If you account for the combination of rocket engine size, how close you are to the pad when it launches and the rocket you fly in and give bonus points for "coolness" of sound, I'd suggest the Semroc "The Point" flying on a simple C6-3. It goes up slowly so you hear the chuuuuuuush sound for the full burn time....
(before I get 'blasted' on this forum, let me point out that the ORIGINAL "The Point" was from Centuri.
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Your overall point is so true. My remarks about the German-made Quest C's were made after flying some saucers on them (C6-3's as a matter of fact). The slow ascent and low maximum altitude meant that the motor never got that far away from me. As a result I could hear the entire burn very distinctly, as well as the surprisingly furious delay grain burn as the saucer started to descend. To follow up on Bob's observation, how "loud" a motor sounds has a great deal to do with factors that are external to the motor itself. The acoustics of the particular launch site, weather conditions (I think that any breeze that is present will attenuate the sound), the placement of the observer in relation to the launch pad and the level of ambient noise are some of the physical variables that would presumably affect the level of perceived noise from a firing motor. And then there are psychological factors, such as the "expected" noise level, the level of attention that the observer is paying to the launch, the degree to which the observer is "focused" vs. being preoccupied with such things as prepping his or her own rocket for flight or with obtaining a motor, for instance, as well as possibly other variables.
I will readily admit that some of the factors that affected how loud that CTI Pro38 Classic G reload (that I mentioned earlier) sounded me were: it was the last launch, made at the end of the day after everyone else but me and the LCO had left; it was also made at a late fall launch (in October) and it occurred near sunset because of being at that time of the year, when things in nature seem to quiet down anyway. Along with all that was the fact that it was my first ever reload and my first ever attempt to install and ignite a composite motor with a long 2-lead igniter, and that all the while as I was prepping it, the LCO was urging me to hurry up because he wanted to pack up the range and go home. And then I had struggled frantically to locate a 1/4" launch rod to put on the pad, only to find that the pads were only drilled to accept 1/8" and 3/16" rods (no MPR pads had been brought ot the launch), so I had to set up the rocket on a pad with a 3/16" rod. And so because we were losing the light, I was struggling with the prep, and I was anxious about having put everything together and installed properly, my stress level was pretty high. Oh, and then I was also attempting, for the first time ever, to capture a lift-off shot of a rocket with my camera. I am going into all of this boring detail in order to illustrate the large number of factors that are not intrinsic in the motor that can affect one's perception of the motor's sound when it is fired.
But even considering all of the above, I still maintain that the reload was really LOUD! :eyepop:
MarkII
