
Click to expand...
I read it, very likely you didn't read my reply...

 

Similar threads

Please donate to support the forum.

Back
Top Bottom