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Bruce

Bruce

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Just ran across this today, about Jack Parsons, one of the early American rocket engineers,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_(rocket_engineer)

"At von Kármán's suggestion, Frank Malina approached the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Army Air Corps Research to request funding for research into what they referred to as "jet propulsion", a term chosen to avoid the stigma attached to rocketry. The military were interested in jet propulsion as a means of getting aircraft quickly airborne where there was insufficient room for a full-length runway, and gave the Rocket Research Group $1,000 to put together a proposal on the feasibility of Jet-Assisted Take Off (JATO) by June 1939, making Parsons et al. the first U.S. government-sanctioned rocket research group. Since their formation in 1934, they had also performed experiments involving model, black powder motor-propelled multistage rockets. In a research paper submitted to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Parsons reported these rockets reaching velocities of 4,875 miles per hour"

That's over mach 6! And on black powder no less!

How do you think they did it?
 
I've seen YouTube videos of people in Thailand launching telephone pole sized rockets with homemade black powder to what looks like several thousand feet. So my guess would be really big motors.
 
Bruce said:
Just ran across this today, about Jack Parsons, one of the early American rocket engineers,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_(rocket_engineer)

"At von Kármán's suggestion, Frank Malina approached the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Army Air Corps Research to request funding for research into what they referred to as "jet propulsion", a term chosen to avoid the stigma attached to rocketry. The military were interested in jet propulsion as a means of getting aircraft quickly airborne where there was insufficient room for a full-length runway, and gave the Rocket Research Group $1,000 to put together a proposal on the feasibility of Jet-Assisted Take Off (JATO) by June 1939, making Parsons et al. the first U.S. government-sanctioned rocket research group. Since their formation in 1934, they had also performed experiments involving model, black powder motor-propelled multistage rockets. In a research paper submitted to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Parsons reported these rockets reaching velocities of 4,875 miles per hour"

That's over mach 6! And on black powder no less!

How do you think they did it?
Click to expand...
Parsons must have been performing magik on that flight..
 
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Jack Parsons sounded like an unconventional chap to say the least. Von Kármán described him as a "delightful screwball".

But he did invent castable solid rocket fuel which "changed the future of rocket technology." "Parsons experienced an epiphany after watching workers using molten asphalt to fix tiles onto a roof. "

I don't think he would intentionally lie about how fast his black powder rockets went.

But is it even possible to fly a rocket to mach 6 on black powder?
 
Bruce said:
Just ran across this today, about Jack Parsons, one of the early American rocket engineers, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_(rocket_engineer)
"In a research paper submitted to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Parsons reported these rockets reaching velocities of 4,875 miles per hour"

That's over mach 6! And on black powder no less! How do you think they did it?
Click to expand...
They didn't. That's the problem with quoting Wikipedia articles without bothering to verify the references, and there are none directing you to the supposed "research paper" you copied above. Over 7000+ fps rocket propulsion with a BP motor? Can you provide a verifiable example of any BP-propelled projectile that hits that speed? You'd have extreme difficulty getting nearly one/third that velocity out of a BP firearm or naval cannon. But as a rocket "fuel/propellant"? Would love to read some accurate references citing anything close to that value. Perhaps in some alternate universe with different physics laws. It's really important to check the references, especially in an internet world where b.s. info travels as wide and quickly as accurate info (and almost as fast as Parsons' mythical hypersonic BP rocket :)
 
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SharkWhisperer said:
They didn't. That's the problem with quoting Wikipedia articles without bothering to verify the references, and there are none directing you to the supposed "research paper" you copied above. Over 7000+ fps rocket propulsion with a BP motor? Can you provide a verifiable example of any BP-propelled projectile that hits that speed? You'd have extreme difficulty getting nearly one/third that velocity out of a BP firearm or naval cannon. But as a rocket "fuel/propellant"? Would love to read some accurate references citing anything close to that value. Perhaps in some alternate universe with different physics laws. It's really important to check the references, especially in an internet world where b.s. info travels as wide and quickly as accurate info (and almost as fast as Parsons' mythical hypersonic BP rocket :)
Click to expand...

Hmm ... Perhaps as a final Upper Stage, fired downwards, near the end of a Flight Trajectory similar to a "TRAILBLAZER 1" ?

Dave F.

TrlBlzr1.JPG


TrlBlzr2.JPG
 
Bruce said:
Jack Parsons sounded like an unconventional chap to say the least. Von Kármán described him as a "delightful screwball".

But he did invent castable solid rocket fuel which "changed the future of rocket technology." "Parsons experienced an epiphany after watching workers using molten asphalt to fix tiles onto a roof. "

I don't think he would intentionally lie about how fast his black powder rockets went.

But is it even possible to fly a rocket to mach 6 on black powder?
Click to expand...
The answer is a resounding NO.

Here's a Popular mechanics article about their BP/Smokeless powder experiments...Notice the rocket is made from metal with no parachute. It comes in ballistic and is reused. ...the rocket and the rocket motor is one and the same.....He never got 4K+ MPH on this . He also worked on a pulsed BP motor. Every few seconds a chunk of BP would be placed in the combustion chamber and ignited producing thrust.

I've researched Jack Parsons for close to 20 years and never heard of that 4K claim till last night in that Wikipedia article.

https://books.google.com/books?id=h...epage&q=popular mechanics august 1940&f=false
Enjoy. And your welcome.


EDIT:

I researched Footnote 66 in my 2 Parson's books and I can't find any reference to this quote:

Since their formation in 1934, they had also performed experiments involving model, black powder motor-propelled multistage rockets. In a research paper submitted to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Parsons reported these rockets reaching velocities of 4,875 miles per hour, thereby demonstrating the potential of solid fuels to be more effective than the liquid types primarily preferred by researchers such as Goddard. In light of this progress, Caltech and the GALCIT Group received an additional $10,000 rocketry research grant from the AIAA.[66]

I think Footnote 66 only applies to this line:

In light of this progress, Caltech and the GALCIT Group received an additional $10,000 rocketry research grant from the AIAA.[66]


The stuff above it is just made up.

The only AIAA document I can find at this time is this:
Parsons1.jpg
 
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shockie said:
The answer is a resounding NO.

Here's a Popular mechanics article about their BP/Smokeless powder experiments...Notice the rocket is made from metal with no parachute. It comes in ballistic and is reused. ...the rocket and the rocket motor is one and the same.....He never got 4K+ MPH on this . He also worked on a pulsed BP motor. Every few seconds a chunk of BP would be placed in the combustion chamber and ignited producing thrust.

I've researched Jack Parsons for close to 20 years and never heard of that 4K claim till last night in that Wikipedia article.

https://books.google.com/books?id=h...epage&q=popular mechanics august 1940&f=false
Enjoy. And your welcome.
Click to expand...

An issue of Popular Mechanics used to be hundreds of pages long....wow. Nice blast from the past--the advertisements are amazing, as are the predictions of the Roads of the Future, etc., from back in 1940. Interesting stuff... And referenceable/verifiable.
 
Bruce said:
Perhaps the "velocities of 4,875 miles per hour" being referred to were the exhaust velocities of the rocket motors themselves and not the actual speed of the rocket?

View attachment 458742
Click to expand...
Having read through the thread, I would agree. Makes much more sense. We see "mach diamonds" in the newer propellant motors all the time.
 
Definitely referring to exhaust velocites, esp. since the subject matter of thge paragraph is nozzle design.
All model rocket motors have supersonic exhaust velocites BTW.. kinda how the nozzles work.
 
NTP2 said:
What did you use for the time component?
Click to expand...
For rockets, the specific impulse (Isp) is basically the exhaust velocity. It is often expressed in seconds. You get that by dividing the effective exhaust velocity by Earths standard gravity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_impulse#Specific_impulse_in_seconds
The theoretical Isp of at BP motor is in the neighborhood of 80s, well below 222s. That's a fundamental limit resulting from the physical properties of BP and not something that can be fixed with better engineering.

Reinhard
 
In the absence of any other known record I hereby claim the title of 'Fastest hobby rocket powered by a black powder motor".

As I have posted in other threads, I was part of a velocity trials for rockets outside of Las Vegas over 30 years ago.

I flew a stock FSI Mach 1 model. It had a F100-0 in the booster and a D20 motor in the upper stage.

While the second stage did not ignite, there was velocity data for the model when boosted by the F100 motor.

It worked out to be 460 MPH.
 
Reinhard said:
For rockets, the specific impulse (Isp) is basically the exhaust velocity. It is often expressed in seconds. You get that by dividing the effective exhaust velocity by Earths standard gravity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_impulse#Specific_impulse_in_seconds
The theoretical Isp of at BP motor is in the neighborhood of 80s, well below 222s. That's a fundamental limit resulting from the physical properties of BP and not something that can be fixed with better engineering.

Reinhard
Click to expand...
I gotta get into some of this stuff . But you're saying that with a typical 80s BP sp. impulse, the exhaust velocity is about 80 x 32.2 = 2576 ft/sec, or 1756 mph? Wow, gotta stick that one in the corner of my pea-brain! No wonder you see mach diamonds in composite motor exhaust!

(Yes, I ressurrected this thread just to say that...)
 
Blast it Tom! said:
I gotta get into some of this stuff . But you're saying that with a typical 80s BP sp. impulse, the exhaust velocity is about 80 x 32.2 = 2576 ft/sec, or 1756 mph? Wow, gotta stick that one in the corner of my pea-brain! No wonder you see mach diamonds in composite motor exhaust!

(Yes, I ressurrected this thread just to say that...)
Click to expand...
So if the exhaust velocity is high enough, why don't we see mach diamonds in black powder motors' exhaust?

Does the flame and smoke obscure it?
 
Initiator001 said:
In the absence of any other known record I hereby claim the title of 'Fastest hobby rocket powered by a black powder motor".

As I have posted in other threads, I was part of a velocity trials for rockets outside of Las Vegas over 30 years ago.

I flew a stock FSI Mach 1 model. It had a F100-0 in the booster and a D20 motor in the upper stage.

While the second stage did not ignite, there was velocity data for the model when boosted by the F100 motor.

It worked out to be 460 MPH.
Click to expand...

Wow, hey my Mach 1 FSI 2 stage did ignite the second stage; so it must have gone slightly faster ;)
 
Bruce said:
So if the exhaust velocity is high enough, why don't we see mach diamonds in black powder motors' exhaust?

Does the flame and smoke obscure it?
Click to expand...
Depends on several factors. With BP motors in particular, some of the combustion products are solid and obscure the exhaust (you see the soot incandescing or glowing and because it glows so brightly you can't really see any Mach diamonds.

The reason Mach diamonds appear in the first place is due to the fact the flow is supersonic and since the speed of sound is by definition the speed at which pressure waves move through a fluid, no information can travel upstream. If there is a difference in pressure between the nozzle exit and ambient air, the gas "doesn't know" until it leaves the nozzle, but once it "does know" it has to equalize with the surrounding air pressure. This is caused by shockwaves (or compression waves) in the case the exhaust is over expanded (lower than the surrounding air pressure), or by expansion waves when the exhaust is under expanded (higher than surrounding air pressure).

Going further down the rabbit hole, in the case where exhaust is over expanded a shockwave forms which compresses the exhaust and causes the temperature and pressure to go up (higher temperature flames glow brighter). Usually the shockwave over-shoots the ambient pressure and the flow then has to generate an expansion fan to try and drop the pressure back to ambient, and the expansion does the exact opposite of what the shock does (drops pressure and temperature, so the flame dims). This zig zags back and forth until turbulence breaks up the flow and you no longer have supersonic exhaust, so you see repeating bright and dim regions.
 

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