Rocket car launch on pro 38 4 grain.

Hi all,

Here is my video of a rocket car launch on a pro 38 4 grain skidmark motor at the world famous Santa Pod raceway.

Planned in June to launch it again on 6 grain motor to possibility break Mach 1.

[video=youtube_share;3-uXBynjL3k]https://youtu.be/3-uXBynjL3k[/video]

hartrockets said:

Hi all,

Here is my video of a rocket car launch on a pro 38 4 grain skidmark motor at the world famous Santa Pod raceway.

Planned in June to launch it again on 6 grain motor to possibility break Mach 1.

Click to expand...

Just a forewarning, there are a lot of people here who may not like this because it isn't in a rocket, it isn't a certified launch, blah blah blah...anyways here's what I think:

HOLY CRAP! That's really cool!

So how did it stay so straight? Is it on a guide?

-Dave

Hi Dave, thanks for the comments, yes it's on a guide wire to keep it straight and for safety. Car is made from carbon fibre and is the next version built from the school who currently hold the world record at 533mph.

Pete

That's pretty awesome. If your going for speed why use a skid mark? They're really low performance for the size and weight.

Personally I think if it's done safely, it's in an appropriate place and your wire is strong enough then there's nothing wrong with it. That said you risk copycats doing it in an unsafe manner so you should explicitly give a "do not try at home, this is on a closed track with guide write" type warning. Also make sure to still maintain a safe distance in case a motor CATOS. It's rare but motors do occasionally fail. It looks like your a little close for comfort from the video.

It was a closed track. It was Santa Pod the famous dragster raceway. As for using a skidmark. These were just the test runs and the only motor our supplier had in stock. The 6 grain will probably be a blue thunder

So is the car actually in contact with the ground or does it go airborne? I remember seeing something about the full size cars trying to break the land speed records having problems staying on the ground and also keeping their wheels from flying apart due to the high stress from the insane RPMs.

That's super cool. Surprising how quick it looked for skid power.

So basically an HPR version of the Estes Blurzz cars... interesting.

If anyone gives him a hard time they may have not noticed this:

UKRA HPR Level 2
UKRA Range Safety Officer

With that said... Please post a video of the next attempt!

That was/is AWESOME! Would like to know more about the car if you can share?

Can you please describe your method for slowing the car down ?

Eric

Not the OP, but in high-school they used a wire that would stick straight up ; when it contacted the "finish line" it would trigger a chute event.

IIRC the motor delays were selected to be just a bit longer than the expected track time, so if the finish line didn't work the ejection event would take care of it.

that is really cool. Can we see a close-up of the vehicle?

Thanks for doing, and posting a video of, something I wanted to do since I was a kid.

Here's the car before the run.

Titanium wheels


Still from launch video

As for slowing the car down. We have 2 rocket rated chutes attached to the guide wire which the car "collects" also we found using lengths of foam pipe lagging on the guide wire works well to help slow the car. We also have another 250 metres (after the 400 metre timing run) for the car to run and decelerate naturally

hartrockets said:

Here's the car before the run. View attachment 288696

Titanium wheels
View attachment 288697

Still from launch video
View attachment 288698

Click to expand...

Pretty cool. I take it the guide wire runs through the bottom of the car?

Adrian

Good googly moogly

Yes the guide wire runs through the nose of the car and out the back.

Horizontal Rockets, Cool!!

Really well thought out and executed. Thanks for sharing.

Very cool... Very cool. So very cool!!

Thanks for posting.

Nice project. From the details about the track facilities it sounds like the project was well thought out. The car looks fairly simple, but this might because it is the proof of concept. The metal wheels look interesting. Did they show a lot of wear and tear after the first test? I thought maybe there might be and a tilted airfoil to keep the car in contact with the road, but obviously there was no such thing.

Yes the titanium wheels got a bit worn after 2 runs. Here's the photo of one of them after the runs.

As for airfoil or wings. It was decided that as unless the wings were perfectly level they may make the car roll so they were left off this design (which is still a work in progress) and just have a tail fin.

Machine a groove in the wheel for an o-ring and replace after every run