01-24-2023, 09:26 PM
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Master Modeler
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
Posts: 6,507
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by ghrocketman
When I flew a lot more back in the 70's and 80's, problems like these were VERY FEW and far in-between.
Never had ANY failures to eject nor nozzles spit from casings.
Few catos as well.
With modern technology this should happen even less, NOT worse.
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Indeed--even a "questionable" old-type Estes "B" single stage motor (it was old enough that it had the original, paper ejection charge plug, and also the old-style label, and it came in one of the original packing tubes) worked perfectly for us. Also:
Its ejection charge was quite loose; we could hear bits of it rattling around inside the casing. My father didn't want to risk a well-built-and-painted rocket on that motor (he built his kits like Mike Hellmund's Estes catalog kits, and like the ones that Centuri had built for their catalog photos--by Leroy Piester, or maybe Douglas Malewicki? [incidentally, *here* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7sy_fLYSPg is a video tour, conducted by Leroy Piester, of his Centuri Rocket Museum]), and:
That Estes motor--Dad had marked it with several question marks--made many trips to and back home from our nearby northern Georgia flying field, but one day my Estes Antares (I believe it was) got "buggered-up" enough (the wind had caught it right off the Tilt-A-Pad's 1/8" rod, and it spiraled horizontally into the ground) that I considered it 'expendable.' I loaded it up with the questionable "B" motor and launched it, and the motor--which had to have had cracks somewhere in its "propellant/delay/ejection charge 'stick'"--worked perfectly! |