Any model rocketers here?

[Archae]

Current or former?

On another message board, we're relating stories about our mishaps. :rofl:


We had our shares of mishaps as well, like that, when I was into model rockets.

Like one guy had a big Saturn 5 rocket, used four of the big engines to take off.
It made one flight.
A perfect ballistic flight into the Wisconsin dirt.


My brother Paul once built a model rocket of the German WWII "Natter". (Imagine a rocket powered interceptor designed by Wile E. Coyote).

It got off the pad, but then began rolling around through the dry grass, leaving a smoking trail.

Just about as successful as the actual aircraft was!


On to the drifted topic... when I was in high school, my physics class got to have a day of fun. We built model rockets and had plenty of fun shooting 'em off. Some people got kits (I did) and others built their own. One guy brought in three rockets - he was a modeler from back in early grade school. The assignment was to use tracking instruments to calculate how high the rockets went.

Oh, shooting day was fun and interesting. There were all kinds of mishaps. One was a classic "blew up on the pad"; another one made a wobbly takeoff and nearly flew a loop around the field; the best one was a two-stage rocket that tilted just after liftoff, shot right over my head, and landed at the nearby elementary school! Good thing someone in the class was on the track team, that was quite a run.


Always a fun time. We set fire to an airport once. The closest call I've had was when the Big Kids were sending up four- and five-foot rockets. One of them was made from aluminum, and was extremely cool-looking, until the parachute charge misfired and the sucker cratered (literally, went a foot deep in the ground) about ten feet from parking lot and the picnic tables.

My son got one of the plastic R2D2 rockets, and was having much fun flying a very non-aerodynmic robot. Then the rocket fouled on the guide wire going up, and sat on the pad until the chute charge went off. You know that scene in 'Return of the Jedi' where Arrtoo gets shot, and all his little panels blow open? It was a lot like that.

[Cobalt-60]

1. Estes rockets

black powder motors, approximate specific impulse =90 seconds.
I used to build and fly them.
My favorite was my "X-Ray" with the transparent cargo section.
Duers could use the modern CamRoc cameras to get aerial photos of marches for accurate head counts.

[WindRavenX]

2. I once launched one and it drifted on the freeway onto a car

This was pre 9-11. If I did that now, I'd probably be in gitmo....

[Briarius]

3. Oh man, my buddy and I used to do rockets!

One day we were out launching behind his parent's business. I went first with my 'Mosquito' rocket. It was honestly 4" from nose to tail with no chute. The engine just popped out and it tumbled back (in theory anyway). It was really a fire-and-forget(about finding it) kinda thing. Anyway, it went up without a hitch and did well on altitude, and naturally we lost it once the engine stopped. A couple seconds later we hear it clang on the metal roof of the barn behind us, and we actually got it back.
My buddy was next with his SR71 model. This rocket had a bad history of unstable flight and burning through the shock cord that held the nose cone (& parachute) to the body. But he'd patched up the holes from where he'd shot it out of the tree from 'last' time and had gotten it better balanced supposedly. At this point it's important to note his parents owned an oil company and we were probably ~100 yards from the cluster of 30' tanks of gas and diesel. Needless to say the SR71 came up off the pad and immediately headed straight for the fuel tanks. We weren't sure if we should run after it or run away! Luckily for us we used a 'short' engine and the chute deployed and it landed about 20' from the tanks. We recovered the rocket and decided that obviously, we needed to us a bigger engine!(so smart at 16) So we repacked the rocket and set up a ways farther from the tanks just to be safe. The bigger engine did work to keep the rocket going vertical, but the resulting separation charge once again sent the body nose first into the field and the nosecone and parachute led us on a fun mile chase through the woods where we once again had to shoot it out of a tree.

We also had a rocket not leave the pad, interestingly enough I think it was an X-wing. Burned clean though the Estes 'blast shield' :D

[Roon]

4. Oh! I loved estes rockets

If I could afford it, I would play with them today! I once made a rocket out of a wrapping paper tube and used cardboard fins. One of the fins fell off during launch and the rocket made a sharp left turn and crashed into the dirt. The parachute discharge totally blew it apart. Oh, what fun those days were.

My ex and I found a kit in the basement with like three engines left! We had a buddy over that never did rockets and we took him to the park and fired off the three engines. He had a blast!

[AllegroRondo]

7. they are still around and pretty cheap

you can get a starter kit, complete with launching pad and hand held battery igniter, for under $30.

[edbermac]

5. Had a few but never launched them.

You had to be 21 to buy an engine or fire a rocket at that time. Just had some models that I would twirl around on a piece of string to see if they were aerodynamically sound.

[AllegroRondo]

6. I made that Saturn 5 model!

Around 1980.
It flew only once also - only 2 of the 4 engines fired, it spun lopsided across the parking lot and crashed into the grill of an AMC Gremlin. Then the ejection charges went off, lauching the astronaut capsule over a small hedge.

What fun!

[Archae]

10. LOL!

:rofl:

[unpossibles]

8. I used to build, paint and collect them but only launched a few

I had forgotten about those! Thanks.

I always wanted the camera one. And of course, the plain ones always flew better than the ones that looked cool.

[seemunkee]

9. My son and I used to do it together.

I have an X-30 sitting on my file cabinet in my office.

[hunter]

11. We launched a rocket from a kite.

The ignition switch was made to go off with a quick tug of the kite string, but that flipped the rocket over and it powered straight down into the street, crashing maybe six feet in front of a moving car.

I'm sure we startled the driver.

That's not by a long shot the most dangerous thing I did with rockets. It was always fun to see just how light I could make a rocket, maybe by gluing stuff directly to the engine. Man, could those things go off in wild directions. A person could lose an eye or something.

Now I'm a responsible adult, and I certainly don't want my kids to get ideas.

I don't recall ever seeing a successful flight of a Saturn 5 model, and quite a few spectacular crashes.