Underwater Rocket Launch!

Now... I have seen everything!

Check out the video.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1362086

The old Model Rocket magazine had an article about an underwater launchand how the person did it. Pictures wer cool. This was back in the early '70s.

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I have done it ( a long time ago) and I will set it up again in sumer , we did it with a free floating rocket .
I was originally an experiment for a RC polaris sub , we wanted to launch the nukes out of the sub , so we did soe experiments .

Basically it involved an igniter on a short piece of visco , and alot of beeswax . If you weight a rocket correctly you can get it float upright in the water . I just need to find someone who will let me use there pool .

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The U.S. Navy's Project Hydra successfully launched many test vehicles and sounding rockets directly from the sea during the 1960s and early 1970s (a video of the Hydra I launch in 1960 can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFRbHSqinJQ ). A brief article about the Hydra I vehicle is here: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/a...,826376,00.html .

The largest vehicles flown in the project were the Hydra-Seabee (an Aerobee that was launched, recovered, and launched a second time, see: http://www.quarkweb.com/nqc/lib/gen...eocheap_ch9.htm ), Hydra-Iris, and Hydra-Sandhawk (see the Astronautix.com Hydra-Iris and Hydra-Sandhawk entries here: http://www.astronautix.com/alpha/h.htm ). (In 1984, Starstruck Inc.'s Dolphin hybrid propellant test rocket [see: http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/dolphin.htm ] was launched from the Pacific Ocean using the Hydra launch technique.) The Project Hydra engineers developed two variations of the water launch technique that both worked successfully:

The simpler of the two methods, used mostly with smaller rockets, involved the use of a split-quadrant floatation collar fitted near the nose of the rocket, from which the rocket was suspended by short metal hooks (they were not unlike boost-glider pop-pod hooks). If necessary (depending on the type of rocket), jettisonable ballast was attached to the tail of the rocket to make the whole assembly float upright in the water. At launch, the rocket blew off the jettisonable ballast (if any) and pulled free from the four floatation collar segments. (Some rockets [I believe the Seabee was one of them] did not need the floatation collar in order to float, but needed only the tail-mounted jettisonable ballast.)

The second method used a floating tower launcher. A permanently-attached floatation collar was affixed to the top end of the tower, and (if memory serves) jettisonable ballast was attached to the tail of the rocket to make the tower/rocket combination float upright. The Hydra-Iris and Hydra-Sandhawk were fired from this type of launcher.

With all of the Project Hydra vehicles, it was found that the water actually gave the rockets a significant boost at launch. At ignition, the expanding exhaust plume created a bubble of high-pressure gas that popped the rockets up out of the water, like a cork from a bottle of champagne.

During the 1980s, there was discussion about developing a sea surface-mobile ICBM force that would have been based aboard surface vessels. If ever called upon to be launched, the missiles would have been rolled overboard and fired from the sea like the Project Hydra test vehicles. The advantage of the Hydra launch technique is that unlike submarine-launched ballistic missiles (whose lengths and diameters are limited by practical submarine hull sizes as well as the power of gas generators that can propel the missiles to the surface and into the air), full-size "Hydra style"-launched ICBMs could easily be accommodated inside surface vessels, particularly since the missiles could be carried aboard them in a horizontal attitude (even disassembled) until needed for use.

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NAR #54895 SR

There was also this attempt...

http://www.prinzeugen.com/V2.htm

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better pictures here

http://strangevehicles.greyfalcon.us/prufstand.htm

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I asked for a car, I got a computer. How's that for being born under a bad sign?

Thank you for posting those links! I was aware of the submerged U-Boat deck launches (the rockets were Borsig artillery rockets whose nozzles were sealed with candle wax!), but not of the U-Boat-towed V-2 project. The projected A-bomb destruction radius map of Manhattan is chilling--had the Nazis managed to pull that off, Wernher von Braun would have been the most-hunted war criminal. The towed V-2 plan seems unnervingly similar to the tests Iran has conducted, in which they launched Scud missiles from a TEL (Transporter-Erector-Launcher) hidden in a shipping container aboard a cargo ship--I'm sure they have a similar nuclear warhead destruction radius map of Manhattan...

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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

Back in my 20's I did a horizontal launch from my family's ?private? beach (it was on our land on the banks of the Rogue River in Eagle Point, Oregon) (That's Rogue like ruffian, not rogue as in the French way of saying the colour red (and Oregon, like saying "Or uh gun")). I used my first Yellow Jacket for this, and I built it exclusively for this experiment. My cousin pushed the button, I held the launch rod (with blast plate) and the rocket horizontal in the water.

Before putting it into the river, I first sealed the ejection end of the motor with wax, then I filled the nozzle with powdered match heads and the igniter, then sealed that with wax. The rocket was filled with water, as was the nose cone... and...

My vision was to have a trail of bubbles, much like a torpedo trail, move away in a nice line away from me.

Instead, the motor ignited, and the rocket leapt off the end of the rod. It quickly surfaced and flew about 3 feet in a ballistic arc with a maximum altitude of about 6", before it dove back into the water and headed straight for the bottom. It wasted all of the thrust trying to bury the nose into the silt on the bottom of the river. When the motor reached the delay charge, the rocket floated up to the surface (about 4 feet) and the ejection charge blew. I was able to recover the rocket (with a broken fin), and after allowing it to dry out for a month or so, was able to remove the stuck motor.

Overall, I was underwhelmed. However, if I could, I'd do it again, but this time in Lake Tahoe, or some other deep clear lake. I'd fire it downwards at an angle (perhaps with a payload of sand that would be dumped when the ejection charge blows). The balsa of the fins should bring the rocket up when the rocket finishes its "flight". Now, I have three cameras capable of video underwater, so I'd tape the whole event and post it to YouTube.

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Dreaming of making the rockets I dreamed of as a kid (and then some).

"The Guide says there is an art to flying", said Ford, "or rather a knack."
"The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."

Launching is Optional... Landing? That Depends on Trees.

Here is the Model Rocket News article about the underwater rocket launch:

http://www.spacemodeling.org/JimZ/mrn/mrnbo12f.jpg

One of Estes' educational publications from the early 70s shows a underwater launch demo; a bunch of guys standing around a big glass jar full of water with a launch pad submerged in it. I do not remember more than that.

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NAR #27085 - Oregon Rocketry - SAM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHeAPGi8Xzg

there ya go...

Later! OL JR

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