We to do miss the Whitaker's days. Sorry, it wasn't us that got married under the rockets. Not sure who it was or maybe you just made it up.
Ben
Ben
How far can you take this hobby?
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JeffTaylor
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Funny propellant scrap stories:
Paul Robinson of AMW once did a propellant scrap burn (Paul called them “pyrotechnic events”) in the driveway in front of their propellant shop in New Hampshire and when the fireball dissipated, he noticed that he had barbequed the telephone wires strung above the drive. AMW had no phone for at least a week. When the telephone company came to replace the wires, they didn’t even blink, just asked Paul, “maybe we should mount these up ten feet higher?”
At CTI they used a propellant press that squeezed propellant through a flexible hose into the casting mold. After the mold was filled, the flexible hose was discarded as there is no easy way to clean the inside of a hose and hose is cheap. When the month's scrap was hauled to the burn pit and set ablaze those propellant laden hoses became propulsive and went whizzing around in the air like a bunch of angry fireflies.
At Loki Research I once hauled a bunch of scrap propellant to a local sand quarry. The quarry was a pit of about 30 acres and maybe 50 feet deep. The DOT mined sand there to spread on the roads during winter, but in the summer there was no activity and we used the pit for test firing motors on our thrust stand. I typically chose a day with a good breeze to carry the smoke away, but on this day the air was still. I burned the rather large pile of scrap and a huge mushroom cloud of smoke rose up, hovered briefly, and then sank back down! With a wall of smoke chasing me, I grabbed my gear and scrambled up to the top of the pit and safety. From the top I looked back to see that the entire pit was filled right to the rim with thick white smoke. The interface between smoke and air was sharp and the smoke surface rippled slightly so that it looked like pit was full of milk. I stood there gaping for 5 minutes or so and the smoke showed no sign of thinning, so I beat it out of there. I wish I had a photo of that.
Paul Robinson of AMW once did a propellant scrap burn (Paul called them “pyrotechnic events”) in the driveway in front of their propellant shop in New Hampshire and when the fireball dissipated, he noticed that he had barbequed the telephone wires strung above the drive. AMW had no phone for at least a week. When the telephone company came to replace the wires, they didn’t even blink, just asked Paul, “maybe we should mount these up ten feet higher?”
At CTI they used a propellant press that squeezed propellant through a flexible hose into the casting mold. After the mold was filled, the flexible hose was discarded as there is no easy way to clean the inside of a hose and hose is cheap. When the month's scrap was hauled to the burn pit and set ablaze those propellant laden hoses became propulsive and went whizzing around in the air like a bunch of angry fireflies.
At Loki Research I once hauled a bunch of scrap propellant to a local sand quarry. The quarry was a pit of about 30 acres and maybe 50 feet deep. The DOT mined sand there to spread on the roads during winter, but in the summer there was no activity and we used the pit for test firing motors on our thrust stand. I typically chose a day with a good breeze to carry the smoke away, but on this day the air was still. I burned the rather large pile of scrap and a huge mushroom cloud of smoke rose up, hovered briefly, and then sank back down! With a wall of smoke chasing me, I grabbed my gear and scrambled up to the top of the pit and safety. From the top I looked back to see that the entire pit was filled right to the rim with thick white smoke. The interface between smoke and air was sharp and the smoke surface rippled slightly so that it looked like pit was full of milk. I stood there gaping for 5 minutes or so and the smoke showed no sign of thinning, so I beat it out of there. I wish I had a photo of that.
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So do we!
JeffTaylor
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You guys want more about the genesis of Loki Research, or about projects we assisted with?
Nytrunner
Pop lugs, not drugs
Yes
In all seriousness though, thank you for taking the time to write this out and shed some more light on the background of the hobby we enjoy so much
In all seriousness though, thank you for taking the time to write this out and shed some more light on the background of the hobby we enjoy so much
YUP!
...and thank you for doing it *here*.
love it, thanks for sharing this with us.
Wonderful! As a little aside, in the photo of the 40- qt. industrial vacuum mixer a couple posts back, I like that little fellow in the back with the shark teeth around the rim... I may have to surprise my wife on her Kitchen Aid now...
And yes, I love me some good (safe, non-destructive) explosions! That one looked fantastic!
And yes, I love me some good (safe, non-destructive) explosions! That one looked fantastic!
Yes please!
JeffTaylor
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Well, I sure collected plenty of good explosions! Try this one on for size. It's the slow motion video from a static test conducted at the Air Force Academy in Colorado. I was helping the cadets with a boosted dart project. I did not make this motor (if I had, it would have worked
). Note that it's actually day time, the camera is just stopped way down to better see through the bright motor plume.Here is the second try, with much better results.
Oh this is freakin awesome. I have a deep love of Loki Research propellant, so it is great to hear the origin story.
Subscribed! More Loki origin stories please
Hi Jeff, it's been a long while. Remember driving 20-odd bleary-eyed hours to LDRS 25? Glad to hear about you!
I'm retired now, so my job is to annoy people on TRF.
Best -- Terry
I'm retired now, so my job is to annoy people on TRF.
Best -- Terry
JeffTaylor
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Hi Jeff, it's been a long while. Remember driving 20-odd bleary-eyed hours to LDRS 25? Glad to hear about you!
I'm retired now, so my job is to annoy people on TRF.
Best -- Terry
Hi Terry-
Good to know you are out there! Annoy away! You've earned it.
-Jeff
GrouchoDuke
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This is all awesome. Keep goin'!
JeffTaylor
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I posted the picture of the scrap burn to give an impression of what happened at the AeroTech plant in Las Vegas in 2001 when a barrel of propellant scraps was accidentally ignited inside their building. The resulting explosion blew the doors off the building and injured several people, one of whom later died of his injuries (extensive burns). It was a terrible tragedy. After the initial explosion, a barrel of magnesium powder ignited and the following fire completely destroyed AeroTech and several other businesses in the same complex. Many people might have given up at this point but Gary Rosenfield did not. Legal wrangling by AeroTech’s lawyers held off the wolves in Las Vegas just long enough for AeroTech to build a new facility in Cedar City, Utah before the inevitable bankruptcy.
The AeroTech fire and bankruptcy were an opportunity for Loki Research. The largest competitor in the market place was, at least temporarily, shut down and for sale to the highest bidder. There was much discussion at Loki Research about trying to buy the AeroTech assets out of bankruptcy. After much consideration, we decided not to bid. There were many reasons why we did not, a big one being I did not want to move to Utah. Two things we did get, at no cost, were a list of chemicals that AeroTech used from the Clark County Hazmat fire report and a list of AeroTech’s creditors (suppliers) from the bankruptcy court. The chemical list alerted me to some propellant additives that I was unaware of and later used, and the supplier list introduced me to Bernie Kosowski. Bernie was the president of Mach I, Inc. a specialty chemical supplier. Located in Pennsylvania, it was a short ride for me and being able to drop in and talk propellant with an expert like Bernie was very helpful.
When you announce that you are starting a business, you receive encouragements from many people, but understandably not from your competitors. The best you can reasonably hope for is indifference, but more common is outright hostility. The hobby rocket “pie” is not large and nobody wants to give up a slice to the new guy. Frank Kosdon sent me this “Notice of cease and desist” letter, it’s partly hand written and partly typed on a manual typewriter. I kept Frank’s letter because it’s kind of awesome, especially the last line. Gary Rosenfield also threatened to sue me for patent infringement and he actually had a patent. So both Frank and Gary were telling me that they invented the reloadable rocket motor and I couldn’t make them without infringing their intellectual property. Intellectual property is a complex topic of which most people have little understanding, I wasn’t about to rely on my own knowledge of these matters, so I hired the best patent attorney in New York (according to him) to advise me. This sounds expensive, but seeing as we were good friends from school, he agreed to do it for a case of beer. Who invented the reloadable hobby rocket motor? Was it Frank Kosdon? Gary Rosenfield? Or someone else? I’ll never know. It probably wasn’t a single person, but it doesn’t matter. The design I wanted to sell wasn’t patented by anyone and was, in fact, a design published in 1989, a couple of years ahead of the AeroTech patent (see photo below). This is known as “prior art.” Once published, an idea becomes public domain and cannot be patented. Loki Research was in the clear. For all their bluster, Frank and Gary both got what they really wanted most anyway, they wanted me to not compete directly by selling reloads for their hardware. That was never my intention and I never did.
The AeroTech fire and bankruptcy were an opportunity for Loki Research. The largest competitor in the market place was, at least temporarily, shut down and for sale to the highest bidder. There was much discussion at Loki Research about trying to buy the AeroTech assets out of bankruptcy. After much consideration, we decided not to bid. There were many reasons why we did not, a big one being I did not want to move to Utah. Two things we did get, at no cost, were a list of chemicals that AeroTech used from the Clark County Hazmat fire report and a list of AeroTech’s creditors (suppliers) from the bankruptcy court. The chemical list alerted me to some propellant additives that I was unaware of and later used, and the supplier list introduced me to Bernie Kosowski. Bernie was the president of Mach I, Inc. a specialty chemical supplier. Located in Pennsylvania, it was a short ride for me and being able to drop in and talk propellant with an expert like Bernie was very helpful.
When you announce that you are starting a business, you receive encouragements from many people, but understandably not from your competitors. The best you can reasonably hope for is indifference, but more common is outright hostility. The hobby rocket “pie” is not large and nobody wants to give up a slice to the new guy. Frank Kosdon sent me this “Notice of cease and desist” letter, it’s partly hand written and partly typed on a manual typewriter. I kept Frank’s letter because it’s kind of awesome, especially the last line. Gary Rosenfield also threatened to sue me for patent infringement and he actually had a patent. So both Frank and Gary were telling me that they invented the reloadable rocket motor and I couldn’t make them without infringing their intellectual property. Intellectual property is a complex topic of which most people have little understanding, I wasn’t about to rely on my own knowledge of these matters, so I hired the best patent attorney in New York (according to him) to advise me. This sounds expensive, but seeing as we were good friends from school, he agreed to do it for a case of beer. Who invented the reloadable hobby rocket motor? Was it Frank Kosdon? Gary Rosenfield? Or someone else? I’ll never know. It probably wasn’t a single person, but it doesn’t matter. The design I wanted to sell wasn’t patented by anyone and was, in fact, a design published in 1989, a couple of years ahead of the AeroTech patent (see photo below). This is known as “prior art.” Once published, an idea becomes public domain and cannot be patented. Loki Research was in the clear. For all their bluster, Frank and Gary both got what they really wanted most anyway, they wanted me to not compete directly by selling reloads for their hardware. That was never my intention and I never did.
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Very nice to read Jeff...…….. Thank you !!
Speaknoevil
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Firefox. Interesting. Who knew...
rfjustin
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That letter from Frank is epic, thank you for the share Jeff!
Wow. Did you guys ever become friends after that?
JeffTaylor
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Frank continued to call me "Dr. Plagiarist" every time he saw me, which was once a year at BALLS. I'm not sure he personally cared that much, but he always had a crowd of fan-boys around at BALLS egging him on. The weird part is I liked Frank and felt like I knew him pretty well because I heard so many stories about him (mostly from Mark Clark).
Tell me more! I love the history of this sport.
Somewhere I have a letter similar to the one Frank sent Jeff. It was to Jim Mitchell, and included the "save me 37 cents and pass this on". Frank Kosdon was an incredible rocket scientist but was somewhat lacking in ability to interact with other people.
Best -- Terry
Best -- Terry
JeffTaylor
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Getting that letter from Frank was the rocket equivalent of Steve Martin getting his name in the phone book. Now I am somebody!
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beeblebrox
8 C6-0, 12 D11-9, 20 D20-0, 20 E5-0, 3 Cinerocs
SmallTownOhioRockets
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Wow, lots of science, lots of history, and such interest! go on!
SmallTownOhioRockets
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Thanks for this story! Go on!
Working among engineers/scientists, and being one myself, I find this a common problem - including myself to some extent. We are also statistically more likely to have autism in our family - I had an autistic uncle, and my son is autistic; and at least two other engineers in my very small circle have autistic offspring as well. Asperger's syndrome is common as well.
But enough of that - don't want to cause a diversion. As STOR says.. Go on!
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