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  #71  
Old 02-02-2023, 05:03 AM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ghughes1138
Hah! It never occurred to me that Centuri casing colors were deliberately following the old green/blue/red label scheme. Serves me right for being color-blind. Centuri was a class act in many ways.

We discussed Woomera over in the MPC History thread. I haven't been there since it was openned up to the public. When I went it was a closed town (it was primarily the support town for Joint Defense Space Communication Station Nurrungar), requiring a security clearance to enter the town and they were very antsy about photographing anything. Nurrungar is gone now.

gary
Hmmm...that (color-blindness) may be why, in Estes and Centuri catalogs (like this 1973 Centuri catalog's engine listing: http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/no...a/73cen050.html [and this 1974 Estes catalog listing: http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/ca...74/74est54.html ] ), they always showed--by the ink color--and mentioned (in the text above each motor grouping) the label color, *and* explained the delay differences between single-stage, upper-stage (or single-stage in very lightweight rockets), and booster engines. This "multi-type data" would enable a color-blind person to readily identify motors of all three types, via more than one way (many people are partially color-blind, able to perceive colors, but only dimly--those bright, bold green, blue [or purple], and red "listing bands" in the catalogs could be perceived by such people, with the text listing as a "check"). Also, being able to identify the motor types is an important factor with "own-designed" model rockets, which they also kept/keep very much in mind, and:

Kerrie Dougherty (formerly of the Powerhouse Museum) has written multiple papers (see: https://www.oldrocketforum.com/showthread.php?t=14824 ) on Australian-developed (and non-Australian, but Australian-used) sounding rockets, re-entry test rockets, hypersonic test rockets, and satellite launch vehicles that have been flown at Woomera. She used all-SI (metric) dimensions, but I was able to identify several vehicles, mostly Australian-made, whose development and/or use pre-dated (or spanned) Australia's conversion to SI, which--if memory serves--began in 1971. For example, I would come across a fin dimension (its chord, say) of 152.4 mm, which is exactly 6" (6 inches); 125 mm (the diameter of the Zuni unguided air-to-air/air-to-ground rocket) is exactly 5", and so on. If health permitted (unfortunately, it no longer does... :-( ), I would love to visit Oz again, and see the Woomera museum and "wild" displays, BUT:

If you--and perhaps also a friend or two (to confirm paint scheme colors, at the very least)--visited Woomera and photographed & measured the vehicles (after making sure it would be open, beforehand), there is a treasure trove of scale data there, just waiting to be recorded. If you brought along--and/or e-mailed them scans from it, beforehand--a copy of Peter Alway's book "Rockets of the World" (or one of its annual supplements), the folks at Woomera would have no doubt that you were a serious researcher, which would "open doors to you" that aren't open to the average tourist. As well:

Few Australian sounding rockets are well-documented, in terms of scale modeling data or missions history. Only the Aero-High and HAD (High Altitude Density) are in the 1992 Edition of "Rockets of the World," if memory serves. He also covered the Long Tom in one of the annual supplements, but it was the last-ever round to fly, which--while perfectly fine as a scale model subject--was not typical of the type (it had different fins on both stages than did the previous Long Tom rockets). Besides these, ^here^ (see: https://space.skyrocket.de/director...r_australia.htm ) is a list of Australian sounding rockets that have *NOT* been documented (and here is a longer such list, with descriptions: https://www.oldrocketforum.com/atta...achmentid=40105 ), but which are "available for inspection" at Woomera; they are:

[1] HAT (High Altitude Temperature [it used the same LAPSTAR second stage as the HAD, but boosted by twin Demon motors, instead of the HAD's single Gosling first-stage motor]);

[2] Cockatoo (this was the HAD's replacement, which began flying after the WRESAT satellite launch in 1967--like the HAD, most Cockatoos boosted 2 meter diameter, inflatable aluminized Mylar "falling spheres," which were tracked by radar to garner edge-of-space wind data);

[3] Aeolus (it used a standard Long Tom second stage, boosted by a seven-motor [LAPSTAR] first stage);

[4] HAEC (a once-classified Australian sounding rocket);

[5] Lorikeet;

[6] Corella, and:

[7] Kookaburra

You could POD (Print-On-Demand) publish the scale and historical data, at zero cost, through Lulu.com (www.lulu.com - I use them; see below) or CreateSpace.com (www.createspace.com ).
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  #72  
Old 02-03-2023, 05:24 PM
ghughes1138 ghughes1138 is offline
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You're overthinking this my friend. I just read the label :-)

My color vision disorder is mild (very few people are completely color blind) and affects mid frequency cones. Not as sensitive to green and overly sensitive to red compared to 'normal'. So some colors just look different to me and I long ago gave up identifying things by color.

re Woomera and Oz sounding rockets
As I mentoined in the other thread, I live in Boston, so popping over to Woomera isn't an option for several years at least. I do have dimensioned drawings of several Oz sounding rockets, including 4 of the rockets you mentioned (HAT, Aeolus, Cockatoo and Kookaburra). I'll post some details in the on-topic thread.

The main public cutover to metric was 73 IIRC (at least that is when the speed limits changed). Everything in school was metric from th late 60s so we could forget about about rods, perches and chains. All of those rockets would have been built to imperial measurements.

gary
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  #73  
Old 02-04-2023, 03:53 PM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ghughes1138
You're overthinking this my friend. I just read the label :-)
I don't think so; when model rocketry was being established here in the U.S., it faced an uphill battle. (Most fire departments and local governments considered them to be fireworks, which were--and still are--banned in many communities, while model rockets are legal just about everywhere here. Getting them accepted took a lot of effort.) My father, in fact, was one of the relatively few Fire Chiefs who accepted model rocketry from its beginning, and he got me into the hobby decades ago. Also, the manufacturers--partly because they knew they were under official scrutiny--went to great lengths to make sure that hobbyists would understand the "new" (to them) information and terminology; G. Harry Stine wrote (in his "Handbook of Model Rocketry") that they also took every effort--in writing the instructions--to ensure that kids and adults, who had never seen or handled the items before, would do so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ghughes1138
My color vision disorder is mild (very few people are completely color blind) and affects mid frequency cones. Not as sensitive to green and overly sensitive to red compared to 'normal'. So some colors just look different to me and I long ago gave up identifying things by color.
*Nods* I imagine mixed colors (at least in certain shades), like purple (red and blue), must be frustrating. Some multi-colored things are made to be identified by other means, such as traffic lights; even a totally color blind driver can identify the red, yellow, and green lights by their orders in the "light bezel column," with red on top, yellow in the middle, and green on the bottom.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ghughes1138
re Woomera and Oz sounding rockets
As I mentoined in the other thread, I live in Boston, so popping over to Woomera isn't an option for several years at least. I do have dimensioned drawings of several Oz sounding rockets, including 4 of the rockets you mentioned (HAT, Aeolus, Cockatoo and Kookaburra). I'll post some details in the on-topic thread.
Unless you live there (or on one of the surrounding sheep herding stations), Woomera is a long way from anywhere! :-) Yes, please do post that scale data; I'd wager that many of us here (including myself) have never seen it before. Those four rockets' designs also lend themselves to scale models with gap-staged booster recovery systems.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ghughes1138
The main public cutover to metric was 73 IIRC (at least that is when the speed limits changed). Everything in school was metric from th late 60s so we could forget about about rods, perches and chains. All of those rockets would have been built to imperial measurements.

gary
We were going to metricate in the mid-1970s, but the Metrication Board, appointed by President Carter, actually had anti-metric members, so it was doomed to fail from the start. I view it as a great opportunity (and an opportunity to get rid of a built-in barrier to international trade) that was missed (also, our "inch-pound" units are those that were in use here, and in Great Britain, *before* our 1776 - 1781 Revolution; the U.S. has ^never^ used the Imperial units, which were adopted in 1824).
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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.
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