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Old 05-11-2013, 08:31 AM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Don't forget parallel staging and vented gap staging, *both* of which are illustrated and discussed in G. Harry Stine's "Handbook of Model Rocketry." Vented gap staging is similar to Centuri's "Pass-port staging," except that the gap staged lower stage's vents are *never* covered, and the lower stage (which can be quite long, for scale appearance) can have its motor as much as 12" away from the upper stage's motor. Also:

Parallel staging is a special application of clustering, and it can also be combined with regular series staging (with both butt-joined and gap-staged upper stages). The Estes technical report on clustering shows a "three-motors-across" clustered booster (one or both of whose outboard tubes uses a short-delay motor that pops out a streamer, while the center motor uses a zero-delay and ignites a butt-joined second stage). In addition:

Stine's "Handbook of Model Rocketry" has a schematic-type drawing of a rather similar parallel-staged model rocket, but its short-burning side boosters "peel away" to deploy streamers or parachutes while the long-burning, central sustainer motor keeps firing to continue to accelerate the main rocket. Such a model could also have a butt-joined (or a gap-staged) series-staged upper stage that would be lit by the sustainer motor (as long as it is a zero-delay motor). Competition Model Rockets' "Marcus" strap-on parallel-staged boosters were used (among other applications) as parallel-staged boosters on Estes' two-stage (series-staged) "Sea Strike D" model. Stine's book also has a photo of Pat Artis' unusual parallel staged rocket--he placed the "peel-away" boosters (which looked like front-motored boost-gliders' motor pods) *up front* near the model's nose (to move its Center of Gravity forward), with the sustainer motor mounted in the model's tail in the usual way. And:

Royatl wrote: "And how there was a standard booster with three motors where you just mounted any single stage rocket on top (by sliding its fins into slots)."

Yes, that design (which used a cluster of three 18 mm booster motors mounted inside a paper towel tube [BT-60 size] airframe) appeared way back in the First Edition (published in 1963, if memory serves) of Stine's "Handbook of Model Rocketry." That "generic first stage" (the terms "booster" and "sustainer" are only correctly applied to parallel staged rockets, regardless of whether the booster and the sustainer are *physically* in series, as in the WAC Corporal, Aerobee, Arcon, and Iris--and I'm not saying that you made this mistake) didn't even use a stuffer tube to direct the hot particles into the upper stage's motor, if I recall correctly--that would have made for some sooty upper stages! :-)
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