Armstrong Siddeley Stentor Explained

The Armstrong Siddeley Stentor, latterly Bristol Siddeley BSSt.1 Stentor, was a two-chamber HTP rocket engine used to power the Blue Steel stand-off missile carried by Britain's V bomber force.^[1] The high thrust chamber was used for the first 29 seconds, after which it was shut down and a smaller cruise chamber was used for the rest of the powered flight.^{[2] [3] [4]}

Design and development

It was fuelled by hydrogen peroxide with kerosene.

The engine incorporated an integral tubular mounting frame which was attached by six lugs to the rear bulkhead of the missile airframe, the complete engine being enclosed in a tube-shaped fairing with the nozzles at the rear.

Applications

• Blue Steel missile

Engines on display

Preserved Stentor engines are on display at the following museums:

• Royal Air Force Museum Cosford
• Midland Air Museum
• The University of Liverpool, in the Department of Engineering foyer.
• South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum, Doncaster
• Newark Air Museum, Nottinghamshire
• Cambridge Science Centre, Cambridge

Notes and References

1. Book: Millard, Douglas . 2001 . The Black Arrow Rocket. Science Museum. 23-24 . 1 900747 41 3. In early 1956, the government contracted Armstrong Siddeley to develop a second HTP engine, this time for a quite different kind of vehicle called Blue Steel. [...] Blue Steel's engine was called Stentor.
2. Web site: Stentor rocket motor . Skomer . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20080420054855/http://www.skomer.u-net.com/projects/stentor.htm . 2008-04-20 .
3. Rocket Engines for Piloted Aircraft . Bristol Siddeley Magazine . 1960.
4. Blue Steel in Action . . 11 March 1960. 329.