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Originally Posted by Initiator001
Mike,
When I worked at Enertek for Lee Piester in 1987-88, I discovered a box of random rocket motors in the office closet.
One of the motors was a bare fiberglass casing with graphite nozzle. It was labeled "Dorffler G Motor".
All I have been able to find out about it was that it was made in the mid/late 1970s and that it might have used leftover Enerjet motor components.
I was wondering if you could provide me with some history about this motor.
Thank you.
Bob Sanford
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Bob - ya know, the more I read the questions here, I'm beginning to learn where all my missing stuff got to! How in the world did my motor protos end up at Centuri I ask? And then I learn Bob Kaplow has at least one of Ed and my 'Brown-Dorffler' motors. You guys collectively have have more of my stuff than I do! Geeezo.
Anyway, Ed and I never had an approved budget in our earliest work with composite motors. We made motors and propellant from what we could essentially find laying around. After Enerjet ceased operations the remaining casings, nozzles, head enclosures, and other stuff was shipped and stored at the Estes plant. Well, Ed and I made an effort hide most of it so it wouldn't somehow be destroyed. In affect we stole it and moved it to an area where nobody would find it.
We must have had well over 1,000 of both E and F fiberglass casings and more than enough nozzles, both graphite and phenolic, to almost go into motor production.
We started making clones of the Enerjets as the fastest way to get on a learning curve. First we made them in the same way Irv Wait did, then we developed our own techniques. The motor you have is one of many of those learning curve motors we made. Then as we took each part or process as far as we could, we chinked over to another aspect of motor design.
One of the coolest things about one of those Enerjet motors was that they lit up like a flashbulb right at burnout. The propellant was loaded into the casing without a liner, which meant that it came i n direct contact with inside of the casing wall. And because they burned outward from the cenetr core, the flame head contacted the case wall at the end of the burn. And if you got a little careless and didn't get the propellant loaded just right you could end up with a ring of fire on the inside of the casing right at the front of the nozzle face as well as at the head enclosure.
Ed and I worked with many propellants over the years. Loading the double-based motors taught me well not to ignore wearing rubber gloves handling the proellant. On one occasion I got one of the biggest headaches I had ever had because I didn't think holding onto a grain bare-handed for a minute or so would be that big a deal. Wrong.