German WW2 A9/A10 rocket

[RandyT0001]

I suspect that most rocketeers have some knowledge of the A4/V2 rocket developed by Germany before and during WW2. Some rocketeers have even pursued deeper into history and know of the A1/A2/A3 development rockets that came before the A4. I seem to recall that some manufacturer/company, maybe an individual built the winged A4 research rocket under development to extend the range of the basic A4 by three hundred miles or so. Obviously others have done some research into the series and development of this rocket family.

I am interested in the A9/A10 rocket program that had just started serious design work toward the end of the war. The program was beginning to design a two stage rocket that could launch a one ton warhead about 500km above the ground so that it would glide back to Earth across a few thousand miles to it's targets in the United States. Because of this trajectory it was called the "America Rocket" by the Allies after the war.

This is a low quality image I got from that website. I have a better one already, see below.

When I try to search this forum (and others) it basically rejects the search because the word A9 and A10 are too small, common, etc and therefore were not included in the search. When I use Google to do a search I get some material, most in German which Google can often translate but a majority of that is from forums where people are arguing that the A9/A10 rocket program was actually an American hoax created to further the US's building of ICBM's. One site was from a German model rocket company that had made a kit of the upper A9 stage. While it is a very nice kit I want to model the combined A9/A10 rocket instead.

I do not want to waste time re-inventing the wheel. I have Monogram Aviation Publicantions's 1994 edition of V-Missiles of the Third Reich the V-1 and V-2 written by Dieter Holsken. It has a much clearer image than the one posted above which I have already scanned (at a resolution of one pixel equals -about- 19.3mm of rocket dimensions) and am in the process of cleaning it up and adding some new dimension lines and notations. If somebody has already done this or has other legible, good quality copies of other historical German technical drawings of the A9/A10 rocket please contact me or reply in this thread.

TIA

 

[sandman]

These sites and pics may help.

https://www.luft46.com/jhart/jha9.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregate_series

https://www.astronautix.com/lvs/a9a10.htm

https://www.russianspaceweb.com/a9a10.html

 

[CharlaineC]

leave it to gordy to have the information you need and he dont the you have micromiser:cyclops:

 

[adrian]

Do you plan to make the model two stage? If so, how do you plan to ignite the motor of the A9; how do you intend to prevent the A9's exhaust from blasting the A10's nose; and how will you recover the A10?

I've built an A9, based partly on the same picture from luftarchiv.de and partly on Pete Alway's "In The Shadow of the V2". The first time it flew, it was marginally stable; it tipped over soon after clearing the launch rod, became stable as the tail became lighter due to the sudden absence of propellant, flew horizontally, then crashed. With more nose weight added, the CG when fully loaded is about half way up the body, and it has since flown successfully and consistently.

 

[RandyT0001]

That's a nice model Adrain. Looks like it's a model of the later A9 when they decided to add a pilot to it to control it to the target. Is it a kit or scratch? How big is it (scale?) and what size motor do you use to launch it?

I'm looking to make it a one stage A9/A10 combined rocket with just a motor in the lower A10 part and an upper section of the A9 is the nose cone ejected for recovery.

Is Pete's book In the Shadow of the V2 a seperate book from Rockets of the World, in one of the supplements to RotW or what? I'm interested to see what information it contains about the A9/A10?

 

[Shade]

Do you plan to make the model two stage? If so, how do you plan to ignite the motor of the A9; how do you intend to prevent the A9's exhaust from blasting the A10's nose; and how will you recover the A10?

You know I get more neat ideas of things to make from you guys!!!

On a LPR version you could cluster the first stage and use a central
motor to gap stage to the sustainer. and then have the peripheral
engines with a longish delay eject one or more chutes.

On a MPR/HPR you can air start the sustainer and use timers or an
altimeter to deploy recovery on the first stage.

Just not enough time!!! I have to retire, but I am only 42... dang

 

[Gillard]

Das Modell (german model rocket manufactureer) was a Aggregat-9 kit. - it was for the german D7 motor (25mm) I've built one and it was terrible.

 

[sandman]

Das Modell (german model rocket manufactureer) was a Aggregat-9 kit. - it was for the german D7 motor (25mm) I've built one and it was terrible.

I have one, haven't built it 'cause it's not very good.

While inspecting the contents of the Das Modell kit the cockpit crumbled in my hand...not good.

 

[Pem Tech]

These sites and pics may help.

https://www.luft46.com/jhart/jha9.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregate_series

https://www.astronautix.com/lvs/a9a10.htm

https://www.russianspaceweb.com/a9a10.html

McShweet...........
Thanks Gordo!

 

[kjohnson]

Is Pete's book In the Shadow of the V2 a seperate book from Rockets of the World, in one of the supplements to RotW or what? I'm interested to see what information it contains about the A9/A10?

In the Shadow of the V2 is it's own book, not a supplement to RotW.

kj

 

[kjohnson]

Das Modell (german model rocket manufactureer) was a Aggregat-9 kit. - it was for the german D7 motor (25mm) I've built one and it was terrible.

I built one and while there were fit issues and I cut my own blasa for the fins, it turned out a versy nice looking model. Heavy as all get out to keep it stable on D12 motors, but I had several good flights with it.

kj

 

[RandyT0001]

For the past few days I've been working to clean up and modify the image I scanned from V-Missiles of the Third Reich the V-1 and V-2. I removed most of the yellow background color from the image and cropped it some. I then started to add more dimensions to the diagram derived from my scan (854x1526) resolution of one pixel equals about 19.3mm of drawing dimensions. These new dimensions I added are in red. If I had to retype dimensions from the original image I put them in black.

Here is a pic of my WIP

Once I get finished in a couple of days I'll post a new thumbnail here in the forum and provide a link to the large image I post to Flicker. Hopefully other people will be able to use it to create "scale" models of this rocket.

 

[adrian]

That's a nice model Adrain. Looks like it's a model of the later A9 when they decided to add a pilot to it to control it to the target. Is it a kit or scratch? How big is it (scale?) and what size motor do you use to launch it?

About a foot long, based on BT-55. The nose cone is a stock Estes plastic cone to fit BT-55 and is too long for scale, while the tail cone is too short (it had to be if the centring rings holding the motor mount in the main body tube were to go anywhere sensible). It flies nicely on B6-4's.

I've also built a rather crude A10. I haven't had the nerve to fly it two stage anyway, partly because the A9 would be very hard to find again, and partly because when the A9's motor ignites it will probably destroy the A10's nose. However I did load the A9 with a dummy motor (empty case stuffed with plasticene to give it the same mass as a live motor), tape the A9 into place to prevent it from falling out, and launched the whole lot as a single stage rocket. Exactly as Shade guessed, one motor mount is ducted up to the A9 and holds a C6-0, while two more hold C6-3's to eject the A10's nose and deploy its parachute. The one part I disagree with Shade is the suggestion to use long delay motors for this - the A10 is very draggy and would be doing odd things after the A9 had separated, so short delay motors are more suitable.

 

[Shade]

The one part I disagree with Shade is the suggestion to use long delay motors for this - the A10 is very draggy and would be doing odd things after the A9 had separated, so short delay motors are more suitable.

Good point, my thought was to give the A9 time to vacate the area before deployment but 3 seconds is likely way more than enough.

 

[RandyT0001]

Here is a modest size pic of my scanned A9/A10 image. It has been modified from the original to include more measurements. These measurements were derived from the available dimensions in the original image. The dimensions are in millimeters (mm) of the full sized rocket.

A larger pic can be seen here.

Contact me via PM or at [email protected] for a copy of the full sized 1526x854 120kb jpeg image.