Could one of the resident experts tell me if that pic is photoshopped or not?

/looks kind of fake.

A coupla video clips would be a nice touch.

Hmm. My first thoughts:

1)It looks to me like the 1st and 2nd stage engines would have had to CATO simultaneously, which is about as likely as a flying monkey jumping out of my ass and eating the rocket whole. Unless it was built to do that. The rocket, I mean, not the flying monkey.

2) The picture is just too perfect. These things scream into the sky, the idea of someone tracking it like it was on rails and getting a picture of it this clear, just as everything went to hell in a handbasket...

Howsomeever, on the other hand... "Nadine Kinney" (she has the byline for the Pop-Sci photo) is, according to google searches at least, an established photographer of model rocket launches.

My guess: Pop-Sci took a legit photo of a rocket in flight and added some "enhancements".

Compare and contrast with other Kinney photos here:

http://www.photosbynadine.com/

/not an expert
//but I like rockets
/// and things that go "boom" in general

...where even failure is fun, if the explosions big enough

I've been saying this for years

"No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow."

Sponsored by Vonage?

/woo hoo woo hoo hoo hoo...

They take off with throaty roars, leaping from their pads and splitting the sky like arrows shot by a god, leaving trails of smoke and flames.

I think we need a professor of feminist literature to give us a breakdown of the article, but especially this jewel of a statement.

Rockets are SO tempermental. Any variance in Compress, Temperature or Air/Fuel ratio can made the difference between a controlled burn and a big boom =)

With special effects by Flash Gordon

MadTheologian: Sponsored by Vonage?

/woo hoo woo hoo hoo hoo...

DAMNIT!

Dang, that reminds me that I need to go fly some of my rockets soon. Those things are a lot of fun. I just need to find a good field for my Aerotech Cheetah.

...where even failure is fun, if the explosions big enough

This is the key behind the success of the GTA games. Most of the fun you have in those games is when you've blown a mission anyway so you go on a pointless rampage to see how fantasic a flameout you can have before restarting from your last save. In what other game can you say you don't mind failing a mission?

Yeah, read this issue. Stuff's gonna 'splode.

Speaking of "Rocketeers", I'd like to "go boom" with Jennifer Connelly!

/rim-shot.

What no Ka-boom? There was supposed to be an Earth shattering Ka-boom.

vwfst55


What no Ka-boom? There was supposed to be an Earth shattering Ka-boom.

Boy if I had a nickle for every time a girls said that to me.

picture's fake. and the chance of a model rocket engines dont explode unless there is a manufacturing defect. Pop sci is making this hobby look bad

Or unless it's experimental and the manufacturers happen to be the people who built the rocket. They do a whole experimental section of the event. If you want video check out "The Science Channel" they ran three 1 hour shows about this event, from past years, about one week ago.

Also, check the date in the article, this is going down in Geneseo, NY in July this year.

dastrooper,

didn't you see paid for by Estes watermark? ;)

/just think of the children who build rocket engines
//i found my early attempts to be quite good at taking stumps out

dastrooper I have personally seen several experimental motors explode, always due to overpressure in the motor housing. As the article said, bubbles in the coposite mix can cause such an overpressure. And I have seen some catos where the postmortem analysis suggests a piece of propellant breaking off and plugging the nozzle. I even saw a motor cylinder explode with a commercial motor once - some of the Aerotech 38mm grains were soft and J350 or J570 motor configurations with those grains were suceptible to catos.

And I am level 2 certified through NAR. Anybody else here NAR or TRA certified?

It's a catastrophe at takeoff. I flinch whenever the author mangles it by saying "'catostrophic at takeoff' event".

dastrooper: If you were to read the article, the later part describes experimental engine testing. Even then, manufactured motors CATOing aren't all that uncommon either.

Other people: Most HP rockets will have at least one coupler in the airframe which split the tubes that are recovered seperately (hence "drogue" and "main" chutes). I don't think the flame near the middle is fake.

That's my take on the matter. It doesn't help that I've been obsessed with this hobby (from low to high power) on and off since second grade.

Mensan,

I've been looking into it, but sadly lack the time/money to go for the big boys :(. After school I hope to do so.

OMG!!! goto: this address

http://nsl2005.org/

scroll down to the shuttle launch!!!

/lazy on html

thal LDRS 24 will not be in NY this year - it is scheduled for a site just outside Lethbridge, AB this year. This is the first time it has been outside the US, and happily for me it is about a 12 hour drive from where I live in WA. Much nicer than having to drive seven rockets and a bunch of what the feds call explosives all the way across the country.

I'm saying the pic is fake. It could be that there was a fault in the computer and it told the second stage to fire at about 10 feet, instead of 1000 feet. Then you have the gasses flying back into the first stage, possibly igniting the charge to blow off the first stage. But it's still as likely as a monkey flying out of that guy's ass and eating it's own head. Also, where are the damn fins on the second stage? Unless the nose cone was molded out of lead to keep the CP high with postage stamp sized fins hidden in the flames....

Anyway, I love SCALE model rockets. I have a 1:17 scale Juno I in my basement that I need to paint - all custom, from scratch. I'd give my right nut for a liquid fueled (a la goddard's experiments) rocket, though.

I built a two stage rocket with 4 D engines to 1 E, and it cato'd. From what i figure, the propellant in one of the D's was cracked, so the whole thing lit instantly, and ignited the second stage engine almost instantly. My point? Two stages going off simultaniously does happen. Just like anything else, shiat happens.

amateur amateur amateur amateur
learn to spell morans

Picture is NOT fake.

/Gotta love them CATOs
//British UKRA Level 1 Cert.
///Was almost the sole American UKRA RSO.
////Damn shear pins.
/////Had a 1/3 scale Harpoon.
//////The launch was SWEET.
///////The recovery was not so sweet.

But the question is, will



be there?

Damn, the biggest rocket I ever launched was a 2G. I don't get into the crazy model building aspect. I just glue fins to the motor casing itself and launch the sucker. I don't even bother with recovery. I just treat it like a $20 bottle rocket. A 2G rocket sounds like a cat the size of a mountain vomiting... it's pretty damn cool.

sthomas824: Picture is NOT fake.


Details?

Experimental (read: homemade) motor CATO. Watched the Discovery channel shows. Was very entertaining.

/No need to photoshop.
//Real thing is colorful enough.
///mmmmmmm Chemicals....

From the slideshow:

doctechnical: I just took a look at the picture you were referencing, and I see why you think it is fake. But looking at the picture in higher detail on page 66 of the July issue it appears to be a single stage rocket.

These big motors are placed in a metal tube. A forward closure is threaded onto one end to close the tube, hold the delay element, and in 38mm and small casings it holds an ejection charge. The rear closure threads on to hold the nozzle in place.

The picture suggests to me an overpressurization that caused failures in both end closures, but not a failure of the motor tube.

You want videos?

This one always makes me laugh out loud.

I know nothinb about photoshop, and the only thing I know about model-rocktry is that, as a youngster, I took an aluminum cigar tube, glued some fins on, stuffed a M-80 in side and followed that with a B64 rocket motor.

The ejection-charge ignited the B64 and made a hell of a fire-ball.

Anyway, the first thing I thought, when I saw that photo, was "Fake".

Simply because, a photo taken with a long-lens would be at an F-stop such that I would expect the clouds to be in focus, as well as the rocket.

But I know less about photography, than I do rockets.

Or grammar.

And I'm gonna be hiiiiIIIIIiiigh as a kite by then...

This looks like a pretty cool hobby.

Seems a lot safer than the "hornet" auto races I watched tonight.

Definitely safer than demolition derby. Watching that tonight I felt like I was back in the moonshine hills of Tennessee.

~ Pinky ~

Oh, and I watched in person at the Shasta County Fair!

Shasta Motor Speedway, baby!

I absolutely loved it when a new Estes model rocket catalog showed up at my door. Building and flying those things was a great part of my childhood.

I'm hoping one of my nephews gets into them, so I can once again smell the acrid scent of motors and ignitors. Ahhh. Good times.

I wrecked two rocket on my TRA Level 2 Cert attempt
but boy was it awesome

Zylon


That was the same thought I had.


Babylon 5 forever.