Jet engines cannot operate solely on hydrogen and oxygen as fuel; this configuration is classified as a rocket engine rather than a jet engine. Conventional jet engines rely on air for combustion, while scramjets can utilize hydrogen due to their design without moving parts. The SR-71 was initially designed to run on hydrogen and air, leveraging hydrogen's high energy per unit mass, but faced challenges related to density and cryogenic storage. Safety concerns regarding the explosive nature of hydrogen and pure oxygen further complicate the feasibility of such modifications.
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The SR-71, as originally conceived was to run on hydrogen and air. The biggest pro is, as Fred said, energy per unit mass, and the biggest con is density, not cryogenics (for the SR-71, anyway - for more mundane use, cryogenics would be an issue too). For the SR-71, cryogenics was a pro because the hydrogen could have been used to cool the airframe. The low density would have resulted in a 300 foot long plane.Yapper said:thinking of a project and was wondering can a jet engine be modified to run on just hydrogen and oxygen as the fuel, or is it too explosive? if not can a pulse jet?