Hello All,

While I'm not advocating the use of fuses to launch model rockets, I've noticed that it's a fairly common practice in Europe, and it doesn't seem to be condemned there. Over the years I've seen several YouTube videos of model rocket launches in Europe that used fuse ignition. In these two recent ones (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKiI5wo3br0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC9tHx7dNbA ), a space modeler (model rocketeer) in Stegersbach, Austria flew his SpaceX Falcon 9 and Fairing model with an onboard keychain video & still camera with audio. The fuse can be clearly seen and heard in the camera views. Also:

The location where he flew his model (a very large and open farm area with no buildings, vehicles, or other people nearby--I was half-expecting to see Lipizzaner horses grazing in a nearby field... :-) ) looks like a place where fuse ignition would not pose any safety problems (provided that the launch pad was stable, the conditions weren't tinder-dry, and the wind wasn't gusting very high, all three of which appear to have been the case in the above-linked videos). Model rocketry safety codes in European countries do prescribe electrical ignition (and it is used in contests and other group launches there), yet using fuses instead doesn't appear to call down condemnation on people who use them when flying model rockets alone, or with family and/or friends. In addition:

To me, this is a perfectly sensible, non-uptight attitude that makes the hobby more enjoyable, without increasing the risks. I would not criticize any model rocketeer who kept a roll of green cannon fuse in his or her range box, for use in non-club flying sessions (provided that the conditions I listed above--and which appeared to be in place in the above-linked videos--were satisfied) if his/her launch controller became faulty or damaged (or its batteries died), or if s/he ran out of extra igniters. Over the years such things have happened to me a few times, and on the private land where I flew models either alone or with family (in northern Georgia and Alaska--I wouldn't have contravened the safety code at Tamiami Park, a public park where I flew rockets in Miami), I would have used fuses if I had brought any along with me, because I never flew in conditions in which fuses would have been any less safe than electrical ignition.

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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

My first six years of model rocketry, I used nothing but M-80 fuses to launch my rockets until I built my first electric powered launch system in 8th grade as a school project.

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If it flies, I can crash it!

Fire hazard from fuses is only one reason not to use them.

A BIG reason not to use fuses is that once lit, there is no "abort". If you have electrical ignition, you count down and if something goes wrong you simply stop and do not hit the launch button. This could be the pad tipping over, an aircraft suddenly entering the airspace or a person not connected to or aware of the launch suddenly entering the area on foot, bicycle or whatever.

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-Fred Shecter NAR 20117 (L2)
Southern California Rocket Association, NAR Section 430

I had a "pad tipped over after the fuse was lit" incident, around 1972. It was a shabby old Estes tripod with a rusty loose adjustment screw. My Alpha flew into the chain-link fence surrounding an in-use tennis court. I remember the cone splitting neatly, not quite in even halves.

I remember realizing at the time that I'd probably better get a working electrical controller together.

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Data Point: The comedy-drama "Bye Bye Lenin" is set in East Germany just before and after the fall of the wall. Worth seeing. The narrator / main character has a big home-made model rocket. He recalls launching it as a kid in a flashback (to celebrate the first East German cosmonaut), and later launches it again . . . I won't give away the occasion.

In both cases, he uses a fuse for ignition.

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NAR #27085 - Oregon Rocketry - SAM

When I first starting flying rockets in the 60s, a hobby store stocked Jetex fuse in the rocketry section of the store. We often used it, especially if we were riding our bikes to a nearby field, and we just pushed a launch rod into the ground instead of trying to carry a pad and launch controller.

I still have a couple of the little round tins and a small piece of the Jetex fuse.

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Lee Reep
NAR 55948

Projects: Semroc Saturn 1B, Ken Foss Designs Mini Satellite Interceptor
In the Paint Shop: Nothing! Too cold!
Launch-Ready: Farside-X, Maxi Honest John, Super Scamp

I thank you all very much for your replies! Jetex wick was quite commonly used in the old days (and it was later used as the pyrogen in Centuri's Sure-Shot igniters, of course). Green cannon fuse has also been utilized with nichrome hot-wire igniters as the pyrogen. Also:

*If* I had used fuse ignition (it wouldn’t have been my first choice, just a back-up option in the event my launch controller died or I ran out of igniters), I wouldn’t have done it anywhere where it would have made a difference, regardless of which ignition method was used. In northern Georgia, and at my now-unavailable flying site here in Alaska (the family foundation that owns it locked the gate, after its tenant user died last year), there was no one around and no dry foliage (I didn’t fly models in “Red Flag” [tinder-dry] conditions, period), and the skies at both sites were open to full scrutiny in all directions (audibly as well as visually, because both sites were virtually silent). At Tamiami Park in Miami, I would never have considered fuse ignition because there were always people and vehicles within range (not to mention R/C model airplanes flying around—I once unintentionally made an R/C pilot there gasp in horror when one of my rockets *appeared* to be intercepting his plane, due to his line of sight with respect to both models).

__________________
Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR