H-1 Engine

The museum had received an H-1 rocket engine shortly before my 2016 visit. It was located next to a garage-type door in their aviation gallery, situated behind their Spirit of St. Louis replica. I assume that the engine was merely awaiting display, rather than awaiting installation in Lindbergh's plane :-)

The engine, an early H-1C (inboard) engine, is somewhat unusual in that it appeared to be flight-vintage engine: Its injector was baffled; most H-1 engines displayed horizontally pre-date the baffling of the injector (the design for a baffled injector was released to production in the third quarter of 1961). Additionally, it had an integral hypergol manifold; again, most H-1 engines on display either have no hypergol manifold or have a bolt-on manifold.

Although it appeared to have been stored outdoors for some time (based on the amount of corrosion on the injector), overall it was still in good shape: It had its gimbal boot and its fuel additive blender unit heater assembly was also intact and had undergone minimal fading.

From mid-1962 until early 1968, Rocketdyne produced H-1 rocket engines (along with the S-3D engines used by Thor and Jupiter and the LR-89 Atlas booster engines) at its Neosho, Missouri plant. Rocketdyne manufactured research and development engines at its Canoga Park facility, as well as production engines prior to and after the production run at Neosho. Rocketdyne delivered its first production engine to the ABMA on April 28, 1959, and delivery of production engines continued until September 1968.

I have a number of H-1-related resources.

The aircraft gallery is fairly dark with spot lighting. Located behind the aircraft, the engine was stored in a very dark location. All of these photos were taken with my "brick" LED lights providing supplemental illumination.