Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe....

[adrian]

Sorry to hear about the crash.

Judging by the photo, the A9 was kicked out before its motor could ignite. From photos mvc-008f.jpg and mvc-009f.jpg, it looks like the A10's core tube is vented, but with no further vents in the main body tube, the gas produced by the D12-0 at burn-out still has nowhere to go and will build up pressure inside the A10. Perhaps either put some vent holes in the A10 body and paint on some additional black markings to camouflage them. Or, if the A9 is reasonably securely attached to the A10's core tube, remove the lower bulkhead plates from the A10's nose cone. The D12-0 can then eject the A10's nose cone leaving the A9 where it is until its motor ignites. If the A9's motor doesn't ignite, hopefully it will remain attached to the A10 and the whole lot can recover on the A10's parachutes.

 

[MetMan]

Adrian,

I hear what you're saying. It sure does look like the A9 is shot out of the nose cone. The thing is that the back of it is really scorched and it looks like a lot of sparks went up where they're supposed to go. Might just be a hard to light motor.

I may try to put a vent hole in the A10 but part of my design concept was that the volume below the lower bulkhead would pressurize gradually as the ejection charge vented, making the nose cone separation a little easier on the A9.

Nothing to do now but more test flights! My wheat field has been harvested and the oats are due to come out next week or so it won't be long.

MetMan