Motors from a Distance

[jetra2]

Hey all,

How many of youi have been out at the field recovering a rocket, and have been WAY out there, then seen a rocket go off. I'm talking like 150-200 yards away. It just sounds SO cool!!! Like at a recent meet, one of our club members put up an H motor as I was out in the field. Not expecting it, I was walking out in the field, and WA-BOOM-ROOOAARRR I hear. I jump and turn and utter one or two expletives, "OMG, what the beef was THAT! SWEET!" I just wanted to hear some stories of that nature, since that kind of thing is SO cool to watch! It's even better when there's a good tree line, cause you'll hear the motor once, beat, twice! Sweet!

So...can ya tell I'm bored?

Jason

 

[DPatell]

Well I wasn't out in the field, but at my first National Launch (NARAM 43) I was at the mid power bank with my dad and two friends of the family. We were huddled around the rocket (NCR Big Brute, G64) when all of a sudden a RATT K240 launched about 100' away. It screamed off the pad, we all yelled and turned to look. Almost filled my pants.

Needless to say, I own the K240 case now

 

[sandman]

Dan,

I was at the same NARAM 43 walking to recover my rocket when a "J" powered something took off when I was 15' away. No warning!

Apparently it launched during the continuity test. Almost had to go change my pants!

sandman

 

[jrogers]

Was about 200 yards away from Robert DeHates N3400 at LDRS

Bout the same distance from Steve Boys N4000 too

One word

Unfreakingbelievable

joel
77267
9848
L3

 

[DPatell]

I was a few hundred feet from where the casing landed on Steve's flight.

Two words : HEADS UP!

 

[jrogers]

LOL, that thing kicked up quite a cloud of dirt when it landed

Joel
77267
9848
L3

 

[DPatell]

Yea...I heard it was undamaged? It looked like it landed in the tilled field, I figured the nozzle would be cracked or the case would be flattened a little. That thing hit HARD.

 

[jrogers]

Nope was just dirty.

Joel
77267
9848
L3

 

[illini]

At sport launches at Great Meadow the high power range (limited to J motors) is about 100 yards away from where I fly (in the kiddie pool ). Every HPR flight is like that. Always impressive, smoky, and loud. First time I attended a Great Meadow sport launch somebody flew an I hybrid. Nearly soiled my diaper!

 

[sandman]

Oh,...I did forget to mention this.

At the Great Meadows the Sunday of NARAM CTulanko launched his upscale Tres. I was behind the fence and got a spectacular view.

WOW!!

Carl, tell everyone what it launched on.

And BTW....where are the pics???

sandman

 

[rocketkid88]

first composite i ever saw was a G35.. i had never seen any thing bigger than a BP "C"... i waz as close as i could get and was gona take a pic, i think tha thing startled me so much i forgot to push the button
When i was at a HPR launch in CA my aunt and i were walking ?200 yrds away from the pads and, on the faster HPR motors, the rocket would be 100 ft or so in the air before the sound wave would hit us, it was really cool to see the rkt going up on all this fire and smoke and then hear the roar...

 

[cls]

last Saturday we were loading on pad 19 and 75' away (across the "aisle") on pad 18 someone's L800 launched. awesome!!!


also, at XPRS 2003, I was some ways away from the flight line as a minimum diameter K1100 launched. I heard the roar of the motor as usual but I swear I also heard a big BOOOOOM... sounded like it came from 500' up and the rocket was long gone from "there" ... could it be a sonic boom? logic says you couldn't hear it but ...

 

[BlueNinja]

I couldn't imagine a large sonic boom coming from a rocket... even a K... Perhaps it was a sound wave or a motor anomaly?

 

[cls]

Blue Ninja - you're right, it doesn't make sense but there it was. my son heard it too.

oh well, we're just gonna have to go to some more rocket launches and see if we can figure it out!!!

 

[BlueNinja]

Sometimes I'll be just maybe 100ft from a G or something, and after it fires I'll hear a "wap-wap-wap-wap" from the echo... Could that be what you heard?

 

[Bill]

Originally posted by sandman
Oh,...I did forget to mention this.

At the Great Meadows the Sunday of NARAM CTulanko launched his upscale Tres. I was behind the fence and got a spectacular view.

WOW!!

Carl, tell everyone what it launched on.

A cluster of three Pro38 Smoky Sams. I got to the field late and missed that one.


Bill

 

[Ryan S.]

Originally posted by jrogers
Was about 200 yards away from Robert DeHates N3400 at LDRS

Bout the same distance from Steve Boys N4000 too

One word

Unfreakingbelievable

joel
77267
9848
L3

Psh, but they are mere AMW motors

 

[jetra2]

I believe the Tres launched on 3 I212 Smokey Sam's staging to a H128.

ason

 

[jrogers]

Oh ya, thats right, I've heard of them guys

Joel
77267
9848
L2

Originally posted by Ryan S.
Psh, but they are mere AMW motors

 

[lalligood]

Originally posted by Blue_Ninja_150
I couldn't imagine a large sonic boom coming from a rocket... even a K... Perhaps it was a sound wave or a motor anomaly?

Oh, you can hear a sonic boom alright. I've seen a handful of rockets go Mach+. Sounded like someone firing a shotgun several hundred feet away (which was about how far we were from the rocket...) Sound (& a sonic boom) travels in all directions, including the direction it came from. There's a slight Doppler shift down in the boom considering the rocket's trajectory but I won't cloud the issue with that aspect...

Taking it to extremes, the Space Shuttle doesn't fly *directly* at my house, but everytime it has returned to the atmosphere over Florida, there has been an unmistakable pair of sonic booms loud enough to rattle every window, dish, & glass in my house. (Especially scary when sleeping in one morning & it returned early--I almost fell outta bed before running to the door thinking someone had driven their car into my house ) And I live ~40 MILES from KSC! Almost as impressive as watching it liftoff

A larger rocket (like that minimum diameter K beast) probably sounds/sounded like a small cannon being fired

 

[daveyfire]

Best "big motor sound" moment of my life... not really from a distance, but it was still good.

I was sitting next to Evan Gates as the two closest people to Porthos II, taking pictures on its P and six N flight.

Holy Cow.

They counted down, and hit the button. Smoke issued from the nozzle, and then the motor lit.

I didn't know whether to push the button on the camera or to turn around and RUN. It wasn't slow off the pad, or fast off the pad, but it was majestic... and LOUD! It sounded like a clap of thunder that lasted ten seconds.

A TV crew was out at BALLS that year and they had stuck a camera on a tripod on top of a table behind where Evan and I were, next to the ground station. Reviewing the footage, the rocket takes off, and just as it clears the frame, the camera shakes and slides backwards a little bit.

What a moment that was!

 

[loopy]

The only ones I have are from when I was helping a friend of mine in full climbing gear retrieve my Small Endeavour from the top of a 60 ft. tree. The HPR pads were about 150 yards away, but we were in pretty thick trees, and couldn't see them or hear the countdowns. You'd just hear the motors igniting and burning, then the report of the ejection charges. Pretty cool!

Loopy

 

[dr wogz]

Well, we had a bit of a tragedy last year..

We, my buddy Kevin, and myself, launch from our flying field. Well, this particular launch, Kevin’s Expediter on a G-40WL was prepped and then launched.

One of eth other pilot has a little do, a little Shi-Tzu.

The button was pushed, the igniter let eth engine, and the rocket roared into the air, with all the smoke and crackle that G-40 could muster. A great launch, Nothing spectacular, but a good launch non the less. Rocket recovered fine.

We later find out that the launch scared the b-geezuz outta the little dog, and the little dog hi-tailed it into the woods behind the field. The dog’s owner, with some other pilots, apparently took a few days & nights combing the woods looking for his little friend, but to no avail.

The spectators were probably 100’ – 200’ in the distance, behind our ‘safety fence’..

We obviously got a bit of an earful form him. And we do feel bad…

 

[rocketkid88]

Originally posted by Dr Wogz
One of eth other pilot has a little do, a little Shi-Tzu.

my grandmom has one of those (shi-tzu's) and last thanxgiving we were launching some lpr stuff with her... my aunt was also there, and i offered her the controler to launch one of the rockets (on a C6 i think) ny way she was paying attn to launching, and didn't notice the little dog trot right up to within 5 ft of the rocket as she hit the button... that dog stayed at least 150yrds away from the pad the rest of the day

 

[scm86]

Well, im not Carl, so i wont say what it launched on, but i will post the pics, along with the dueces pics and others from the first 3 days of NARAM...

https://www.mlinks.net/~scottm/images/naram46/

Scott McNeely

Originally posted by sandman
Oh,...I did forget to mention this.

At the Great Meadows the Sunday of NARAM CTulanko launched his upscale Tres. I was behind the fence and got a spectacular view.

WOW!!

Carl, tell everyone what it launched on.

And BTW....where are the pics???

sandman

 

[sandman]

scm86,

Got any more NARAM pics?

I was there...we never met!

sandman

 

[scm86]

sandman, I have TONS of pictures from naram, and once i get off my lazy *** i will upload the ones worth lookin at... those only made it up because Carl left early and i wanted him to be able to see them at his house when he got home...

Met lotsa great people at NARAM, including Micromister, and Jim Flis and his family (ok, i met Jim last year, but still), among others. If you stopped by the FlisKits booth you might have seen the giant ACME on one of the tent corners, that one is mine

Hopefully I'll meet you next year, its less than an hour away from my house this time...

Scott McNeely