Post A Rocket Related (Only) Image That Makes You LOL

SolarYellow · Aug 23, 2023

Nevermind.

BEC · Aug 23, 2023

jqavins said:
Do you know of such a thing in real life? My own experience, though extremely limited, includes only one launch system with a lantern battery. Perhaps Amend made it up? It would be more clear what's going on to readers who don't know the hobby; "Oh, they're using that battery to launch the rocket", which might be less obvious otherwise.

I thought I had seen it somewhere (I’ve not had one like that) but as I said, I haven’t been able to actually find exactly that configuration.

I don’t know why one would invent that kind of a setup if one hadn’t seen something like it somewhere.

Now I need to go look at the model rocketry-related “Red and Rover” strips and remind myself what Brian Bassett actually draws for GSE….

And now I kind of see why that “Post a Picture (no comments)” thread says “no comments”….

SolarYellow · Aug 24, 2023

BEC said:
No, that’s not what I mean. Look at the cartoon. There is a lantern battery on the ground near the tripod pad and connected to it with a short lead. The setup is as if the Centuri Lectra-Line 1 was connected to an early Porta Pad but so far I haven’t been able to find a pad setup quite like what Bill Amend fairly consistently draws. It isn’t MPC or MRC or Cox setup either as near as I can find in a brief look around the interwebs….

I think you have it. This instruction sheet shows it connected with a lantern battery in between the pad and controller, pretty much the way Amend draws it. Just run the alligator clips directly to the igniter rather than to the studs on the wooden-block launcher base.

https://plans.rocketshoppe.com/pubs/Centuri/EFC-1.pdf
Bringing it into the modern era, a wooden-block launcher base like that could easily be used to conceal a VRLA battery that would make it nice and stable.

BEC · Aug 24, 2023

A battery in the wood block is reminiscent of the D-cells in the Estes Electro-Launch. I use one of those occasionally for the nostalgia factor. But a small box on the ground is not the most stable arrangement unless you have firm, flat ground to set it on.

I still think there must be a launcher of the arrangement that Bill Amend consistently draws with a tripod pad, but I haven't found it (or rediscovered it) yet.

Bran Basset tends to draw a tripod pad that is similar — big blast deflector, offset launch rod — but without the external battery.