Who Can Identify This Rocket?

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Gary Byrum

Overstable By Design
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This is a Mazda commercial airing in our area, and maybe nationwide for all I know. I know it wasn't on YouTube yesterday. Looks like a lot of other kits I've seen, but the best view is in the air right after he launches it. VIDEO
 
Did you notice the little white letters in the middle of the screen bottom? "Do not attempt" ROFL
 
Yes I did. They may as well be saying, "Don't launch rockets". I looked at Estes, Quest & Sunward sites, and didn't see anything that looked like that rocket.
 
4 fins, rear ejection, looks like a RTF? Can't be too many kits fitting that criteria.

Odd launch pad too. Looks like he went off a piston maybe? Definitely has a blast of gas going UP out of a tube on it.
 
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Just because you see two shots of the rocket doesn't necessarily mean it's the same rocket or even the rocket as it was launched. Many times the producers have an idea of what it should look like or what they want it to look like and then get the shots they need. Kind of like most of those delicious looking foods in ads are fixed with paint and other nasties...for entertainment purposes only. :wink:
 
Not to steal post but tonight on our local news they had a clip from the UT Salt Flats launch. They said a motor can cost as much as $700 and had a burn time of 3 minutes. They did say to keep things safe rockets return by a parachute. I want one of the motors that burn for 3 minutes for $700
 
Just because you see two shots of the rocket doesn't necessarily mean it's the same rocket or even the rocket as it was launched. Many times the producers have an idea of what it should look like or what they want it to look like and then get the shots they need. Kind of like most of those delicious looking foods in ads are fixed with paint and other nasties...for entertainment purposes only. :wink:

That's a given. In fact, it doesn't look the same on the launch pad as it does in the air. TV!!!! The big lie! They should rename TV as the "Lying Box!" Can't believe anything you see on it anyway.
 
I don't think rear ejection - just fins tangled in shock cord. I thought maybe Code Red or Metalizer, but after looking more closely I don't think so. I agree that the launch shot and the tangled-in-the-chute recovery shot may not be the same model.

All those disclaimers - not just the "do not attempt" - grrrrr. Too many lawyers.

As a Mazda guy since I talked my Dad into getting an Rx-3 wagon in 1973 (instead of the Pinto wagon he wanted (!!)) I'm happy to see them getting more exposure lately, in spite of all the lawyerese in the fine print.
 
Managed to get a semi clearer view of it, appears to have grey/black NC, green stripe around tube about 1/2" down, and the fins have vertical stripes near and parallel to tip chords, and the fins remind me of the upper stage of the Estes Air Commander.
 
100_0141.jpgRocket looks a little like one of the Rocketvision rockets, but is probably just something the producers made up on their own. For some reason, the pause button is not working for me so I can't get a better look. Sort of looks like this rocket with elliptical fins.
 
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Nope...either rear eject or someone dropped off somewhere high up with the chute attached because if it was nose or body eject, they wouldn't still be attached together. ;)

Right you are! Silly me. I'm also beginning to agree with CoyoteNumber2 that it's air launched (and maybe the smoke behind was added in). That would be consistent with the exaggerated motion by the kid doing the launching and the look of the launcher. All of which makes the "do not attempt" lawyerese bit all the more laughable/sad.
 
This is what I'm seeing when it's falling. Looks like some kind of run-of-the-mill scratch job.

Those fins look like one of the fin designs in the older Designer's Special box-o-parts, it's on one of the fin sheets. I have a scratcher with those fins. I don't know how they did a rear ejection on that sort of model, there's no motor mount seen.

I'd agree with there are 2 different rockets but it's really hard to tell, less than a second goes past before the launch. The first rocket has black fin tips and a grey nosecone with a silver band below it with a white body but it goes by too fast to see the fins completely.
 
Here's another source for the video, but underneath, is a description of the commercial and the rocket was codenamed "Tango-165" . I didn't get anywhere searching that out, but maybe one of you can? TANGO-165
 
Not to hijack the thread, but adding on to the "it's all fake" theme....

I used to work in the movie biz. One of the films I worked on was Her Alibi, with Tom Selleck and Paulina Porizkova. There is a scene with a barn that tales place on a farm. The locations people found a nice estate that they wanted to use, but there was no barn!

So the scenic carpenters bought a bunch of really old timbers, and built a barn right on the spot. However, since they were going to tear it down, and so as not to destroy the homeowners' property, they gave it no foundation. In order to imitate a foundation, they used plastic rock siding like you would put on the wall around your fireplace in a rustic house, and then took some mortar and added texture to the "pretend" mortar.

They sprayed everything with a light layer of grey paint to make it look old. It was my extreme pleasure to take other crew members down to the barn and tell them to push on the rocks. There jaws would always drop when the rocks would give. It was hysterical. No one could believe that that barn hadn't been standing there for 100 years!

They also build a mock-up of the top of the roof of the barn for a stunt scene. The stunt people were working only about ten feet above the ground, instead of 50 feet above the ground. Pretty cool.
 
Not to hijack the thread, but adding on to the "it's all fake" theme....

I'm with you Bat-mite. While I didn't want to outright say it's fake, I wanted to suggest the likelihood of it being fake. I studied Advertising in college for a year and even worked in an Ad firm for a short while. Also the front of my former apartment building was in the movie "World According to Garp" (they changed a lot just for a few seconds of one scene).

Regardless, there still is a chance some of this is based off real items, so for those of you who haven't/can't view the "rocket" in question, I've copied and pasted the images here:
MazdaRocket.jpg
 
There’s something funky about that rocket’s decent.

If it is rear-end deployment; then where’s the motor mount?
And do you notice how short the shock cord is?
In fact, there doesn’t appear to be any shock cord.
You can see where the shroud lines come together and that’s at a point only a couple of inches from the end of the rocket.
Could this entire sequence be CGI?
And done by somebody with very limited knowledge of rocketry?
 
Doubt CGI, looks pretty real. And yeah, I'm sure whoever did it had a limited knowledge of rockets...probably a special effects person. It was probably pulled from some prop room in a studio somewhere and is a hodge-podge of random rocketry stuff.

I'd like to know what's up with it all though. Things like this intrigue me. The puff of gas off the launcher was particularly strange - some kind of piston launcher perhaps? Doubt they got that fancy, and for what reason anyway? But it does launch super-fast. Hard to pause the rocket mid-air.
 
It almost looks like it's launched with compressed air...would explain the puff of white coming up after the rocket clears the pad, and the oddly short launch rail/rod...and the fact that the launch rail/rod does NOT extend past the end of the rocket prior to launch.
 
So the nose cone is still on the front of the rocket so we know the chute didn’t come out that end.

But again I ask; where’s the motor mount and how did it deploy a chute with no apparent shock cord and not have it ripped off?

Did they “Launch” the rocket and then take it, attach the chute to the rear of the rocket, perhaps tying it to the motor hook, and then toss it off a crane to get the decent shot?

Again, somebody that knows nothing about rocketry.
 
different pics
mazdaairthing_edited-1.jpgmazdaairthin2_edited-1.jpg


a little clearer vid
[youtube]UJSUsio86Rc[/youtube]

no flame
 
The whole notion that they had to chase the rocket in the car was lame too.
 
how about a hollow rocket mounted on a piston tube that fits just inside the rocket. Fire the engine inverted inside the launch tube (or use some smoky compressed gas) and blow your hollow rocket up off the launch tube.
Would explain the funny tube-ey thing in the picture after rocket leaves the pad, absence of flame, absence of identifiable launch rod or rail (although easy to miss a rod on these pics.) Rocket has no engine or motor mount. Would be pretty much a featherweight recovery, nose cone, tube, fins, not engine or motor mount. Ballistic, but light. Also can do this pretty much anywhere, don't need to worry about size of your field (gonna go up and come straight down, rather promptly.) Make sure to say "Cut!" before the thing lawn darts in the picture.

As for descent pics, somebody attached the lines to the rear end of the rocket and threw it off a bridge or building and filmed it coming down. Left nose cone inplace. Would be easier and more reproduceable than trying to film an actual rocket descent. And if you separated the nose cone and did it the way a REAL model rocket comes down (chute, nose cone, shock cord, rocket), would be hard to get all of it in the picture and still see the rocket well, and wouldn't look "rocket-like" to the un-initiated.

regarding: TV!!!! The big lie! They should rename TV as the "Lying Box!" Can't believe anything you see on it anyway.

True, not like the internet where you can trust anything you see or read!
 
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Haha BARBAR, yeah, the internet's a credible source for sure!! Lol

I'm with the idea that the chute was randomly attached and dropped from a convenient height to get the shot. That makes sense. I think we're getting somewhere with the pressure launch idea....but there's still a lot of smoke/vapor, more than just what gets blown out of the tube. And it looks like they were really using the launch controller, but there's no way to tell for sure.
 
Okay I finally managed to identify the rocket.

His name is Freddy Fourfin, a name which earned him a lot of heckling back in his earlier years seeing as how he only has three fins.

He is a lowflight seedy character who got his start in “Showbiz” doing “Rocketporn” under the Nom De Plume “Starload” but was quickly dismissed from the business due to his numerous. . . er um, “Premature deployments”.

Later he was sued by Jim Flis for copy write infringement not to mention sullying a perfectly good and decent rocket name.

He made somewhat of a comeback; no pun intended, playing bit parts in various TV shows such as “The Six Million Dollar Man” and “Air Wolf”.

Now he’s been reduced to doing commercials and has been sighted hanging out at various club launches pining for his glory days.
 
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