Matt Clay gave us a fascinating talk at the October 2025 Begbroke meeting about the development of the Skylon Space Plane and the Sabre engine that was designed to power it.

This remarkable engine design was to try to solve the problem of getting into space using a single stage vehicle. It’s a rocket motor but had the ingenious method of using the air in the atmosphere as part of its fuel only switching to liquid oxygen at higher altitude.

Matt walked us through the problems of getting into space with the technical and design challenges it presents and how that lead to the design of the Skylon space plane powered by these Sabre engines. It would have been an impressive aircraft with an almost supersonic take off speed requiring a special 5km long runway to be built for it.

Sadly a combination of lack of investment and Covid meant the company making it ran into trouble, but the technology of the Sabre engines may live on, now being developed by Fraser Nash