CATO at NARAM

Hey guys,

I had a cool but scary cato at NARAM 45 last week. If you read my launch report, you know that me and my cousin flew the heck out of his PML Bullpuppy. On it's last flight we loaded it up with an H97J. It lit fine, and at about 300 feet, it made a deafening bang and went out. The rocket coasted about 500-600 feet up and started coming down. It started out coming in ballistic right over the cars. Then, thankfully, it leveled out and came down on it's side about 15 feet past the car line. The rocket was in pretty bad shape. Two of the canards broke off, two of the main fins came off, and the boat tail came off. It may sound bad, but it will be rebuilt. When we took the motor out, we saw that the nozzle had blown off. There was no damage to the case. The shoulder of the nozzle was still in the motor. Just the narrow part came off. I sent an e-mail to Aerotech. I'm waiting for a response. Since no one was hurt, we thought it was pretty cool. The best part was that it proved that APCP is not explosive. As soon as the nozzle was spit out, the motor extinguished itself. There was still a bunch of unburnt propellent.

Here's a pic of the nozzle.

I also got a really cool launch pic. I must have taken it right after the cato. I took it after the rocket cleared the frame. There is a smoke trail with no rocket at the top. This is an untouched image. Ask Carl, he saw it on my camera after it happened. It also screwed up the color on the picture. Everything is really bright.

whoa that shounds like a cool cato (sounds weird) But as long as your casing didnt get destroyed then your probably okay...but then the rocket did get damaged.

the nozzle comeing out of the motor has always worried me when it comes to aerotechs. If you have ever noticed there is a seam where the nozzle inserts into the larger ring of phenolic. It looks like the nozzle came out of this seam on your H97

The nozzle blowing is one of the fail safes built into the motor... the other is the deep groove cut into both ends of the motor caseing. If the motor overpressurizes, (Nozzle gets clogged, bad batch of propell, somebody used duct tape to tape a booster to the igniter ...) it either blows the nozzle, or the case splits at the pressure grove. I had both happen. Tankfully, a blown nozzle happens more then the case spliting... since the latter destroyes the motor, and possibly a closure... getting smashed againts a blast deflector is not a good thing....

Nick...the pic you have of a smoke trail and no rocket has just GOT to be one of the best I have seen. You should be able to use it for a contest or two at EMRR and win, hands down...it's one of a kind!

Carl

Maybe it'll win the Best Midwest...

along the lines of "waldo", you could submit it as "where's rocket?" LOL