Rocket Calculator App

[davdue]

I used to use the rocket calculator for things like ejection charges, altimeter static port sizes. It was nice to have in the field for quick calcs. It is no longer on the app store. Peter_Stanley on here developed it. Unfortunately I lost it on my phone and can't get it back. Does anyone know of something else that will do at least these calculations or more?

 

[Banzai88]

https://aeroconsystems.com/tips/

That page has lots of calculators that work really well.

 

[davdue]

One of them fits my bill sort of, the ejection charge calculator, is an excel file so I couldn't run it on an iPhone. The key here is to run it on my phone at the range with limited internet access. It would be great if someone knows Peter and could see if resurrecting the app is possible.

 

[gtg738w]

What calculations are you interested in? The ejection charge example is simple enough. If you can provide links to other examples I would consider adding them to our app.

Thanks,
Russ

 

[davdue]

That is mainly it. Unfortunately I can't see what all was part of the Rocket Calculator. It did a lot of things like descent calculations based on rocket weight and parachute size, a quick and dirty altitude calculation, a decimal/fraction equivalent chart are some of the things that I remember. I assume this app is your flight sketch app for use with your flight computer?

 

[gtg738w]

We have a native iOS app as well as things like our drift calc hosted as a web app https://flightsketch.com/weather/map/

Web apps are nice since they are also available to desktop and Android users but obviously not very helpful if you don’t have a data connection at the field. I usually default to anything requiring data (like real time weather) goes on the web and other apps should be local or available from both.

Russ

 

[beezwax]

I love Peter Stanley's Rocket Calculator app, use it all the time. A few months ago I got a new phone and was gutted to discover that the app had disappeared from the iOS app store. The app was installed and still working great on my old phone (iPhone 6) but no way to install on my new phone (iPhone XS). This problem was created by a change to iTunes a while back. It used to be that when you backed-up your phone a full copy of every app file was saved to the hard drive of your computer. Now when you do a back-up it only saves a list of all your apps-- in the event you need to do a recovery from a back-up it uses that list to re-download all your apps from the app store. That's fine, unless your app disappears from the app store. When that happens you're out of luck, the app is gone and you no longer have a copy of the file on your computer.

After quite a bit of struggling within the Apple ecosystem (even using an old laptop with an much older version of iTunes on it) I found a way around this problem with a 3rd party program called iMazing:

https://imazing.com/

This is a paid program but I was able to do what I needed just by downloading and using the free trial version. I was able to save a full copy of the Rocket Calculator program to my desktop from my iPhone 6, and then install the app directly onto my iPhone XS, without going through iTunes at all. If you're interested PM me your email and I will send you the Rocket Calculator (.ipa file). Then you can download the trial version of iMazing and see if you can install it on your phone. No guarantees, I have no idea if this .ipa file is somehow directly linked to my iTunes account or if you can actually share the app in this way, but it's worth a shot.

 

[beezwax]

For historical reference, this is a screen shot of the various calculators in the app:

 

[manixFan]

One of them fits my bill sort of, the ejection charge calculator, is an excel file so I couldn't run it on an iPhone. The key here is to run it on my phone at the range with limited internet access. It would be great if someone knows Peter and could see if resurrecting the app is possible.

I downloaded the file, cleaned it up in Excel 365 on my Mac, and saved it to OneDrive. I was able to open and use it on my iPhone with no issues. If you have an Office 365 subscription you can download the Office apps to your iPhone and iPad. The yearly subscription is very nice in that I can share it with family and it works on Mac or Windows.


Tony

 

[manixFan]

UPDATE: I was able to install the .ipa file on an old iPhone using Apple Configurator 2. It was incredibly easy. The Apple app is available on the App Store and is free. The steps are very simple:

* download app (Configurator 2) and run it
* connect iPhone via cable
* unlock iPhone
* click the green 'Add' button at the top left of the Configurator window
* Choose 'Apps', then click the button 'Choose from my Mac...'
* select the Rocket Calc app file and then click the Add button

That's it, takes a minute to sync it and you are good to go. If you had the app installed on an older phone, the .ipa file may very well still be on your computer. Check these locations:

Mac:
~/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications/

Windows:
C:\Users\UserName\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Mobile Applications

and look for the file "Rocket Calculator 1.5.10.ipa" (your version number may be different. It would be great if someone contacted the author and got permission to share the file. I was able to install it on my old iPhone using a different AppleID than was used to purchase the app.


Tony

(I am in no way condoning pirating the file - this is intended for those who had the file on an older phone and still have a copy on their computer. And of course installing any file outside of the App Store carries risks. YMMV, no warranty expressed or implied!)

 

[davdue]

Got a new phone awhile back and finally got some time to reload the rocket calculator app. I am able to installed on my iPhone 11 but when I run it I have to enter my Apple ID and password that purchased it. When I do the app splash screen pops up and then it doesn't run. I assume that we can't run it anymore. Does anyone have a solution for this?

 

[manixFan]

Try logging out of your account in the iTunes Store, then log back in with the account used to purchase the app. Then launch it already logged in, see if it will activate. If it does, you should be able to log out of that iTunes account, and then log back into your normal account.

CAVEAT: Backup your iPhone first in case anything goes sideways. I have to do this on my Mac with a couple of different accounts and it works fine, but I realize the the MacOS may handle it differently than the iPhone, so hard to know for sure if it will work.

Another option is to try family sharing from the account you used to purchase the app, and add your second account as a shared account.

It stil runs just fine on my iPhone 11 Pro, but it's on the original account used to download the app.

Good luck,


Tony

 

[davdue]

I only have one iTunes account. I don't own any other Apple devices. I thought maybe if I installed iTunes on the laptop I used it might work but that didn't help. I also logged out of my Apple ID on my phone and logged back in but I still get the login message when I run the calculator.

I searched for the Apple Configurator 2 app in the app store and it isn't there anymore. So that option doesn't work either.