Skylon - British Space Plane

crudebuteffective · July 24, 2013, 06:03:42 AM

I WANT ONE!!!!!!!

it does look familiar

PR19_Kit · July 24, 2013, 06:28:01 AM

What IS the world coming to? A UK Government funding a Research & Development programme? Wonders will never cease.....

Rheged · July 24, 2013, 08:30:06 AM

Quote from: PR19_Kit on July 24, 2013, 06:28:01 AM
What IS the world coming to? A UK Government funding a Research & Development programme? Wonders will never cease.....

They forgot to put his medication in the minister's tea that morning........

pyro-manic · July 24, 2013, 03:15:22 PM

The actual funding, though, is whatever they can get in a whip-round at the Commons bar on Tuesday lunchtime. About four quid and a UKIP pin-badge...

Excellent news, though.

rickshaw · July 24, 2013, 07:35:24 PM

As usual, I predict that they will solve all the technical problems, the project will show real promise of actually having a working engine and then it will be cancelled and everything will be cut up for scrap (or used as bins to hold scrap).

Weaver · July 24, 2013, 08:04:14 PM

Alternatively, the various ministries will organise the program in such a way that it can't possibly work, with an inadequate budget, ignoring the protestations of Reaction Engines right from the start. Then when it's a few years late and a few billion over budget, the newspapers will pick up on it, thereby promoting it to the status of crisis (i.e. they'll link a minister's name to it). The program will then be re-organised along the lines that Reaction Engines suggested in the first place, given the cash it needed in the first place and a generous six months to get back on track. By herculean effort, the contractors will actually succeed in 95% of this, only for a critical report written seven months before to get leaked to the press just before an election, leading the government to panic and cancel the whole project in order to show how responsible they are with public money.....

Mossie · July 25, 2013, 02:27:48 AM

Excellent news. The UK Government will be only part of the funding, so hopefully it won't become a politcal football.

Flight testing in 2020, probably not a new platform then? I wonder what they're going to test it on, whiff oppurtunites there. The SABRE is huge, in 1/72 it'd be roughly be the size of a Red Bull can. Maybe a sub-scale unit, or mount it on an An-225?

Howard of Effingham · July 25, 2013, 02:39:56 AM

its an excuse to bash plastic if ever there was one....

PR19_Kit · July 25, 2013, 03:29:24 AM

Quote from: Mossie on July 25, 2013, 02:27:48 AM
The SABRE is huge, in 1/72 it'd be roughly be the size of a Red Bull can. Maybe a sub-scale unit, or mount it on an An-225?

Stick it in the back end of an A400M with lateral intakes?

Weaver · July 25, 2013, 04:11:35 AM

Quote from: Mossie on July 25, 2013, 02:27:48 AM
Excellent news. The UK Government will be only part of the funding, so hopefully it won't become a politcal football.

Flight testing in 2020, probably not a new platform then? I wonder what they're going to test it on, whiff oppurtunites there. The SABRE is huge, in 1/72 it'd be roughly be the size of a Red Bull can. Maybe a sub-scale unit, or mount it on an An-225?

I think one of the reports I've read says it's going to be a sub-scale pilotless model. Not clear whether it'll be a mini-Skylon of a different shape.

jcf · July 25, 2013, 12:13:47 PM

From the article:

Reaction Engines' SABRE development program plans to flight-test the engine using an unmanned aircraft called the Nacelle Test Vehicle. The entire development program will require a consortium of companies, and Reaction Engines has been seeking partners as well as financiers.

He added that the private and government financing will take SABRE to its critical design review, mature various engine technologies and validate them within a test engine. This test engine is not a subscale version of the SABRE; rather, it is designed to validate the individual SABRE technologies and how they will interact with each other.

MikeD · July 27, 2013, 02:12:34 PM

Quote from: rickshaw on July 24, 2013, 07:35:24 PM
As usual, I predict that they will solve all the technical problems, the project will show real promise of actually having a working engine and then it will be cancelled and everything will be cut up for scrap (or used as bins to hold scrap).

Not before we sell all of the data, any working prototypes that haven't been cut up and anyone who's ever worked on the project to the US for £3.50 and a big envelope of Green Shield Stamps.

Mossie · April 02, 2014, 06:01:22 AM

Here's the Nacelle Flight Test Vehicle that was mentioned:
http://www.stfc.ac.uk/RALSpace/resources/PDF/Presentation_13.pdf

Hobbes · April 02, 2014, 06:17:19 AM

They should ask Cosford if they can borrow the Bristol 188 for those tests

Captain Canada · April 02, 2014, 06:57:04 AM

I love sleek space ships....I guess you have to be to leave/ re-enter the atmosphere, but still, they just look better than big squares.