How old was the oldest AT motor you've fired...

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

AZ_Ron

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2009
Messages
721
Reaction score
63
Location
Idaho Falls, ID
Hey all... I've got a collection of old single use motors, from 29mm to 54mm that are from the 80's...
Most are Aerotech, I've got a couple of US Rocket motors, Vulcans, etc... Anyone fired APCP motor of this vintage?
Anyone from Aerotech care to comment?

Thanks!

Ron
 
I have a few PlasmaJets.
Ron, I’m sure you have a rocket we can try um in.
Got a 4” O from the same batch of propellant as the P that catoed in the Mercury Redstone at LDRS many years ago.
 
I was flying some 96 vintage G64 reloads at the last launch. Scored them up a bit and hit them with BKNO3.
I little sluggish to light, but not as bad as 10 year old redline motors. Put a 30 year old I300T on the test stand a while back and it lit easy and the delay accuracy was within the NFPA 1125 specifications. For that reason most of my recent motors purchases have been Blue Thunder. Have some old F32 and G55 that might be from the 80's.
PlasmaJet... Reminds me to give Randy a call to see how he is doing.
 
LOL Mark... I know you've got some crazy old and rare motors floating around your place!
I plan on flying electronic deployment only, so the delay accuracy isn't a factor. More curious about
how those motors age. I've come across a couple of old White Lightning RMS loads that had swollen... slot down the middle is significantly tighter, and ends of grain are slightly bulged. Found a couple of delay elements that have slightly bulged ends.
 
Last year I flew some 1995 G-12 32mm motors, four worked normally, two burned at half the rate of normal. Also an F16 that burned for about 25 seconds with almost no thrust
 
flew a few motors from 1991, even WL. they were still in their sealed bags. Had to peel the grains on the WL, but sometimes you do that anyway.
 
flew a J125 from 1990 at the Novemebr 2020 launch, no problems ( electronic eject and ejection charge removed, so unsure about bonus delay or ? ), did have a slightly longer burn time
 
@green dragon How did you store the J125? Any trouble getting it to light? Makes me wonder if I should remove the charge on this circa 1990 I65W and give it a go.
 

Attachments

  • 20210102_140304(1).jpg
    20210102_140304(1).jpg
    57.2 KB · Views: 65
  • 20210102_140316(1).jpg
    20210102_140316(1).jpg
    47.2 KB · Views: 65
@green dragon How did you store the J125? Any trouble getting it to light? Makes me wonder if I should remove the charge on this circa 1990 I65W and give it a go.

Nothing special storage wise - been in my storage magazine in unheated garage. No way to really scuff up the grains on single use motor, so we just used a daveyfire and short thermalite piece - took a few seconds to light up but flew fine.
Older Aerotech motors are notorious for the 'bonus delay' syndrome, so if you have electronics, I would say dump the powder out and light it up :) . On ours, no plugging the delay well with epoxy or anything, we dumped the powder out, put an Estes igniter plug in the touch hole, packed to the top with dogbarf wadding and taped over the top.
NO reason most older motors should not fly fine - I've had a few reloads that rains swelled enough to be unusable ( or need to be cut down ),but single use where the case keeps grains from swelling too much should be fine.
Since getting active again flying with my boys, we burned quite a few old motors, including some Kosdon E40s I;ve had since early 90's,couple Ellis Mountain motors. We did try to fly an older E15w and could not get it to light,probably oxidized and the nozzle is so small it's hard to get much of an igniter in there - we'll try it again with straight thermalite and see what happens.
 
Man looking at these motors I feel like I wanna collect one...Where do you think one can score a vintage AT Motor? (I know it may be a bit hard/expensive)
 
How would I go about scuffing up a 2009-2010 redline? are there other propellants that are finicky to light when they're about a decade old?
 
Just going through my old posts and came across this one and thought I'd update it.
Since starting this thread initially, I've fired about a half dozen of the mentioned motors, both Aerotech and Vulcan systems that
were all dated 1988-1989. I'm very happy to report that each one worked perfectly!!

Ron
 
I have fired 5 out of the 6 1980's FSI F100-10s I own this season without incident. I count myself very lucky with those buggers. Your older classic, low smoke composite propellants age quite well in general, as do the smokies. Propellants with significant % of Mg can be/often are a different story, add hygroscopic strontrium nitrate to the mix and even more so.
 
Back
Top