Blue Streak basing outside UK

I'm all too aware of the RN horrific experience with these very jinxed AIP H2O2 subs - HMS Exploder and its sibling.

H2O2 - love it or hate it. The aerospace world has a very tortured story with the stuff. The USA led by John Clarke and his bible "Ignition !" book hated it until the 90's.
GB was in a kind of love - hate relationship with hydrogen peroxide.
Love: Black Arrow
Hate: Blue Steel, HMS Exploder.
 
From 'A Vertical Empire':
In October 1958, David Andrews of Bristol Siddeley Engines (BSE) produced a brochure for an IRBM fuelled by kerosene and HTP, using four of the large Stentor chambers clustered together in a configuration similar to that of the Gamma 301



TNA: PRO DEFE 7/2246. Development of Blue Streak. A Four Chambered Engine Suitable for An IRBM P.R. 27/2.

And:
However, it was not to be. Andrews did not forget the idea, however, and later issued a brochure entitled ‘A Three Stage Satellite Launcher Based on Black Knight and its Technology The brochure is undated, but probably originates from 1962 or 1963. He was an engine designer, and so whilst that part of the brochure is again covered in great detail, there is no General Arrangement drawing, merely an artist’s impression of what the vehicle might look like. A payload of 650 lb to a 300 nautical mile orbit is given, but this is more of an educated guess rather than a figure derived from detailed calculation.




Coventry Archives. PA1716/1/3/1. A Three Stage Launcher Based on Black Knight and its Technology. EGD Andrews, Chief Engineer (Rockets), Bristol Siddeley Engines Ltd. 1962. See also TNA PRO: DSIR 23/30957. Rocket engine research and development at Bristol Siddeley, 1963

Here are the two designs:
andrews.jpg IRBM.jpg
 
And the very same David Andrews in 1990 wrote a paper summarizing his experience with H202 rocketry. It caught the attention of Maxwell Hunter and Mitchell Burnside Clapp. And that was the return of H2O2 rockets in America, Andrew Beal included.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom