Estes motor date codes...

[luke strawwalker]

Hi! I flew some old Estes motors from my early rocketry days awhile back and I was wondering how to interpret the date codes...

One is 8R6 and the other is 5R10... How do you read the date codes and when were these manufactured?? Both flew flawlessly.

Thanks! OL JR

 

[shreadvector]

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=estes motor date codes&btnG=Google+Search

 

[Micromeister]

I believe R is for 1987 Luke:
8th day of 87 June for the first one
5th of October 1987 for the second

Roy is correct I missed my own scribbling, had 87 written but typed 88 doh! first number is the day of the month, last number is the month.

 

[RoyAtl]

Hi! I flew some old Estes motors from my early rocketry days awhile back and I was wondering how to interpret the date codes...

One is 8R6 and the other is 5R10... How do you read the date codes and when were these manufactured?? Both flew flawlessly.

Thanks! OL JR

R is the 18th letter, A was 1970, so R was 1987. One of the numbers is the month, the other is the day, and the motor was manufactured sometime during the week of that day -- not necessarily that particular day. I don't remember off the top of my head which number was which.

 

[luke strawwalker]

Thanks, that's good to know... I appreciate it.

It might be interesting to note, for those contemplating flying old motors, that these are some I've had in my high-school days from a blast-off flight pack I had bought back then. They were stored in a tackle box under the stairs at my grandmother's un-air conditioned house in SE TX just west of Houston, and routinely exposed to summertime temps in the house in the mid to high 90's and wintertime temps down into the 40's, possibly even the 30's when we were out of town and the heater was turned off. I bet they even saw a few 100 degree plus days when we were gone and the windows closed in summertime. Both flew flawlessly, but being smaller impulse motors neither probably stresses their case very much (not that would tend to matter in a cato or case/propellant seperation type burn I suppose)

Anyway, I've had some good luck with some older "D's" stored alongside them only slightly newer, so, so far so good...

THanks again! OL JR