Rockets:3 -- Mythbusters:0

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Things I noticed, all the energy seemed to be sucked up by bouncing off the ramp. The cars suspension should have been stiffer/solid. The timing of the thrust could have been better too. I think if the balance was a tad better they could have gotten a decent flight.

Weeeellll...I think that would have gone beyond the mission objective which was to just essentially mount some motors on the car - and that's it. At the end of the episode Grant did explain something about sure they could have put fins on the car among other things but that would have gone way beyond what the myth states.

However, I wish they would have done all they could just to see how far they could have gotten it - balance, fins, etc. I bet they could have done at least 1000'.
 
Things I noticed, all the energy seemed to be sucked up by bouncing off the ramp. The cars suspension should have been stiffer/solid. The timing of the thrust could have been better too. I think if the balance was a tad better they could have gotten a decent flight.

It also lost energy because the car tore through the ramp. The ramp surface was only made of plywood. As the car started up the ramp,it broke through the plywood to the trusses. If those trusses were further apart, the car would have gone into the ramp, not up it. The ramp they use last time out of the shipping containers would have been a much better choice.

Adrian
 
I'll be honest, the Odd Rocs don't do much for me. The porta potty was kinda funny, but the tiki bars, manikins, grandfather clocks etc., just don't blow my skirt up.

I actually like most of them. You do realize most of these oddroc launches in recent years were done for TV right?
 
Green Jello said:
It was for the Odd Roc competition. Was the Tiki Bar or Jim's flying console TV any different?

The Tiki Bar was quite different. It was designed and built from the ground up with the intent of flying under rocket motor power and being safely recovered on a designed and working recovery system. It worked well enough to take first prize.

A snow mobile with a running, working engine and drive-train, purpose built for mobility "ON LAND" does not make it an Odd Rocket when you strap a rocket motor and parachute to it. It is a snow mobile with a rocket motor strapped to it and a cobbled up recovery system. Nothing more. It's giving the bird to the safety code and the reasons we ALL fly ROCKETS.

But two(?) years later and it's still talked about. So in an advertising (sort of) way, it did work.

Exactly, it's obvious this is why it was done, solely for the publicity and advertising value for the people involved with flying it.

I bet I could find an old boat around here to fly on some rocket motors. Heck, wouldn't that be a great idea to fly a boat at the next LDRS!?!? I mean hey, they're made out of mostly fiberglass, right? There shouldn't be anything wrong with that. It'll fit right in. :facepalm:

Strapping big rocket motors onto cars and lighting them (boats in my case) is the thing all of us as kids daydreamed about. (still do sometimes) Sure we'd love to do it, sure we love watching someone do it on TV, but we'd never dream of asking to fly a land driven, working vehicle and a sanctioned rocket launch, because we all (most of us) know it's not at all what our hobby (or OddRocks) is about. That's what makes the snow mobile different.
 
I used to like the mythbusters but as I got into rocketry and experimenting it just became obvious that they often have no clue what they are doing. This episode just proved my theory. The rocket, very quickly, went unstable. I think if we all reeeaaalllyyy wanted to we could "easily" make a car fly...especially with 4 (5?) P motors haha. If they just want it to be a car flying (no mods, except what is needed to mount the motors)I don't think it's ever going to happen. HOWEVER, if we gave the car fins and made it stable, obviously it would fly. It doesn't take a NASA engineer to see that, just a person with a lot of dinero.
 
I used to like the mythbusters but as I got into rocketry and experimenting it just became obvious that they often have no clue what they are doing. This episode just proved my theory. The rocket, very quickly, went unstable. I think if we all reeeaaalllyyy wanted to we could "easily" make a car fly...especially with 4 (5?) P motors haha. If they just want it to be a car flying (no mods, except what is needed to mount the motors)I don't think it's ever going to happen. HOWEVER, if we gave the car fins and made it stable, obviously it would fly. It doesn't take a NASA engineer to see that, just a person with a lot of dinero.

The point is the mythbusters were trying to follow the myth as close as they can, the original story involved 1 JATO/RATO and a car. It did not involve fins, or a guidance system.

Also the Mythbusters are special effect artist's they know a lot about science and engineering, but do not specialize in any particular field. They obviously have people behind the science to oversee and help with some of the science. But I think they do they best they can.
 
I used to like the mythbusters but as I got into rocketry and experimenting it just became obvious that they often have no clue what they are doing. This episode just proved my theory. The rocket, very quickly, went unstable. I think if we all reeeaaalllyyy wanted to we could "easily" make a car fly...especially with 4 (5?) P motors haha. If they just want it to be a car flying (no mods, except what is needed to mount the motors)I don't think it's ever going to happen. HOWEVER, if we gave the car fins and made it stable, obviously it would fly. It doesn't take a NASA engineer to see that, just a person with a lot of dinero.

The front right wheel came off the white car and it went into a roll, rockets worked fine...what happens to a conventional rocket if a fin shreds?

The motors were not located equally spaced along the axial centerline, there wasn't enough room under and if the motors were installed in two rows of three instead of one row of six they would have had the same problem if one of the motors failed to light (imagine if one of the SRBs of the shuttle did not ignite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJdrlWR-yFM

Rick
 
We can sit here and debate the merits of what the Mythbusters did but there is one thing some of us (myself included) seem to be missing which is the beautiful burn of the motors and getting all of those monsters to light simultaneously is really really impressive. Bravo!
 
We can sit here and debate the merits of what the Mythbusters did but there is one thing some of us (myself included) seem to be missing which is the beautiful burn of the motors and getting all of those monsters to light simultaneously is really really impressive. Bravo!

Good point. Bravo indeed!
 
Just finished the episode... FREAKING AWESOME!!!!!:eek::eek::::kill::duck:
On a more serious note, I was mildly impressed by the safety measures they took, but am still in awe that they put 6 P motors on a car....

P engines? 6 OF THEM??? That power! Didn't know you could get up to P, thought they ended at O. Mythbusters is freaking awesome!
 
That is true - can you say thermite?

We didn't use thermite. We used two igniters to light 38mm motors that lit the P-motors. I was really holding my breath that they would all light together.
We used a similar type arrangement to light our last Sugar Shot to Space 6" motor...an igniter lights an Estes motor that in turn lights the 6" motor except on the Sugar Shot motor we used epoxy to secure the Estes in the nozzle end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP2SrOol58s

Rick
 
P engines? 6 OF THEM??? That power! Didn't know you could get up to P, thought they ended at O. Mythbusters is freaking awesome!

Skybuster,
here is a R-hybrid we launched a couple of years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owQeSP89_nE

Ky Michaelson's Go Fast that reached the edge of space had an S-motor.

the Space Shuttle SRB is rated a 5 Z-motor, see Wikipedia Model Rocket Motor Classification:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_rocket_motor_classification

Rick
 
We didn't use thermite. We used two igniters to light 38mm motors that lit the P-motors. I was really holding my breath that they would all light together.
We used a similar type arrangement to light our last Sugar Shot to Space 6" motor...an igniter lights an Estes motor that in turn lights the 6" motor except on the Sugar Shot motor we used epoxy to secure the Estes in the nozzle end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP2SrOol58s

Rick

Dang......:confused: and, i thought he was going to say C4........:D Nice flame (X-6)!:eek:
 
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