PlaneSpottingWorld welcomes all new members! Please gives your ideas at the Terminal.
BMW 109-718
The BMW 109-718 is a liquid fuelled rocket motor developed by Germany during the Second World War.
The 109-718 (109 for the Reichsluftfahrtministerium, or RLM, designation for rocket and jet projects)[1] was designed as an assist rocket for aircraft, for rapid takeoffs or to enable them to achieve high-speed sprints,[2] akin to what Americans called "mixed power" postwar. It was fitted with a variant of the BMW 003 jet engine, the 003R, providing 1250 kg thrust each;[3] it was expected the units would be fitted in pairs. Unlike JATO, the 781 was not intended to be expendable.[4]
The rocket motor had internal and external main chambers which were cooled by the nitric acid fuel, fed through a coiled spiral tube.[5] The cenfrifugal fuel pumps[6] (operating at 17,000rpm)[7] delivered a mix of nitric acid and hydrocarbon[8] at 735 psi,[9] a rate of 5.5kg per 1000 kg thrust per second.[10] The 718s fuel pumps were driven by a power take-off from the jet engine which ran at 3,000 rpm.[11]
Before war's end, a Messerschmitt Me 262C-2b Heimatschützer (Home Defender II) was tested with a pair of 718, climbing to 9150 m (30,000 ft) in just three minutes.[12] The 109-718 was also tested aboard an He 162E,[13] though records do not indicate the results of this test.
Only twenty 109-718 engines were completed by war's end, each taking some 100 hours to complete.[14]
Notes
- ↑ Christopher, John. The Race for Hitler's X-Planes (The Mill, Gloucestershire: History Press, 2013), p.124.
- ↑ Christopher, p.124.
- ↑ Christopher, p.124.
- ↑ Christopher, p.124.
- ↑ Christopher, p.124.
- ↑ Christopher, p.124.
- ↑ Christopher, p.125.
- ↑ Christopher, p.124.
- ↑ Christopher, p.125, calls it 50 atmospheres.
- ↑ Christopher, p.124.
- ↑ Christopher, p.125.
- ↑ Christopher, p.124.
- ↑ Christopher, p.125.
- ↑ Christopher, p.125.
Sources
- Christopher, John. The Race for Hitler's X-Planes. The Mill, Gloucestershire: History Press, 2013.
