#21
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FSI in Germany
Yea we were all pretty proud we had become a "global manufacturer".
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#22
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What I find interseting about Birns Flat,Ok is that back then it was the Clinton-Sherman Air Force Base which was closed in 1969. George Ros seemed to have a very good habit of locating his motor making failities on ex-military properties which makes perfectly good sense to me.
Today this Clinton-Sherman Air Force Base as the Clinton-Sherman Industrial Airpark, also known as the Oklahoma Spaceport. As early as August 1969 George Roos was already trying to sell FSI, this after being in business only 2-3 years. Evidently sometime in the early 1970's , say 72-74, he sold the company to the Reese Brothers. FSI of course was originally located in Louisville Colorado, so I'm not sure how or why the FSI motor making plant got moved from Colorado to Burn Flat,OK. Also its evident that for a while George Roos continued to make motors for FSI after he sold the company to the Reese Brothers. Later it appears the FSI motor making facilities were located at the old NIKE base Raytown Missouri site. I had always suspected that the FSI motors were manually made with hydraulic gang presses. It makes perfect sense, as thats the way the original Coasters,mini-Maxes etc were made. The downside of using such an arrangement is that its can eb very difficult to get the same pressure on each motor being made. This explains why F100 or F7's from exactly the same batch could be cato-rrific while others from the same batch were perfectly good. Lee Piester found thsi out in his manufacturing of his min-max Bp motors, as related in a RMR post from maybe 5 years ago by Mark Johnson, where he related a similar story. terry dean
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"Old Rocketeer's don't die; they just go OOP".....unless you 3D print them. |
#23
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carbons4:
Did you have any "personal" conversations with the Reese Brothers during the time you worked at FSI? By personal, I mean, did they every discuss with you what they di prior to owning FSI? What were their backgriounds, in terms of education, work, military service,etc? where they married? had any children? What were their approx. ages during the 77-86 time frame? any ideas on this? terry dean
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"Old Rocketeer's don't die; they just go OOP".....unless you 3D print them. |
#24
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Thread title
I wanted to thank Gus for the complement. Like I said I was one of the founding members of the Spacemodeling Society of Kansas City. Doug Pratt lived here at the time and convinced us that we could put on a NARAM here. Sure sounds easy. NOT! Not going to go into that but we kinda bit off more than we could chew but hey hide sight is 20/20. The SSKC kind of fell apart within a yr after hosting the NARAM. A few of us hard core people formed our own "splinter cell" called the association of spacemodeling snobs. A.S.S. I must say with all fairness that I am glad today looking back that Doug convinced us that we WERE ready to host a NARAM. Maybe its from a selfish standpoint but I met a lot of good people there and will have those memorys for a lifetime.
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#25
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Reeses
I knew the Reeses real well. Like I said my father had worked with Harold yrs before. My brother had graduated with Jerry, the youngest brother and Brians dad. I had known them personally for yrs. Lonnie and Larry used to race outboard hydroplanes and runabouts. I used to go to the races with them and help out pit crew. Lonnie and Larry were both quite smart and were not afraid to try new things. You could write a book about these guys and it would make the best sellers list. Few people know this but Lonnie played guitar and sang. He was on his way back from blue springs , i think he was performing at a amature night if memory serves me correctly when he had his accident. Yea I knew these guys.
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#26
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FSI History
First of all George wanted to keep the motor buisness. He was just tired of the hobby side. Thats what Lonnie and Larry bought. I never went to Burns flat but I know we made improvements on our motors from Georges. Pressure was monitered via hydrolic pressure as well as load cells on the blocks . A lot of the problem was George did not replace spindles nearly enough and mix and grain size varied. A black powder propelant as well as the fireclay used for the nozel are both abrasive. The steel spindles used to form the core /throat would erode and get smaller. There are quite a few variables to making a black powder motor. Temp and humidity on componets and during assy. can lead to variances too. Lonnie and Larry could not get motors or had bad ones when we recieved them. Thats when took the reigns to build their own motors.
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#27
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Well, I finally found what I was looking for. I got to much stuff lying around
It's an E5-6 dated June 1982 You by any chance pack the baby 'Insert Carbons4's real name here' ?
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Leo My rocket fleet and more @ Leo's Leisure Site and on YouTube - My latest project: ALTDuino |
#28
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June E-5
That is kinda in the break over period. Didnt start producing motors in missouri till after they moved to Lone Jack. 82 is probably a Larry Reese made in OK motor. I know that that was one of the first things Larry did was replace spindles down there. They were all worn bad. Its a colored stamp and looks like a new one. If you notice all older FSI engines are black ink and old style stamp.
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#29
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Nice
I won't be using this one
__________________
Leo My rocket fleet and more @ Leo's Leisure Site and on YouTube - My latest project: ALTDuino |
#30
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FSI engines
Few people know it but FSI had a big fire in summer of 1980. Wont go in to the details but a guy working nights , NOT ME, got a hot tool into the propellant of a Mach 1 thruster and it went off. Had a pretty serious fire and Lonnie and Larry were really wondering if they were going to call it quits. I helped clean up for the rest of the summer and went to work at another job. In this time is when they decided to press on and moved production to Lone Jack, Mo. Shipping was always out of Raytown. After basicly the family moved the equipment to Lone Jack is when I started working again for them. Leo that motor you have is probably ok but i would worry more about the age as if the grain has been cracked over 26 yrs.
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