3 ms·
My desire to do same has barely gotten its shoes laced, but it’s attractive to me because it combines so many interesting technologies and concepts. I think I’
by jcims 6y ago
My desire to do same has barely gotten its shoes laced, but it’s attractive to me because it combines so many interesting technologies and concepts.
I think I’ve made the emotional pivot to UAVs instead because swarming and autonomous guidance & control is one of the more interesting parts to me and even if it weren’t likely to draw ’attention’, the development process for rocket is stymied by the characteristics of rocket propulsion.
- polishdude20 6y agoYeah and UAV's last longer and it doesn't cost $15 a pop for a 3 second burn time.
- grawp 6y agoMany many orders of magnitude longer and thousands of km further on hydrocarbon fuels ;) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_of_Butts%27_Farm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_of_Butts%27_Farm
- jcims 6y agoAre there any promising hybrid engines or are we stuck with solid fuel for the time being?
- polishdude20 6y agoFor model rocket stuff of this size, yeah all we got is solid motors. I've seen some larger amateur rockets that use liquid fuel though but at that point, that leaves "amateur single person" territory and it's more for larger institutions or clubs.
- EvanAnderson 6y agoI flew high-power rockets under a Tripoli certification back in the late 90s. The Aerotech hybrid system looked really attractive to me at the time. I wasn't in a financial position to take the plunge, though. I've thought about getting back into the hobby and it looks like all the hybrid systems have disappeared. The ATF permitting for solid fuel motors seemed pretty onerous back in the late 90s (I always flew at launches where I could purchase reloads for my Aerotech RMS on-site so I didn't have to deal with transporting motors) and I assume it got worse after 9/11. Anybody know what ever happened to the hybrid systems? Aerotech's website looks like it stopped being updated about the time I left the hobby. Same goes w/ their competitor Hypertek (which I thought had a ridiculous ground-support system).
- jcims 6y agoI've noticed the same. Maybe all of this YouTube tinkering will help revitalize the hobby.
- prewett 6y ago> My desire to [...] has barely gotten its shoes laced This is such a hilarious phrasing but it nicely captures the feeling!