Reaction Engines SABRE engine (Skylon Spaceplane)

Calum Douglas said:
I`ve never worked anywhere doing combustion engine fundamental design which used Creo, and I`ve worked at a lot of engine design departments.

All CAD systems are basically flawed and annoying, and the arguments endless, but I would say virtually every high level engine design dept is using either NX or CATIA. CATIA has been losing quite a bit of marketspace to NX in the last few years, partially because its insanely expensive, but also because nobody wants the cloud based V6 version (which is now called "3D experience" for reasons nobody knows).

Solidworks is amazingly easy and very capable, but falls over on stability and despite the PR claims, a total inability to satisfactorally work with very large assemblies or extremely complex single parts. I would say it has the large market share for what we`d call mid-range engineering firms.

As far as I can tell Creo basically got no significant useful upgrades or serious feature expansion in the last 10 years and almost all current users of it are pretty much using it for some historical product continuity reasons, rather than because its what you`d choose out of the box today were you starting from zero.

Catia V5 is the best CAD system I`ve ever used, its ability to work with gigantic parts and assemblies in real time on even moderately capable PC`s is unbelievable, I have no idea how it does it. I`d use it now, but I dont have £100,000 for V5 with all the toolbars, so I use NX, which is about 2/3 as good for 15x less money.
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I did a lot of work for Volkswagen enviroment (including suppliers) and they all used Creo. It was also used by some off Highway companies I've been working for (agriculture, Aero, Marine...) and the prefered program by the FEV, AVL and guess so, for many others too. According to a guy who designed a whole engine for a famous sport car company with Creo (including all FEM, multi body etc. all done within Creo enviroment) they internally tested varios programs and Creo turned out to be the most stable and fastest program for engine design.

There was at least one big step in Creo within the last 10(?) years. Creo can now perform Boolshe operations and offers a model tree like Catia. You can also handle different solids in one part completely seperatly as it was allways the case in Catia. I started with Catia V4 and I allways missed this in ProE/Creo!

However, Creo is currently the program I'm most used to, so my view might be biased....
 
Hi, I came across the Hotol - Britain's first space plane book by Dan Sharp on X a few days back.The vehicle configuration with its Sotka style air intakes piqued my interest and since then I have done some reading on Hotol and Skylon, watched some docs and Alan Bond interviews on YouTube.

I have a few questions.

1. Reaction Engines Ltd went bankrupt in Oct of this year. Under PwC administration now. If they had been able to secure the required funding say another 30 million pounds from UAE SDF or Rolls Royce, then when did they plan to fly a scaled down sabre engine on a flying test bed?

2. If funding had been secured, what were their future plan of action. Back in 2011, the REL guys were saying that they will have a flying space plane for uncrewed missions in next 15 years. They even had plans of an unmanned Skylon mission to Mars in 2026. That's exactly an year from now.

3. How can a small private company with around 220 employees and around 100 million pounds investment plan to design,develope and test a SSTO spaceplane whose empty weight is 53 tons with a payload capacity of 15 tons to low eorbit. They didn't tie up with any OEM , aerospace company for providing them with the required consultancy and the IP of the enabling tech required to build any sort of aircraft. Had an established company , aerospace giant like Boeing, Airbus, Sukhoi OKB, Embraer , etc had such a program, it would have been understandable. But a small company of Oxfordshire with extremely limited funding planning to build Skylon is extremely daring and audacious on the part of the management of the company. How did they ever plan to design and build something which require billions and hundreds of very competent engineers from different disciplines in just a few hundred million pounds?

4. REL haven't demonstrated a 1:1 scale Sabre prototype on ground. Neither did they conduct any flight tests of any of the elements like precooler, compressor , air breathing rocket engine on a flying test bed. The only test of an engine with most of the elements was with a Gnome engine. Don't know what had happened to the precooler mated with Ej200 test.

5. REL was the lead propulsion company for the RAF HVX project which plans to have a flying reusable tech demo flyworthy vehicle by 2030. What will happen to this project now? Will RAF nominate any other OEM , like say Rolls Royce to do the required work OR did REC already transferred the required tech and their IPR for fabrication of the required engine.

6. Are there any plans to restructure and relaunch REL so that the experienced manpower is retained and all the decades of work doesn't go down the drain.

7. Why didn't Rolls Royce bail them out. 100 million pounds is peanuts for them. Especially when ESA guys conducted a thorough technical oversight of their entire work and came out with only 200 actions in 2010 or 11. They were satisfied with REL's work.


I had asked one of this ques to Dan Sharp on X but didn't recieve any reply. Maybe he's too busy with the book launch. Plan to buy one when the book is available in my country.

PS- Those brightly coloured and illustrated HOTOL brochure from BAc in the 80s really got my attention. Now completely obsessed with Hotol and Skylon.
 
Answers;-
1 - 30 mill would have just kept them going, I don’t know if that would have paid for any further demonstrations, but suspect not.

2 - Back in 2011 they were 100% private funded, so what were they supposed to say? Similar to Space X but yes they did the whole space vehicle.

3 - Reaction ===Engines==== Limited never intended to build anything other than the engine. Again the business plan was to engage a funded airframe prime and supply a unique engine. Skylon was demonstration of the art of the possible with their engine.

4 - The Gnome test fitted the available budget.

5 - The IP will be sold, with RR having had a share of REL, they have a position advantage in the purchase. I suspect it made business sense just get certain IP without all other things/cost REL was getting into.

6 - No, key staff all laid off, and being rather good they won’t be on the job market long.

7 - See answer 5. I think the technology was sound but with Starship no one is going to bankroll a wing born SSTO. Fundamentally the wings are dead weight that just reduce payload so will always be an operating cost that vertical launch and landing doesn’t have.

High speed sub orbital cruise is probably where the potential is for the aerospace fraction of REL IP.
 
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Zoo Tycoon said:
Answers;-
1 - 30 mill would have just kept them going, I don’t know if that would have paid for any further demonstrations, but suspect not.

2 - Back in 2011 they were 100% private funded, so what were they supposed to say? Similar to Space X but yes they did the whole space vehicle.

3 - Reaction ===Engines==== Limited never intended to build anything other than the engine. Again the business plan was to engage a funded airframe prime and supply a unique engine. Skylon was demonstration of the art of the possible with their engine.

4 - The Gnome test fitted the available budget.

5 - The IP will be sold, with RR having had a share of REL, they have a position advantage in the purchase. I suspect it made business sense just get certain IP without all other things/cost REL was getting into.

6 - No, key staff all laid off, and being rather good they won’t be on the job market long.

7 - See answer 5. I think the technology was sound but with Starship no one is going to bankroll an SSTO. Fundamentally the wings are dead weight that just reduce payload so will always be an operating cost that vertical launch and landing doesn’t have.

High speed sub orbital cruise is probably where the potential is for the aerospace fraction of REL IP.
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Thanks for the detailed reply.

I watched a 2010 presentation by Alan Bond last night where he explicitly stated that it will take 7 billion pounds and 9 1/2 years to complete the development of Skylon. Don't know whether he was talking about C1 or D1 variant. If 30 Skylons are built , then unit cost will be 190 mil pounds. In 2010 pound was 1.43 to 1.5 of USD.

Then Alan Bond had plans for a NTV- Nacelle Test Vehicle which will have a functional 1/5th sized nacelle , intake and a scramjet engine instead of the air breathing rocket engine. It was planned to be flown to Mach 5 speeds and be sort of a flying test bed . This never materialised.

REL had tested the pre cooler mated to a J79 engine at its Colorado test facility.

In 2020, they had only matured the pre cooler tech, proven it and was in the process of formulating specs for the nozzle which they wanted to sub contract to an established rocket manufacturer. Then they were in the process of doing Demo A of the turbo compressor, turbines and the entire machinery barring the rocket nozzle followed by Demo A+ on a flying test bed. Does anyone know what happened to Demo A? Did they proceed with it?

There are still some ways to go before REL could demonstrate a scaled down sabre engine on ground, let alone fly it. Even if Rolls Royce buys the IPR, they have to plough their own money and put in lots of efforts to develope the other bits , integrate all the stuff and make the engine work. Then initiate a flight test campaign. Whatever it is, MoD will need a new company , OEM to look after the propulsion part of HVX.


And finally coming to the most intriguing ques. Why didn't British MoD provide the required funding to REL instead of some millions here and there. Skylon or a scaled down variant of it could have been used as a hypersonic strike aircraft by the Royal Airforce. And also for launch on demand applications for launching UK def sats. A 1:2 Skylon with an empty weight of 25-26 tons would have been the perfect unmanned strike asset for the Brits.
 
Gablu said:
Thanks for the detailed reply.

I watched a 2010 presentation by Alan Bond last night where he explicitly stated that it will take 7 billion pounds and 9 1/2 years to complete the development of Skylon. Don't know whether he was talking about C1 or D1 variant. If 30 Skylons are built , then unit cost will be 190 mil pounds. In 2010 pound was 1.43 to 1.5 of USD.

Then Alan Bond had plans for a NTV- Nacelle Test Vehicle which will have a functional 1/5th sized nacelle , intake and a scramjet engine instead of the air breathing rocket engine. It was planned to be flown to Mach 5 speeds and be sort of a flying test bed . This never materialised.

REL had tested the pre cooler mated to a J79 engine at its Colorado test facility.

In 2020, they had only matured the pre cooler tech, proven it and was in the process of formulating specs for the nozzle which they wanted to sub contract to an established rocket manufacturer. Then they were in the process of doing Demo A of the turbo compressor, turbines and the entire machinery barring the rocket nozzle followed by Demo A+ on a flying test bed. Does anyone know what happened to Demo A? Did they proceed with it?

There are still some ways to go before REL could demonstrate a scaled down sabre engine on ground, let alone fly it. Even if Rolls Royce buys the IPR, they have to plough their own money and put in lots of efforts to develope the other bits , integrate all the stuff and make the engine work. Then initiate a flight test campaign. Whatever it is, MoD will need a new company , OEM to look after the propulsion part of HVX.


And finally coming to the most intriguing ques. Why didn't British MoD provide the required funding to REL instead of some millions here and there. Skylon or a scaled down variant of it could have been used as a hypersonic strike aircraft by the Royal Airforce. And also for launch on demand applications for launching UK def sats. A 1:2 Skylon with an empty weight of 25-26 tons would have been the perfect unmanned strike asset for the Brits.
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Replace HOTOL/SABRE/SKYLON with pipedream (which is oddly singularly fitting in this instance), and you get the picture.
 
Owens Z said:
I was not aware of a 1980 book entitled Breakthroughs, and I don't find any such work in my public library's records.
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It took me awhile to find it myself—search engines are increasingly useless—To Martin

As to SABRE…if SLS dies—maybe MSFC could have a go.

I seem to remember a newer member here who talked about needed quite a bit of argon for welding (NASP).

It would be nice if MAF developed that capability.
 
publiusr said:
It took me awhile to find it myself—search engines are increasingly useless—To Martin

As to SABRE…if SLS dies—maybe MSFC could have a go.

I seem to remember a newer member here who talked about needed quite a bit of argon for welding (NASP).

It would be nice if MAF developed that capability.
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Still waiting for a quote on the specific relevance of that Charles Panati reference...
 
It was just an aside…from post 676…my meaning was that airbreathing craft are threatened by Starship being all rocket—I lament what happened to SABRE.
 
Gablu said:
And finally coming to the most intriguing ques. Why didn't British MoD provide the required funding to REL instead of some millions here and there.
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See in your same post above the many billion pound R&D cost forecasts and lack of airframer involvement. Doesn't seem very intriguing.
 
publiusr said:
Well, they used to..
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?No, MAF was always a GOCO facility. It had very few government employments. The contractors there were specific to certain program and only to produce specific hardware. There was little R&D performed there outside of supporting production of the specific programs.
 
Rhinocrates said:
A report dated 2022, 'Preparing for Lift-Off.' Not paywalled though you have to give name and email to download if that's a problem (it asked for company name, but 'N/A' was accepted). They emphasise the military and responsive space launch applications, starting with the HVX project already discussed as 'Generation 1', a 2STO with airbreathing reusable 1st stage and expendable 2nd as 'Generation 2' and a Skylonoid as 'Generation 3.'

reactionengines.co.uk

Insights | Reaction Engines - Making Beyond Possible

Reaction Engines | Pioneering space access and sustainable technologies to elevate life on Earth.
reactionengines.co.uk reactionengines.co.uk

Preparing for lift-off.​

How responsive launch will be critical to defence in space.​

Thought Leadership
The need to rapidly respond to events and threats within the space domain has become more evident with the recent geopolitical situation highlighting the importance of access to information to build resilience. This paper explains what responsive launch entails, what it could look like, and highlights the case for a UK capability towards responsive launch.
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Since the site is now offline, the reports are no longer available. Therefore, I'm uploading the one I only linked above.
 

Attachments

  • 4468-Responsive-Launch-Thought-Leadership.pdf
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Attachments

  • Design of an orbital base facility for complex missions IAC 08 D3.3.1.pdf
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  • JBIS_v54_199-209.pdf
    846.2 KB · Views: 5
  • JBIS_v56_108-117.pdf
    190.5 KB · Views: 1
  • JBIS_v56_118-126.pdf
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  • JBIS_v57_22-32.pdf
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  • JBIS_v57_x-x.pdf
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  • ssp_skylon_ver2.pdf
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  • The SKYLON Spaceplane-Progress to Realisation, JBIS, 2008.pdf
    4.3 MB · Views: 9

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