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X-2 Rocket Engine. Hasselblad Xpan, 45mm

Bell X-2 liquid oxygen/alcohol rocket engine. Achieving manned flight over Mach 3. The pinnacle of LOX/Alcohol engine, similar to the V2 rockets of WWII. Most powerful engines built in their day, superseded by the LOX/Kerosine engines like the Apollo F1s, which remain the most powerful engines ever made.

 

Basically a nest of pipes and fuel pumps spraying alcohol and oxidiser into the combustion chamber. Not completely understood, their design phase involved a lot of exploding which was mitigated by baffles which were empirically conceived, no modelling available. Redesigning the engine would mean starting from scratch.

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Uploaded on November 18, 2020