Remote Test Site Shoot #1 - Core-Burning Rockets with Payloads
Date: 2004-02-20
Description
Two of my standard RP payload launcher rockets fitted with different headings.
The first is a 30 mm canister shell, filled with D1 Glitter stars (pumped 8 mm - meal primed) and mixed mesh BP pulverone for break. The shell weighed in at almost 37 g, really too much for the rocket to lift to a good height.
The second is an attempt at a ring pattern shell, with KP/Zinc stars tacked into place with small dobs of hot-melt glue. The center of the shell was filled with mixed mesh pulverone and a 500 mg 7/3 flash booster mixed in. The disks were 40 mm in diameter. This was an experiment based on discussions of ring pattern shell rockets on the UK Rocketry & Pyro Forums.
A small piece of lance pipe stuffed with blackmatch passed fire from the rocket motor to the center of both shells. Some meal-NC paste and -40 mesh KP Burst was used to communicate fire from the motor bulkhead pass-through to the shell matching.
The shells were spiked well with cotton/polyester blend string, as previously to use up the great quantity I purchased by mistake. The shells were attached with large quantities of hot-melt glue.
Comments
The rockets worked perfectly, as they always do. This motor is so reliable the only problems I ever have with it is expecting too much of its lifting capacity, about 50 g total device mass is the practical limit. I must develop larger versions of more demanding payloads.
The canister shell broke with a non-idea but quite beautiful pattern. D1 glitter can be really pretty, even after seeing hours of it in stargun tests the same night.
The ring shell appeared to blow most of its stars blind. It is hard to assess the pattern, but it looked pretty crooked. I think the flash booster may have over-broken the shell, which I didn't think was very easy for such a small shell. The KP/Zinc stars have never proven hard to light before once meal primed.
The post-mortem pictures show that the spiking twine almost always broke at the point where it entered the glue, it is horrible stuff, I will use jute in future. It also shows how the excess usage of hot-melt in the ring shell made it break asymmetrically. You can also see where the KP Burst passfire charge gases were vented in the gap between the shell and the rocket body. In most cases the bursting tears didn't start from the cuts used to close the shell ends.
Attachments
| title | type | size |
|---|---|---|
| Test Video (Canister Shell) | video/x-msvideo | 986.174 kbytes |
| Test Video (Ring Shell) | video/x-msvideo | 408.814 kbytes |
| Pre-Test Picture (Canister Shell) | image/jpeg | 82.090 kbytes |
| Pre-Test Picture (Ring Shell) | image/jpeg | 92.427 kbytes |
| Post-Mortem Picture #1 (Canister Shell) | image/jpeg | 75.733 kbytes |
| Post-Mortem Picture #2 (Canister Shell) | image/jpeg | 82.562 kbytes |
| Post-Mortem Picture #1 (Ring Shell) | image/jpeg | 64.104 kbytes |
| Post-Mortem Picture #2 (Ring Shell) | image/jpeg | 85.721 kbytes |