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Luckily, this is not a story about me trying to recover from and injury or a health issue. Instead is mostly a story about a motor case. Yep, a motor case. A very rare, one of a kind motor case to be exact. Most of us have been around long enough to know about Dr. Rocket motor cases.
Dr. Rocket was a nickname given to Michael Reiner TRA# 831. Mike had obtained his L3 flying an all metal N2000 powered rocket for a successful Level III Certification at Balls 8 (1998 Utah) I believe it contained a modular aluminum fin can. After his certification flight Mike was looking for a project that was a bit more challenging. He had a few "special" items made for himself by the company making the motor cases. One of the items was a RMS 98/25600 Serial # 001 Date 06/99 Experimental "O" Motor
Mike never got around to flying this project. The case was sold and passed hands several times. Some of the sightings of this case was with Ken Finwall. In 2004 it was spotted at CTRA/Narconn Invitational XI where 13 year old Steven Heller wanted to buy it. Instead the case was sold to Eric Stackpole. Eric had the case for a few years. He had been 'using' the case, as a mandrel to layup body tubes. I entered the picture in 2009 when I purchase the case from Eric. I may have had to promise to fly it as part of the purchase agreement!
When I got the case the anodizing was already faded. I never did hear how it got that way. I like long motor cases and have had pretty good luck making research loads for them. I ran some BurnSim numbers using Swamp Gas. SG is a very forgiving formula and it works very well for very long motors. This case takes 59 inches of propellant. The 98/15360 case takes 36 inches. My BurnSim numbers looked pretty good. Now I needed a rocket to put it in. I decided to go with a fin can and enough "rocket" to hold the chutes and electronics.
I met AJ, his wife Ali and Woody at Balls 18 2009. The case was actually going to get to fly finally! The morning of the launch the temperature was down in the teens. It was freezing cold. We got the rocket on the pad and pointed in the right direction. We're hearing all the right beeps and flashes and are getting signals from the beeline GPS and Tx.
So we let her fly!
Everything was going great! For about the first 20 seconds! First we loose GPS lock. No biggie this thing is screaming. Then we loose Tx. Then we begin to wonder what the heck happened. Woody thinks he hears it come in hot out to the East of us. Then we begin to think with the cold temps did our batteries give up? We look and we look, then we looked some more. No sign of it anywhere. I begin to look at the bright side of things. The motor didn't cato. The rocket stayed together and didn't rain fins down on us. So it kind of worked and we go home.
I had the wrong video in...sorry! That was of a 5" min dia rocket that was "misplaced"
Here is the right video!
[video=youtube;nqiqZPfVSJ0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqiqZPfVSJ0[/video]
End of Story
Dr. Rocket was a nickname given to Michael Reiner TRA# 831. Mike had obtained his L3 flying an all metal N2000 powered rocket for a successful Level III Certification at Balls 8 (1998 Utah) I believe it contained a modular aluminum fin can. After his certification flight Mike was looking for a project that was a bit more challenging. He had a few "special" items made for himself by the company making the motor cases. One of the items was a RMS 98/25600 Serial # 001 Date 06/99 Experimental "O" Motor
Mike never got around to flying this project. The case was sold and passed hands several times. Some of the sightings of this case was with Ken Finwall. In 2004 it was spotted at CTRA/Narconn Invitational XI where 13 year old Steven Heller wanted to buy it. Instead the case was sold to Eric Stackpole. Eric had the case for a few years. He had been 'using' the case, as a mandrel to layup body tubes. I entered the picture in 2009 when I purchase the case from Eric. I may have had to promise to fly it as part of the purchase agreement!
When I got the case the anodizing was already faded. I never did hear how it got that way. I like long motor cases and have had pretty good luck making research loads for them. I ran some BurnSim numbers using Swamp Gas. SG is a very forgiving formula and it works very well for very long motors. This case takes 59 inches of propellant. The 98/15360 case takes 36 inches. My BurnSim numbers looked pretty good. Now I needed a rocket to put it in. I decided to go with a fin can and enough "rocket" to hold the chutes and electronics.
I met AJ, his wife Ali and Woody at Balls 18 2009. The case was actually going to get to fly finally! The morning of the launch the temperature was down in the teens. It was freezing cold. We got the rocket on the pad and pointed in the right direction. We're hearing all the right beeps and flashes and are getting signals from the beeline GPS and Tx.
So we let her fly!
Everything was going great! For about the first 20 seconds! First we loose GPS lock. No biggie this thing is screaming. Then we loose Tx. Then we begin to wonder what the heck happened. Woody thinks he hears it come in hot out to the East of us. Then we begin to think with the cold temps did our batteries give up? We look and we look, then we looked some more. No sign of it anywhere. I begin to look at the bright side of things. The motor didn't cato. The rocket stayed together and didn't rain fins down on us. So it kind of worked and we go home.
I had the wrong video in...sorry! That was of a 5" min dia rocket that was "misplaced"
Here is the right video!
[video=youtube;nqiqZPfVSJ0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqiqZPfVSJ0[/video]
End of Story
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