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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1038.PDF
128 FLIGHT AERO ENGINES 1957 . . . SPAIN E.N.M.A.S.A. Empresa National de Motores de Aviation, S.A.,Calle Antonio Maura 4, Madrid. Limited production is still taking place upon the 150 h.p. Tigre G-IVB and the 500 h.p. Sirio radial, thelatter being a postwar design by the former Elizalde company scheduled to power the production Alcotan twin-engine transport. During the pastyear E.N.M.A.S.A. have striven to take advantage of their licence to manufacture small gas-turbines of Turbomeca design. Production ofthe Marbori is gradually being started at the E.N.M.A.S.A. plant in Barcelona and the eventual Spanish-built engine will power the HispanoHA-200-RI Saeta. The Artouste turboshaft engine may also be manu- factured for the Aerotecnica AC-13 helicopter. I.N.I. Institute National Industrial, Madrid. In co-operation withHispano Aviation, S,A,, and the Institute National de Technica Aero- nautica (I.N.T.A.), this organization has been developing a turbojet inthe 2,000 kg-thrust class (4,400 lb) designated I.N.I.ll. In our 1956 engine review we published a provisional specification and drawing; nofurther information on the unit has become available since that time. SWEDEN S.F.A. Svenska Flygmotor A.B., Trollhatten. As far as is knownthe only gas turbines upon which this company have worked are the Ghost and Avon (referred to below) and the Stal Dovern, a nativeSwedish design for which S.F.A. provided assistance. It has frequently been reported that S.F.A. are engaged in the development of ramjetsbut no official confirmation of this has yet been made. Ghost. Manufacture of the de Hayilland Ghost began in 1950, undera licence-agreement with D.H. Engines. When production ceased in 1955 well over 600 had been manufactured, with the designation R.M.2. S.F.A. have shown great skill and sound engineering in tailoring theGhost to Swedish requirements. For the Saab-29 series of high-subsonic aircraft a special version of the engine had to be developed with a centralair intake (all other fighter Ghost engines have a bifurcated intake). Most J 29, A 29 and S 29 aircraft are now fitted with the engineillustrated, which incorporates an afterburner of S.F.A. design; the control system is such that thrust is variable with reheat on. Avon. In order to obtain a thoroughly reliable and highly developedmodern axial engine in time to meet the needs of the Saab-32 Lansen programme the Swedish government decided in 1953 to purchase alicence for the manufacture of the Rolls-Royce Avon. Designated R.M.5, the Avon 100-series, at RA.7 rating of 7,500 lb,was put into initial production early in 1955. Most of the engines so far built have been R.M.SRs, roughly equivalent to the RA.7R and S.F.A. Ghost R.M.2R. Fighter turbojet with afterburner. Single-sided centrifugal compressor, ten combustion chambers and single-stage turbine. Swedish-designed afterburner with two-position, twin-eyelid nozzle. Overall diameter, 53in; length, 143in; dry weight, 2,5101b; mass flow, 88lb/sec; pressure ratio. 4.5:1; maximum thrust, 6,200 Ib with afterburning at 10,250 r.p.m. with s.f.c. of about 2.2. The new factory at Winterthur, Switzerland, in which Sulzer undertake licence-production of British turbajets for the Swiss Government. rated at 9,500 lb with afterburner. These engines are used in theSaab-32 Lansen, which is now in squadron service. Last year S.F.A. completed tooling for second-generation Avons ofthe 200-series, an American report having named the models concerned as the Avon 47 and 48. No details of these engines may be published,but they probably find their nearest British counterpart in the RA.24, which is rated at 11,250 lb dry (without afterburner). The new Avonbears the Swedish designation R.M.6 and (with afterburner) R.M.6R, and it was first fitted to the J 32B advanced, all-weather Lansen whichflew on January 7 of this year. The R.M.6R is also the powerplant of the Saab-35 Draken, a supersonic "double-delta" all-weather intercepter. SWITZERLAND SULZER. Sulzer Brothers, Ltd., Winterthur. An agreement wassigned in January 1951 between the Swiss government Service-Technique Militaire and the de Havilland Enterprise covering Swiss licence-pro-duction of Venom airframes and Ghost engines. The S.T.M. delegated the work to several firms, of which the chief turbojet contractor isSulzer, with support from Adolphe Saurer. A completely new plant was constructed for the manufacture of the Ghost and deliveries beganin 1952. Over 200 Ghosts had been delivered at the beginning of the year and production is continuing. An announcement is likely to bemade shortly concerning Sulzer manufacture of another British engine. U.S.A. AEROJET. Aerojet-General Corpn., subsidiary of The General Tireand Rubber Co., Azusa, Cat. Since World War 2 this company has been one of the world's major workers in the field of rocket propulsion.By far the greater proportion of their early turn-over was gained with sales of relatively simple solid-propellant a.t.o. motors, of which theyhave always been the world's largest commercial supplier. Today, although a.t.o. units are built in the greatest numbers, the most importantprogrammes from the financial viewpoint are those concerning complete propulsion systems for U.S. Air Force ballistic missiles. Their work in the a.t.o. field is conducted along classic lines forcompetitive business, and sales depend directly upon purchase price. During recent years Aerojet-General have striven to produce efficientand safe propellants at minimum cost, and the General Tire and Rubber laboratories in Akron, Ohio, have achieved startling results. One of themost-promising fillings is obtained by plasticizing ordinary GRS rubber with low-cost oil and then mixing it with fertilizer-grade ammoniumnitrate. The resulting mix can be extruded with any desired section and yields a tough, flexible propellant at a total cost of 6 cents per 1b. A variety of solid-propellant motors is in production for primary-propulsion applications. Typical of such motors in the smaller sizes is that fitted to the Radioplane RP-70 target drone. The propellant casingis housed in the centre-body and ducts lead the hot gas from the com- bustion chamber to a pair of propelling nozzles in the upper fuselagedecking immediately behind the trailing-edge. Another solid-propellant motor, on a far larger scale, is that under development for the propul-sion of the Polaris intermediate-range ballistic missile of the U.S. Navy, under development by Lockheed's Missile Systems Division. A solid-propellant was chosen for the Polaris in order to ease the problems of handling so large a weapon on a ship at sea. The performance of theAerojet motor is comparable to that of equivalent liquid motors, and Aerojet are well ahead with static firings of these engines at their testsite near Sacramento. Most of the company's big liquid-propellant systems are designed tooperate on liquid oxygen and kerosine. Most important of the current range of systems is that for the propulsion of the Martin Titan inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) to specification WS-107A. This two-stage weapon—rated the better of the two ICBMs—is propelled bysingle-chamber motors rated at 300,000 lb (lst-stage) and 60,000 lb static thrust. The former is the largest single chamber outside theU.S.S.R., and probably in the world. A smaller liquid-propellant motor provides boost thrust for the Boeing IM-99 Bomarc missile and ismounted on gimbals to provide control in the initial phase of launching. Security prevents publication of details of Titan's propulsion, but anunclassified programme indicative of the company's current work on liquid motors is the second-stage motor for Project Vanguard. For thisapplication the company have developed a 7,500-lb-thrust motor operating on white fuming nitric acid and asymmetric dimethyl hydrazine.These fluids are fed from cylindrical tanks of 410 stainless steel arranged in tandem and separated by a bottle containing warm helium at highpressure for feeding the propellants to the motor, the helium pressure, being augmented by a solid-fuel gas-generator system. As far as is'known, the motor will operate in the Vanguard at constant thrust, but the thrust produced can be varied by controlling the gas pressure. Aerojet are also engaged upon the development of an air-turbo-rocket,i.e., a turbojet in which the turbine is driven by rocket combustion. New chambers have been evolved by the Structural Plastics Division,including a lightweight chamber wrapped with plastic-bonded stainless- steel or aluminium-alloy strip. Plastics are also being investigated forthe manufacture of hydraulic or propellant systems, with improvements in weight, pressure-drop and cost. Glass-reinforced phenolic and epoxyresins are stated to be capable of operating in such systems at 5,500 deg F. Aerojet are the American licencees for the S.N.E.C.M.A. thrust-reverser,which is marketed as the Aerobrake.
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