Gus
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It's my understanding that the Russians Regularly used "a pinch of something" in their pistons, for a while , until it became obvious.
Terry,It's my understanding that the Russians Regularly used "a pinch of something" in their pistons, for a while , until it became obvious.
Less nefarious than one might suppose. Not just the Russians, almost all of the Europeans flying 10 mm Euro motors use a pinch of black powder.
First, almost all the 10 mm motors are "quasi-composites" using modified black powder propellant. Nozzles are really tiny and very shallow. So contact area for ignition and flammability of exposed propellant are much less than for something like an Estes motor.
Almost all Euro motors are flown off pistons where the igniter is a very short V-shaped piece of wire which is plugged in to the top of the piston head. Unlike Estes igniters these little wires have no accelerant applied to them. The Euro motors just sit down onto the igniter wire, very similar to how micromax motors sit on the little uncoated igniters.
Because of this, most Europeans press a small pinch of loose black powder in the motor nozzle before setting it down on the igniter wire. Honestly, the amount of black powder involved isn't substantially more than the black accelerant that used to be on the old Estes Solar Igniters.
Are there some who might use more black powder than really necessary? I'm sure it happens. And there are those apocryphal stories of motors failing to ignite and the rockets still sailing 20 feet off the piston. So that's why FAI outlawed pistons for the altitude events. Do those fliers still put a pinch of black powder in the motor nozzles before putting them down on the igniters? Almost assuredly. They need to to ignite the motors. Is it possible some still use too much to get a little extra kick, possibly.
But the bottom line is that most of our competitors are completely honest and when we get beat, which happens often, it's simply because there are so many truly world-class competitors out there.
Steve