Remote Test Site Shoot #2 - Assorted Rockets
Date: 2004-03-19
Description
As it has been a while between shoots I had an enormous collection of rockets to test, including bottle rockets, nozzleless BP and whistle ones of many geometries.
The bottle rockets and nozzleless BP bottle rockets used 6:1:1 Blackpowder as propellant. The whistle rockets were all Benzoate Whistle and there was one RP based payload lifter rocket.
There was also some experimental ones based on moist pressed Pearl Streamer composition, which made pretty fountians but I didn't bother posting the videos of.
Comments
Where do I start?
The traditional bottle rocket worked very well. I've finally fixed the flash report problems. The performance was excellent for a 5 mm motor and the report was more than sufficient. I used some cab-o-sil in the 7/3 Flash and pushed the wadding in until it just touched the flash but did not compress it. The end was then capped off with hot-melt glue.
The 3/8" payload lifter was a star performer as usual. My friend didn't believe it was BP based. In fact RP uses the Aluminium in the composition as a phlegmatizer to allow it to function in the core-burning mode.
The nozzleless BP rockets had widely varying performances. The moist night air probably effected them more than anything else. Their fuses had serious issues with the dew (as did several other device's fuses). Video #2 is a nice safety lesson, sodium lights and hold-firing fuses are a dangerous mix, but it wasn't actually as close as it appears. The offering of my torch flame to a fuseless rocket isn't advised either.
Only one of the whistle rockets worked "well". It was an 8 mm ID unit with a 1.5 ID length core. I didn't put a core in the 12.5 mm ID unit fearing a CATO, but clearly this propellant is not as hot as all the warnings suggest, longer cores should fix this problem. The 5 mm ID rocket with a (short) core nearly took out a tub of BP lift about 20 metres away!
Attachments
| title | type | size |
|---|---|---|
| Traditional Bottle Rocket | video/x-msvideo | 440.062 kbytes |
| Nozzleless Bottle Rocket #1 | video/x-msvideo | 270.062 kbytes |
| Nozzleless Bottle Rocket #2 | video/x-msvideo | 3.025 Mbytes |
| Nozzleless Bottle Rockets #3 | video/x-msvideo | 877.270 kbytes |
| Nozzleless Bottle Rockets #4 | video/x-msvideo | 958.102 kbytes |
| Nozzleless Bottle Rockets #5 | video/x-msvideo | 1.180 Mbytes |
| Payload Lifter Rocket | video/x-msvideo | 720.642 kbytes |
| 5 mm Whistle No Core | video/x-msvideo | 643.572 kbytes |
| 5 mm Whistle With Core | video/x-msvideo | 560.428 kbytes |
| 8 mm Whistle No Core | video/x-msvideo | 884.050 kbytes |
| 8 mm Whistle With Core | video/x-msvideo | 575.194 kbytes |
| 12.5 mm Whistle No Core | video/x-msvideo | 1.914 Mbytes |
| Pre-Test Nozzleless Bottle Rockets | image/jpeg | 63.999 kbytes |
| Pre-Test 8mm Whistle Rockets | image/jpeg | 53.867 kbytes |
| Post-Mortem 12.5 mm Whistle Rocket | image/jpeg | 84.027 kbytes |