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Old 10-19-2021, 08:14 PM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Default Long Tom IGY film (link)

Hello All,

I just found this short film of Australia's participation in the IGY (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1HTmXmTwX0&t=1138s ). It shows the preparation and firing of an Australian Long Tom sounding rocket, which released "window" (radar chaff) in the upper atmosphere (high above Woomera, I presume, although "field firings"--such as the series of HAD--High Altitude Density--rocket launches at Carnarvon [see: http://www.carnarvonspace.com/wiki/...=The_HAD_rocket ]--were occasionally conducted).
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Old 10-19-2021, 10:10 PM
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It had a nice wiggle at staging. lol
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Old 10-24-2021, 06:22 PM
PeterAlway PeterAlway is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blackshire
Hello All,

I just found this short film of Australia's participation in the IGY (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1HTmXmTwX0&t=1138s ).


Extra bonus--this film has the first color images I've seen of an early-version Skylark as well as the Long Tom. And this is the first color I've seen of a Long Tom with a constant-diameter payload.

Excellent stuff!
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Old 10-25-2021, 07:05 PM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tbzep
It had a nice wiggle at staging. lol
Maybe the second stage fin-mounted flares on that Long Tom had something to do with it... (They were lit and burning furiously well before launch, and they appeared to be inboard [maybe even at the second stage fin roots], so that 3 Mayfly-to-1 Mayfly interstage adapter might have been softened--if not burned away--in three spots by the time the second stage ignited.) That might also be why the Australian Aero-High sounding rocket's second stage flares were mounted on the fin *tips*, so that their hot, erosive plumes wouldn't impinge on the vehicle's airframe.
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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
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http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
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Old 10-25-2021, 08:36 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterAlway
Extra bonus--this film has the first color images I've seen of an early-version Skylark as well as the Long Tom. And this is the first color I've seen of a Long Tom with a constant-diameter payload.

Excellent stuff!
You're welcome. (That DIY ["Do-It-Yourself"] valve-equipped, non-bursting cosmic ray rubber weather balloon that's shown toward the end of the film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1HTmXmTwX0&t=1138s [and *here* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1H...f1HTmXmTwX0&t=1 are more NFSA films, including at least one other Woomera one] might also have potential as a rockoon carrier that--like the Long Tom in the film--could release radar window [chaff] to track winds at the edge of space.) Those early, rhombic-finned Skylarks definitely had yellow-painted motors. Robin Brand’s massive Skylark “tome” ("Britain’s First Space Rocket: The Story of the Skylark," see: http://www.new-forest-electronics.c...kylark-book.htm ) includes a color still shot of one, taken from a motion picture, and:

Ian Southall describes the colors in a 1964 book ("Rockets in the Desert: The Story of Woomera") about Woomera (it's a rather thin book; I also have his longer follow-up book about Woomera [which also covers the Long Tom and Black Knight--the Long Tom shown in a B & W picture in the latter book appears to be fluorescent red or orange overall]). I came across an unexpected statement in "Rockets in the Desert: The Story of Woomera":

He wrote that “his” Skylark (a round that he participated in recovering; he also saw at least one other Skylark firing during his stay--to write that particular book--in Woomera) was—except for its payload cylinder and steel nose cone—bright yellow! (The downrange pictures that he took showed that its motor and fin assembly—the fins were the later “clipped delta” type that soon became standard for the Skylark—were all one color [they looked white in the black-and-white photos, but so would yellow].) However:

He also photographed at least one earlier-type, rhombic-finned Skylark round being readied for flight in the test shop (he got good close-ups, showing interesting details that I’d never seen in the more distant, official photographs of these earliest Skylarks). As he wrote:

“For most of its length it is painted a brilliant yellow, its slender nose cone is of highly polished metal—it flashes like a mirror—and, taken together, the body and nose cone are twenty-seven feet long.”

He also mentioned that at that time (and he quoted Woomera personnel concerning this, too), each Skylark’s Raven motor was modified—as regards the shape of the central void running down the grain, the propellant formulation, or both. Since these Skylark rounds, even though they carried scientific instruments, were also rocket test vehicles (they were still working towards the definitive, standard Raven rocket motor versions for single-stage and boosted Skylark variants [he wrote that they wanted to improve the Raven as much as possible because the Cuckoo-boosted Skylarks were significantly more expensive; they wanted to reserve boosted Skylarks for lifting heavier payloads]), they would have been painted the best colors to facilitate accurate optical tracking (to determine their orientation at high altitudes, etc.), so I suspect that at least some, and perhaps all, of the earliest (rhombic-finned) Skylarks may also have been painted yellow (their Raven motors and fin assemblies), because:

At White Sands—whose advice the Woomera personnel listened to—when optical tracking of vehicle orientation was very important (as I read elsewhere years ago, as Dr. Clyde Tombaugh said), such test rockets were usually painted yellow rather than white, often with black rings, stripes, or checks (as was done with the early V-2 and WAC Corporal test vehicles launched there). The rhombic-finned Skylark that Mr. Southall photographed close-up in the test shop had two narrow black bands; there was a rear one (maybe 1.5” or so wide) whose front edge was even with the fins’ leading edges where they joined the thin-walled tail can (which slid right over the Raven motor, adding almost no “extra diameter” to it), and a slightly wider forward band, located slightly more than one caliber (one Raven motor diameter) aft of the short, black payload cylinder, which was topped by the standard shiny steel conical nose. Plus:

This Skylark had no fin markings (and he photographed it from both sides, so this absence was easily visible). But not all of the rhombic-finned Skylarks had even the two body bands; another round, whose Raven motor (without the payload, and with un-marked fins attached) was shown being prepared for insertion into the tower launcher, had no bands. The whole motor/fins assembly was one color, which looks white in the black-and-white picture, but which—I’d wager—was actually yellow. (Later in the Skylark program, after all variants were thoroughly proved and standardized, white—and still later, bright red [and sometimes black]—Raven motors were used, as the color photographs in Robin Brand’s massive Skylark “tome” show.)
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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.
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