#71
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International Motor Trade
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Sadly, the diplomatic pouch and the airline captain's bag may be the big reason model rocket motor trade between nation-states never occurred commercially in the 1960s and 1970s. Both the PRC and the Argentina manufacture rocket motors but we in the US will never see those motors unless a US company like Quest imports them. This is not likely to happen in today's trade and culture climate. |
#72
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Quote:
Most of these motors would have little appeal to the majority of non-contest sport fliers (and even non-FAI level competition flyers) because of their frequently highly unusual thrust-time curve/delay time characteristics (plus their often-unusual casing dimensions), and their manufacturers would go broke if they set out to get the certifications and shipping permits (which wouldn't be worthwhile, due to the small customer base for most of these motors). In addition: While mainland Chinese-made motors would be hard to get into the U.S. market, given their growing adversarial policies and actions (unless a model rocket company like Quest imports them, as they were doing), this problem might not apply--beyond the normal costs of getting certifications and import licensing set up--to Argentinian-made motors. (I even once had Brazilian-made 18 mm x 70 mm motors [to my surprise, two came factory-sealed in a Brazilian kit that I'd traded for with a U.S. kit, from a Brazilian model rocketeer whose article was published in the NAR's magazine in the 1990s], and their manufacturer may still be in business.) As well: I would love to be able to buy model rocket kits, motors, and accessories made by other nations' companies, and there may be a way to get around the import barriers *legally*. Everything other than the rocket motors and igniters ("starters," if one so wills) is just paper, balsa, plastic, rubber, and wire--nothing that's any more flammable or otherwise dangerous (chemically or biologically) than the materials in countless other products that are shipped and sold around the world every day, and: The rocket motors, I've read (it might have been Dr. Edward Jones [the Spadroon jet motor fellow] or Jerry who wrote this), can be legally imported into the U.S. far more easily as fireworks, under their different and more-lenient rules regime (they can even be shipped easily within the U.S., as I have personally experienced as a buyer). As well as rocket kits, the companies could offer motor-less "launch sets" with everything *except* motors, while the motors would be imported as fireworks. (The motors could be NAR Certified once here, or the CAR--which has reciprocity with the NAR regarding motor certification--could certify the motors [I'd be pleased as punch to use foreign-made motors with a maple leaf stamp on them!].)
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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 |
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