Matt Johnson's Incredible N-1

[Gus]

Matt doesn't participate in forums but he gave me permission to post his pictures here. Many of you may know of Matt from the fantastic fantasy scale creations he's flown at several NARAMs. His creations have been in Sport Rocketry and Launch a number of times.

Matt has been working on a large scale N-1 for over 2 years now. Two previous versions have suffered catastrophic launch or deployment failures. But Matt remained committed to this project and even went so far as to build a scale launch tower to match.

On January 1st Matt successfully launched his N-1, with a 30 motor cluster, with MMAR, the Muskegon, Michigan rocketry group.

This is a truly spectacular project and I thought others should get a chance to see it.

My heartiest congratulations to Matt on the success of this amazing project!

Steve

 

[Boosterdude]

Wow, that's just cool. Should be a great commercial for Quest Igniters!!!

 

[tonypv]

Simply beautiful!
What motors did he use?

 

[troj]

That's very well done!

-Kevin

 

[Pem Tech]

verry verry nice...
Would he be willing to share any more info on this beauty?

 

[SpaceAXEplorer]

HOOOOWEEEEEE!!! That's sweet!

Maybe he should talk to the Russians; they never could get all their motors to fire at once and or in sync (or work) on the real N-1.
(I mean that with much affection and kidding) (for my Russian pals)
Personally I'd like some info about how he built the tower. :eyepop:

 

[Gus]

verry verry nice...
Would he be willing to share any more info on this beauty?

Apparently Matt flew this in an NAR contest which limits propellant weight to 125 grams. So he used 24 As, 4 Bs, and 2 Cs. It seemed a bit underpowered. Next flight will be on 30 Cs. Plan is also to build another, lighter N-1 for contest use.

 

[JAL3]

The N1 is one of my favorites. I'm many of us around here would appreciate any details that can be provided without breaking confidences.

 

[Fred22]

Beauty Rocket and nice shots. If he ever changes his mind abour forum Gus tell him he's welcome around here
Cheers
fred

 

[Micromeister]

Wow! What a super Scale model and launcher. Great work. and wonderful Cluster.

 

[Rocketcrab]

That is simply incredible! I have seen photos of several N1's that were card models converted for flight, but if I recall they were all powered by a single motor. THIRTY!? Wow, I hold my breath and say a little prayer when I try to get more than four to go at once!

 

[dpower]

Very cool, thanks for Sharing. Were there 30 motors in the actual N-1? And those numbers on the tower, do they represent stages?

 

[NjCo]

Very cool, thanks for Sharing. Were there 30 motors in the actual N-1? And those numbers on the tower, do they represent stages?

The N-1 was a 30 engine 3 stage rocket so this model is representative of the actual rocket. The numbers on the tower are the maintenance platform numbers. Here are a couple of pics I found. Note the locomotive engines at the top of the 2nd picture which were used to transport the rocket to the pad.

 

[NjCo]

HOOOOWEEEEEE!!! That's sweet!

Maybe he should talk to the Russians; they never could get all their motors to fire at once and or in sync (or work) on the real N-1.

They apparently were successful in getting them all to light. They just had a nasty habit of exploding here and there once they were lit!