Help Wanted on Motor History Project

[Alan Whitmore]

I am currently working on a "shelter in place" project to keep me interested and active. I have been working my way through old NAR publications (found on the NAR website) to produce a complete list of all certified motor notifications and all the details of the motors that were certified at that point in time. The goal is to create a few tables and figures that trace the history of hobby rocketry, how manufacturers come and go, how the production of different size motors changed over time, and the evolution from single-use to reloadable high power motors and back again, has occurred over time.
I will certainly use this thread to ask a lot of questions about stuff that happened before my time in the hobby (I am a relative newcomer, I only attended my first launch in 1997), and I would be grateful for any personal knowledge about any of the manufacturers, formulas and motor types that any old-timer would be willing to share with me.

First question: Beginning in May of 1979, a company called Composite Dynamics (CD) produced 3 motors, an E20, F20 and an F45, and those motors were certified and marketed until February of 1988. Then they disappeared. In July of 1993, a company called Impulse Dynamics (ID) certified 2 motors, a G50 and a J215, and another company, called Composite Systems (CS) certified a G100, H200 and a J260. In the very next list of certified motors, a new entity called Composite Impulse Systems Dynamics (CISD) had their name attached to the G100, G50, I115, and the J215. In the same list, the CS company certified the H200 and J260. Then, in the July 1994 list, the CISD entity was responsible for the G100, G50 H200, I115, J215, and J260.
Can anybody sort this out for me, or add any anecdotal information you may have? Are they all the same manufacturer operating under different names?

One more question: As far back as the first Tripoli Reports list of certified motors that I can find, in February of 1992, there was an N1940 single use motor from Ace Aeronautics on the list. It was 1997 before the next N, the Aerotech N2000W appeared on any list. Does anybody know anything about the Ace N? Have any of you flown one?

If anybody is interested in receiving the end products when I am finished with the project (some EXCEL spreadsheets and a few graphs as image files) please use the handy off-list reply function to send me your email address.

Alan Whitmore
Chair, Tripoli Motor Testing

 

[MClark]

At Lucerne in the LTR days I saw the Ace N motor launched.
I believe it was never seen again.

 

[THarrison]

Ace Aeronautics was Korey Kline of Hypertek fame.

More info: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!s...e/rec.models.rockets/Uj7mjrW8U78/0_MFb6cS0M4J

 

[Rocketjunkie]

Saw one flown at Black Rock II in 1990. Motor worked, rocket didn't Probably have John Cato's video somewhere.

 

[Alan Whitmore]

The project is now finished. I am going to attach 2 composite graphs of some of the results, and an EXCEL spreadsheet that summarizes the data. Some notes about data selection:
1. only solid fuel motors included, the hybrids changed nomenclature so often that I couldn't keep track of them.
2. NAR maintains separate listings for 'competition certified' and normal motors, and often lists different delay times independently for apparently identical motors. When it is clear that they are talking about the same basic motor, I have lumped them.
3. Inclusion in the Certified Motor List was never meant to imply that the manufacturer was still in business or that any individual motor was actually available for sale at that point, only that they were approved for flight if you happened to have one.

Some interesting points:
1. Something major happened in 1993. Before that time, High Power was an almost taboo topic in the NAR newsletters and magazines, and suddenly the number of certified motors exploded, the number of different manufacturers more than doubled, along with the number of available high-power motors, and the proportion of motors that were single-use plummeted. (Note, however, that since 2013, the proportion of all motors that are single-use has begun a slow increase.)
2. There doesn't seem to be much demand for diversity of low-power motors to the extent that there is for every high-power letter classification. For example, the number of C motors offered for sale increased from 5 to a max of 12 in 1993 to 2000, and then fell back to 3 or 4 in recent years. By comparison, the number of available different M motors has gone from 0 in 1993 to about 90 at the current time.

BTW, I do know what happened shortly before 1993 that caused the huge sea-change in hobby rocketry. An article appeared in the NAR newsletter describing in detail some of the new construction techniques, including phenolic body tubes, fiberglass, plywood, and how to wrap paper tubes in fiberglass to increase strength. When more people began to realize that we didn't need to construct rockets exclusively with paper, balsa wood, and white glue, High Power became inevitable.
If you would like to get the full spreadsheet containing every motor listed in every CML, use the off-list mail feature to send me your email address.

Alan Whitmore
Chair, TMT

 

[dhbarr]

Hey that's really neat, thanks for putting in the time!

 

[Syclone]

BTW, I do know what happened shortly before 1993 that caused the huge sea-change in hobby rocketry.

Probably had something to do with distributing High Power Rocketry Magazine to hobby stores. I believe that was in the fall of '92. That's how I found out about high power and made the move from NAR to TRA.

 

[Tim51]

Probably had something to do with distributing High Power Rocketry Magazine to hobby stores. I believe that was in the fall of '92. That's how I found out about high power and made the move from NAR to TRA.

If you haven't read it, Mark Canepa's 'Large and Dangerous Rocketships: The History of High Power Rocketry's Ascent to the Edges of Outer Space' discusses that period in detail.

 

[AeroTech]

Very interesting Alan, thanks for all that effort! I think another thing that happened after 1990 was the development and proliferation of reloadables, which lowered the cost per flight and made HPR more accessible to greater numbers of people.