My R2-D2 approves this video! I knew of the combustion chambers used in the cantina, but now, thanks to you, my nerdship is finally complete. The props department basically raided the nearby British aeronautics junkyard. R2’s dome three “holo-projectors” (the thing that projects the Leia hologram) were the overhead reading lights from a British Vickers Viscount passenger plane. These specific pieces of junk have now reached absurd prices.

Brilliant explanation. Did you know that in the '70s they put 2 Derwents on a rig on the front of a fuel bowser, exhausts pointing forwards, and used them for runway de-icing in the UK? Us operators, had to sit in a small cabin between the 2 and operate them while the poor bowser driver tried to keep the whole shebang pointing in the right direction with both Derwents at high RPM. I am not sure much ice was removed but it was great fun!

"I'm kind of interested in propulsion." That must be that classic Scottish understatement I've heard so much about.

When I was a teenager, I did holiday work at the company my father worked for, which sold a lot of plate heat exchangers. Suddenly I was noticing plate heat exchanger plates all over the sets of British SF (i.e. Dr Who and Blake's Seven.)

A clever bit with the holes in the can is to center the flame so that it doesn’t get close to the walls. The metal used really isn’t made to take that high heat for a long period of time so the air let in helps to keep the walls relatively cool.

Back in 74, we lived in Iceland, and they made lampshades out of fantom4 flame tubes…

In a Star Trek: Picard episode where some of the characters were on a "red light district" planet, I noticed what looked like a jet engine as one of the props in a scene. Since I was watching on PVR, I had a closer look and sure enough it was at least the compressor section of a J47 from the F-86 Sabre! 😀

Derwent: that's what IG-88's mum used to call him.

Dr Stanley Hooker, brilliant mathematician, was employed by Lord Hives of RR but not initially given a job. Mooching around RR he picked up a Merlin supercharger impeller and decided to do the maths to check its design - which he found to be in error. So he asked the designers how they had designed it - turned out they extrapolated a Parsons steam turbine design, which was not directly applicable. So Hooker re-designed it and transformed the high altitude performance of the Merlin. That centrifugal impeller experience led to the early centrifugal compressor RR jet engines, and Hooker was shunted off to RR Barnoldswick to develop those. (Did you know the RB 211 was named after Rolls Barnoldswick?). Meanwhile RR Derby started work on axial flow jet engines and Hooker felt sidelined, so he joined Bristol Aero Engines, where he developed among other engines the superb Olympus. When RR went bankrupt over the RB211 and was bailed out by UK Government, Hooker was brought in to head up RR and sort out the RB211. Which he did! I have never seen Star Wars. And have not missed it. Vince

Damn, I knew droids weren't welcome in the cantina, but I didn't realise they hung droids' heads up in the bar. That's cold.

Most of this wasn't new to me, but one detail was really illuminating! The communicating tubes between flame holders and only a few of them having igniters. I've seen early jet engines starting up and seeing the flames gradually moving around must be due to the ignition only happening in one or two locations.

Half of the Death Star was made out of scrap parts from RR as the studio was not far from Derby. They were even thanked in the credits. I worked for Rolls-Royce for 32 years and always get a kick when I rewatch Star Wars and notice some new jet engine part I had missed.

OMG, I think we have one of these engines sitting around at the Chair of Aerospace propulsion at our university

Episode 1 is much more modern using all those high bypass Turbofans for podracing. They should have gone with this engine!

I'd love to see some more in depth content about jet engines... I knew the broad strokes of how they worked, but mentioned lots of details I didn't know in this one... Thanks for another great video!

The have examples of this engine and the Mig 15 in a large air museum just outside Krakow. Well worth a visit if you're in Poland.

I hope this won't upset you too much... but in the 2009 movie Star Trek... at 1:45:and a bit, you see stacks of J47 combustor liners, a J79 rear frame, and a CF-6 compressor case, all supposedly super modern space parts. 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s respectively. ... sorry for crossing that line, but I thought you might be interested.

Jet engines are fascinating for sure! My dad was a jet pilot, having learned how to fly first during WWII as a radio operator in a PB-Y flying anti-sub patrols in the Gulf of Mexico. He said the skipper let him fly because it was good to have anyone (and everyone) knowing how to fly and/or land the thing if the pilot and copilot were killed or injured. But he re-upped after the war in the Army and officially got his "Fighter Pilot" certificate a year or so later and they transferred him to the Air Force (on the same day!). He trained pilots during Korea, having already two full tours in combat during WWII. Then, he went to work for American Airlines at the dawn of the Jet Age as we say, in 1955. He saw it all, he said. He saw an airliner going down in flames over St. Louis one night, and he himself had to declare emergencies a couple times. When that DC-10 lost an engine taking off from Chicago O'Hare (1979), he said they brought 100 pilots in and put them through the simulator with that scenario. He told me that 10% of the pilots survived that in the sim, didn't say whether he was one of them, said that you had to physically LOOK out the window and see your ENGINE WAS GONE, because that wing stalled after losing an engine, and you had to realize NOT TO CUT POWER TO YOUR REMAINING GOOD ENGINE (besides the tail engine) so you could keep enough power and make it off the ground. Those modern jet engines, btw, have like 80k lbs thrust (240k total on a DC-10 or so, I don't remember exactly). Even more than that on the latest jet engines I know!

Loved the diagram @6:10 - never realized how much the air slowed down prior to the flame cans. Also the temperature at over 200°C certainly will help the fuel burn.

The Nene engine was impressive for its time, being used in multiple aircraft, including the F2H-2 Banshee iirc, and the British Sea Hawk, both carrier based fighters which needed as much thrust as possible in the lightest package. Both aircraft used a unique dual inlet dual exhaust setup. The most fascinating thing imo however, is that the Sea Hawk used a pyrotechnic gas generator to spin up the turbine for starting on the ground. The exhaust for this gas generator was on the upper side of the fuselage, and spat forth quite the plume of sooty smoke as it operated.

I work at Martin-Baker. We have two Gloster Meteors with Derwent engines for ejection seat test beds.

Time to drop everything and watch a scott Manley star wars lore video

Something of interest around those can type combustors (and can-annular), is during testing in development of some later engines that used them, you could get the flame-flameout sequence where the s]flame would run around lighting cans and then immediately extinguishing.

Absolutely fascinating! I had always thought I knew how these worked but I never knew the impeller took in air both front and back of its casing.

IG-88 was also extensively shown in Jedi Knight II Dark forces (and old video game)

Also known as a combustion liner. The outside body is known as the can in this era of gas turbine Excellent video!

Awesome Vlog Scott I dint Know how jet engines Work but now i do thanks to you explaining it Thanks

Did some looking up of centrifugal gas turbine compressors, and looks like these still get some use -- not any more for jet engines, but for other uses. If you don't need to keep the engine narrow for moving it through air, the fewer stages needed gives an advantage.

2:30. Took me a few minutes to figure out how air flows from A to B from the "inside" of the engine air intake LOL

What I want to know is how they got their hands on these parts. Did they get an entire engine, or just a few parts? What's the history of these parts?

That's cool. I was born in 1970 so I was all-in with Star Wars, I sure remember IG-88, but it's cool to see the origin of his head and other places that the prop pops up.

I'd be interested in your opinion of SABRE, the British combined-cycle, air-breathing rocket propulsion engine currently under development by Reaction Engines Limited. It promises to enable aircraft to take off and land at regular airports, transition en route to rocket power for lifting passengers or cargo into low Earth orbit. I made a couple of films for UK television about its early development. R (Australia)

Scott, you produce really interesting stuff

Good one, Scott. Rather a demeaning end for a chunk of an iconic engine, but when you think what Gannex Harold did to the TSR-2 it's not all that surprising.

Love this! It's so nice to get a taste of real science and engineering when browsing sci-fi topics.

Great and interesting video. Thank you!

I saw one of these flame tubes in a maritime museum in Ireland. It had been dredged up in a fishing net, and was described as a ships lantern of unknown origin. Probably came from a target drone (jidvik?), in the Irish Sea.

Absolutley facinating! Thank you Scott!

Great Catch! Back in the early 2000's there was a sci-fi show (Battle Star Galactica?) that showed a Gas Generator section from a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A engine in their "repair shop" - as part of the ship's propulsion system. I wish I could find the video clip.....

Helluva Video!!! I thought i knew some off the wall factoids bout Star Wars.....but the IG-88 "head fact" that's a new one to me....NICE !!!!

And don't forget that the tapered cage-like structure on the Derwent engine was also used on the roof of Luke's family landspeeder in the garage, and the star-like component was used on the wall of the Luke homestead set in Tunisia!

8:03 In our G.E. gas-turbine, we call that "Crossfire Tubes"

Fascinating! Thanks, Scott! 😃 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

Nice explanation. I design jet engines for a living, and my friends and family might be getting a little tired of the number of times I say “and that’s a jet engine part” when watching sci fi series like Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, etc. Hollywood loves jet engine parts as props on their sci fi sets.❤

As an RP-1 player, I have heard of the Derwent, but I did not know how it worked until now. That's a really cool video

I'm always impressed by how much information you can accurately put out here. In my side job as an Air Force reservist, I work on Jet Engines. You're pretty much spot on with your descriptions. In my primary job as an Engineer, I manufacture thermal protection (tile) for spacecraft, and I get to work with many of the materials you have covered in other videos. You are very informed on both subjects, sometimes giving details that I am not allowed to share because of trade secrets/ proprietary information.

Surprising how small the pressure differential across the combustion chamber is. Only 0.4 BAR according to that diagram if I read it right. Always struggle to get my head around why they don't just stall all the time.

Funny how you can pick out bits of kit in various sci-fi shows if you know what you’re looking at. I’m a marine engineer and while watching The Expanse, I noticed that there are a lot of heat exchanger plates being used as set dressing on a few of the ships. Naomi’s in particular had a few noticeable in the control room.

Some part's of the Deathstar (control panel) in the first movie was parts from the Rolls Royce Dart engine. I used to work with that engine, and recognize the parts instantly!

I don't know jack about starwars, but someone pointed out a prop of a car part I had once. Anyway, the engine design is very interesting. Those types of fans are technically called radial fans/compressors and they have much higher static pressures compared to axial types, but normally at reduced flow rates.

Thanks, Scott for your insight into early jet engines and Star War props. (No pun intended.)

Might have been called flame tubes back in the day, but in the context of engine history these are still can combustion chambers.

Smaller jet engines today are still made with centrifugal compressors. They are relatively simple yet still super cool. I wish i going to buy one someday :)

02:30 - That is a Kicker. Thanks Scott

In Men in Black 2, there is a scene with a full ring of polished General Electric J-79 combustors. Also a whole stack of J-79 afterburner nozzle sections. Theres a bunch other parts, don't remember but there is a polished up blown big block chevy in the same scene as I recall.

Excellent research! That fascinated me that this had a dual-sided compressor, though it makes perfect sense. What I find myself curious about is what appears to be another centrifugal compressor behind the main compressor. It's looks like it may be used to scavenge any overflow/leakage gases from the center of the engine?

As a huge star wars fan, thank you for this video. Also IG-11 looked amazing in the Mandalorian

O knew they scavenged and reused all sorts of stuff for props, but wasn't aware of any of these details. Neat. Thanks for the info!

Very cool explanation.

Star Wars original film was full of Rolls Royce Dart Engine parts, especially throughout the Death Star.

Tech Ingredients has a great series where they build a jet engine and they go through all the airflow and how the different sized and spaced holes were needed in the flame tube.

2:20 Classic S. Manly humor. I love it. :)

Thank you very much Scott. Very interesting* explanations. As always! *) and of course funny

My grandfather, after graduating from mechanical engineering in 1944 in New Zealand, then did the opposite of what sane people did and went to Blackburn, Lancashire, to work for Rolls-Royce. There he was a testing engineer for Derwent and Nene jet engines.

We got to learn more about IG 88 in the N64 game Shadows of the Empire in the late 90's. He was a serious boss battle at the Ord Mantel scrap yard. Playing as rebel Dash Rendar the main character. (Who deserves a show in his own right! )for anyone who has played through this game

Those old jet engines are fascinating!

In Empire Strikes back, when they evacuate Cloud City, at one point, you see a man clutching an ice-cream maker (the kind my grandmother had where you have an ice+salt mixture around the churning barrel)… And in one of the recent TV series (can’t recall which), the same kind of ice-cream maker is used as some kind of carrier case.

Slightly off topic but the a cool fact about about the Meteor is still used by Martin-Baker to develop Ejection seats.

Great video Scott. To be a bit pedantic, the rotating compressor (axial or centrifugal) assembly doesn't increase the air pressure. It increases the air velocity. The stator vanes immediately after the compressor converts the increased velocity into increased pressure. This happens because the stator vanes form a divergent duct which increases pressure and temperature and decreases velocity. That really is nit picking..... sorry 😊

I'm sure someone else probably mentioned this but..... There is another IG unit in Empire, on cloud city in a trash pile when the Ugnughts were playing piggy in the middle with Chewie using c3p0s head. In the old expanded universe it is IG88 after being Ion blasted by bobba Fet. Not sure what current cannon says though /nerd

Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame, loves looking a film props on his Tested channel and has featured loads of Star Wars props over the years, although I don't think he has looked at this costume.

As an former RAAF gas turbine technician, this warmed the cockles of my heart :)

Im waiting for Adam Savage to comment on this saying wow this is really neat, or I already knew that, and here's my collection of 30 flame tubes.

I've liked jets most of my life, but never had one thoroughly explained like this 🙂

Thanks for the complete jet engine education!

Turns out I had no idea how jet engines work. Great video!

made my day

I operated and maintained gas turbine engines for 40 years. I was always amazed at how far the technology advanced over those 40 years. It is even more amazing to see how far it advanced in the 40 years prior to that. The first 40 years advanced about 10 times as fast.

Star Wars props and jet engines, How great! You should consider making videos together with Adam Savage.

You had me going there, the little voice in my head was screaming "they didn't have axial flow engines yet!"

In a piston engine, the 4-stroke cycle can be summed up as "Suck, Squeeze. Bang. Blow". (Induction, compression, combustion, exhaust.) n a turbine, it's similar; Suck, squeeze, burn, blow.

While you were posting this I was playing the Star Wars theme on piano to my daughter…and also the Bluey theme tune!

I dunno if it's mentioned in the video as I've not watched it yet, but there's also a gyroscope from a missile guidance system in a star wars droid from Episode 1

Scott has spoken. This is the way.

Fascinating. Jet engines to Star Wars, wow!

If you look closely at Rey's quarterstaff, part of it is a Pratt-Burnerd Multisize collet - more usually seen on a lathe collet chuck in this particular galaxy. Quite weighty too - not sure I'd want to be belted around the head with it.

Each StarWars fan " ... damm Scott got me again!" 😂

Wild. While I knew for years that Obi-Wan's emitter was from a jet engine, I didn't know that it was linked to IG-88's head! I bet they didn't let anything from that engine go to waste, there must be bits of it all over the various props and sets... :)

that nozzle and swirl plate assembly looks strangely like what is inside the burner of an oil burner for systems that use home heating oil.

Hi, thank you for this video Please say where I can find the outro music, it says "Eclipsio" but I can't find it anywhere

What a fun video! Thanks Scott and “Fly Safe”

One of my buddies worked on Vampires. He said if they got a wet start they just sat on the tail until the fuel ran out of the engine and they could try again. Kinda messy.

Funny that you recognize re-purposed items used in Star Wars. Contrast to your Star Wars fandom, I am Star Trek fan. In several scenes, across several films. Star Trek set creator used, aircraft sonobuoy overpacks in many different forms as components of set pieces. BTW, great explanation of jet engines.

On the original Xbox console, I played a game called Battle Stations over Normandy. I think. Fun game for its time. You got to fly planes such as the Meteor and the M-262. Good times.

An added bit (after the fact of the first movie?) is that is that air crews of the SR-71 tended to call the preprogrammed navigation device inserted behind the cockpit before each mission, and the size of a washing machine, "R2".

So glad I know this now!

My father worked on Gloucester Meteors during his time in the RAF. They called them the “Meat Box” due to how many pilots died in them.

Great video! I'll never understand how they fabricated those things; all those organic-looking curves inside curves.

I think the Meteor was used to intercept V1 buzzbombs.

Ooooh, I of course have seen those pictures with flame tubes in cutaway, but yeah, didn't look quite the same from the outside. :-D