Little Joe I

Hi everyone...
I'm looking at doing a team project with my Brother-in-Law, Mike. I've been looking at the Little Joe I, with a 6" scale dia. that would make the total vehical a whopping 45" tall. this combined with 7 motors.. should be a real show...
I'm having problems finding info out about the motor end of the rocket. Does it have 6 outboard motors and a centeral motor, like the LIttle Joe II ? are all the motors full motors? If anyone can find any more info out on this I'd apreate it... I've got the scale data out of Rockets of the World, but nothing on the propultion end of the rocket.
I'm estemat'n that the rocket will weigh between 7 to 9 lbs, and with as small as 6)E16's and 1)G80 loaded.. looks like 1,800 ft. with a safe rod speed.
Here is a pic. for anyone that dosn't know what it looks like.

I like that! That will be a way cool rocket!

So much for that. This is the same picture I was going to direct you to. I got interested in a similar project when I got my Merc Redstones for Father's Day. You're thinking a bit bigger than I was. (Big is like.......cool!)

Well, it's offical this is going to be the rocket of choice to builid... Mike and I will be building this thing. So anyone that has any info or catch's anything about it while your browsen the web. It would be greatly apreated if you passed it along this way. I'm sure we will be keeping a good photo collection of the building prosses and I'll keep the forum infored of it's progress. This project will as you can figure, take sometime to complete as we want to detail it out as much as possible. I've already thought about how to build the tower, I think Brass round stock will be the material of choice, sodered together. Just to give you an idea of the craftmanship that is going to be tryed in this project. here is a screen shot of the sloppy sim I though together real quick, just to get some ideas what to expect.
ok the file is too big.. I've gotta try and find a way to make it smaller.. I'll post it later

Ok.. found a little more info:
The rocket was built to do unmaned flight test of the Mercury capsule and launch escae system. It was powered by 8 motors, four recruit motors would ignite simultaneously with 2 larger motors, while 2 more large motors would ignite later in the flight.
I still have no idea how the motors were configured as far as placement... still looking for that part of it.. Once I find that out, I should be able to really get down and production of it..

ok, here is my first attmept of configur'n the motors... what do ya think?

The layout looks good. One suggestion though. From what I remember from an article in HPR on clusters you might want to reconsider the sequence for starting the 38mm motors.

Because the two 38mm motors in the center of the cluster are closer to the centerline they would have minimum effect on the flight profile if for some reason they did not light, or come up to thrust, at exactly the same time. The outer two 38mm motors would have a much greater effect in the same circumstances because of their location at the perimeter of the airframe.

I found some good info on the Little Joe II...you may wish to contact these guys and see if they have any data from Little Joe 1.

Got this from ScaleRoc's site - https://members.aol.com/GCGassaway/LJoe.htm

Carl

Follow this url to Little Joe mecca. You'll find more here in one place than anywhere else I've ever seen.

https://homepage.virgin.net/peter.mcquillan/index.html


Romie Lucas
NAR 54477

Thanks for the web site's guy's.. these are great... I"ll keep you all in formed.. as of the progress..