SRL German V-1 Pulsejet

Ah, the smell of a German Pulsejet in the morning! I'm trying to expand the scope of this blog a bit to include some of my more dangerous interests, like Survival Research Lab's mounted V-1 pulsejet, which they recreated from WWII's "buzz bomb", a breakthrough missile that Germany fired 8,000 times on London.

This engine was a masterpiece of simplicity and heralded in the dawn of what we now know as the cruise missile or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

Little was known about this engine until the end of WW2 when the allied forces were able to examine a number of complete and partly constructed V1s recovered from formerly occupied territories along Europe's western coastline.

When SRL originally built their V-1, it wasn't an exact replica of Germany's V-1. Due to a lack of machine tools, they didn't have an exact valve intake assembly. It wasn't a major problem, except that each time the engine was run for any length of time, several valves would break off and disappear.

When they finally were able to build a proper valve intake, they decided to run the thing, which you can see in this test video. The best part is the end where a crowd of firemen show up and SRL has to explain why they have a gigantic jet that spews fire and acts as a frequency generator in their work yard. The best part is while he's explaining why they're recreating weaponry from WWII, he's eating like it's no big deal, and the firemen decide to leave after he tells them they're not going to run it any more.

Above: SRL's new and improved valve intake assembly for the V-1 pulsejet.

Here's a couple of videos of buzz bomb launches to give you some insight into what this thing was capable of. For more information on the design, see this.

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