The Rocketdyne AR2, also known by the military designation LR42, was a family of liquid-fuelled rocket engines designed and produced in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
(US) during the 1950s and 1960s.
Design and development
The Rocketdyne division of
North American Aviation
North American Aviation (NAA) was a major American aerospace manufacturer that designed and built several notable aircraft and spacecraft. Its products included: the T-6 Texan trainer, the P-51 Mustang fighter, the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the F ...
developed a relatively small liquid-fuelled rocket engine for thrust augmentation of manned aircraft during the late 1950s. The AR2 is a single-chamber rocket engine burning kerosene (
JP-4
JP-4, or JP4 (for "Jet Propellant") was a jet fuel, specified in 1951 by the U.S. government (MIL-DTL-5624). Its NATO code is F-40. It is also known as avtag.
Usage
JP-4 was a 50-50 kerosene-gasoline blend. It had a lower flash point than JP-1, b ...
or
JP-5
Jet fuel or aviation turbine fuel (ATF, also abbreviated avtur) is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by gas-turbine engines. It is colorless to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for commercial av ...
) jet fuel, oxidised with 90%
High Test Peroxide
High-test peroxide (HTP) is a highly concentrated (85 to 98%) solution of hydrogen peroxide, with the remainder consisting predominantly of water. In contact with a catalyst, it decomposes into a high-temperature mixture of steam and oxygen, with n ...
(H
2O
2 / HTP), allowing the engine to use the same fuel as an aircraft fuel system.
The variable-thrust AR2 is a direct development of the fixed thrust AR1, which was given the military designation LR36.
The AR2-3 had variable-thrust and single lever throttle control, regulating flow of oxidiser to the turbo-pump gas-generator and thus flow of propellants to the combustion chamber.
[
]
Operational history
Initial flight trials were carried out attached to the belly of North American F-86F-30-NA Sabre (''52-4608'' / FU-608) re-designated F-86F(R), boosting performance to a top speed of M1.22 at .Boeing X-37
The Boeing X-37, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), is a reusable robotic spacecraft. It is boosted into space by a launch vehicle, then re-enters Earth's atmosphere and lands as a spaceplane. The X-37 is operated by the United Stat ...
Reusable Upper Stage Vehicle at a thrust of , with a specific impulse of 245 seconds.
Variants
;AR-1: (YLR36-NA-2) Initial fixed-thrust variant.[
;AR2-3:Production engines for research and development projects like the NF-104A.]
Applications
* North American F-86F(R)
*Lockheed NF-104A
The Lockheed NF-104A was an American mixed-power, high-performance, supersonic aerospace trainer that served as a low-cost astronaut training vehicle for the North American X-15 and projected Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar programs.
Three aircraft were ...
Specifications (AR2-3)
References
{{Reflist
Rocket engines of the United States
Aircraft rocket engines
Rocket engines using the gas-generator cycle
Rocketdyne engines