Steve,

Back up just a bit to post 40 of this thread where I typed up some of her notes; for some detail on all 4 flights.

Obviously you've got some good experience from your flights, as your last post on flight characteristics are very close to what we saw on her flights. The engine burn through times are miliseconds apart for the boosters but there is a small difference. On the first flight they were obvious, not as much so on the 3 that followed. There was mild torquing on all 4 but not enough to spoil the flights.

The thing I found the most interesting was what she took away from each attempt as to why things went the way they did and how she decided to adjust the next attempt. I think it was mainly the difference in how women think and the way men think. We often came to the same conclusions but differed on how to adjust. Her rocket/her choice.

Part of her adjustment was to use engines with the largest nozzles in the 2nd & 3rd stage, hence her selection and visual observations of what she was holding at the time. What we found VERY interesting in our motor selection and research was that there can be a big difference in diameter between nozzles of the same designation. Was it a screw up at the factory? We don't know but when they were used, they performed the same. Most lilkely every old timer here will say "It's not possible" but I'm telling you we saw it and in actual use.

I do not recall the exact engine so just for an example, say you had 5-6 packs of B6-0's. Upon inspection, you see all engines in each pack are the same, but when compared to another pack from another batch, the nozzles of pack #2 are easily larger in diameter, at least on the exterior surface. They look and perform identical in every way but one pack seems to have at least a 50% larger opening. I even took a photo and posted it for comment someplace, maybe RMR when it was still fucntional, I don't remember, definately not YORF or TRF. Almost had to be RMR/ABMR.

Maybe Jerry can shed some light on how to get the same thrust profile on 2 different engine nozzles.

Again, the torque factor was nominal but there was a definate change in angle after staging. The flights that were not successful mainly came down to simply missing a core motor all 3 times.

Verna would tell you the one that worked had the largest nozzles she could use, double the tape where they mate (about 1/2" wide by 1.5" long) 4 places spaced equally around the bt. (Lots of venting going on too) But she also said that when everything is perfectly built and the conditions are optimal there is still one major factor in being successful and that is LUCK!

Once I reminded her of what Bear Bryant and Knute Rockney used to say: "Luck is when preparedness, meets opportunity, so it tales your best effort and then a little help from God, Karma or whatever you happen to believe in. In this case she said she had some help from CHAD. ; )

With all said and done she feels that even in the best case senario it's still a 50/50 shot but when it works, it's truly amazing and satisfying.

Oh, one last thing, perhaps what sets her accomplishment apart from all the others, is that she didn't use electronics. She decided before she broke open the box that she wanted to do it old school.

Randy
www.vernarockets.com