Advanced Engine Development at Pratt & Whitney

Book excerpt: FROM THE PREFACE: This book celebrates the wonderful projects on which we worked at Pratt & Whitney during the almost magical quarter century bounded by World War II and the competition to develop the Space Shuttle engine. Some of the work has never been described until this book because of stringent security classifications that are now lifted. This book is about the almost unbelievable engines and the dedicated group of people who made the engines real. Most of these unique projects were not the daily 'bread and butter' for Pratt & Whitney and thus were free from much of the survival pressure that typically surrounds that work. Instead, they were driven by the challenge of attempting things that had never been done. Two lasting discoveries that came from the work of the group were the RL10 hydrogen rocket engine, which has been used to launch most large satellites over the past half-century, and the development of the technology for the high-pressure staged combustion rocket engine used in the Space Shuttle.CONTENTS INCLUDE: Ramjets - The Early Days at the Research Laboratory; T57 - The Largest Turboprop; Liquid Hydrogen and the 304 Engine - Suntan; RL10 - My Only Moneymaker; High-Pressure Rockets - A Decade and One-Half Billion Dollars; Boost Glide and the XLR129-Mach 20 at 200,000 Feet; XLD-1 Gas Dynamic Laser; The Space Shuttle Engine; A Cry for Help.