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Delay charges: new vs. old
This weekend I had the opportunity to launch several rockets in my backyard and decided to use some of my old "collectable/ no-longer-certified" engines, as well as some new Estes production.
Old engines used: 2 Estes 1/4 A3-4T (1974 production) 2 Estes 1/2 A3-4T (1976 production) 1 Estes A5-4 (1971 production) 1 Centuri A5-4 (1967 production) 2 Estes B6-4 (1977 production) 1 Estes A8-3 (1977 production) 1 Centuri B14-7 (1972 production) 1 Estes B14-5 (1976 production) 1 Estes B4-6 (production unknown, but OLD) 1 Cox 18mm D8-3 (1971 production; in my Mars Lander) 1 Estes D11-9 (early 80's production) 1 FSI D18-6 (1975 production) New engines used: 2 Estes A8-3 3 Estes B6-4 1 Estes C6-7 1 Estes C5-3 (In my Mars Lander ! ) 1 Estes B6-0 All engines except the FSI D18-6 performed as designed....fired perfectly ! The FSI D18 resulted in the expected kaboom CATO....luckily it was expected and in a rocket that was borderline worthless. One thing that I noted was that I would guess all the old/decertified/collectible engines except the D11-9 produced about 10 TIMES the tracking delay smoke as the modern ones. The old engines (after firing) had a much more prominent "sulfury" smell to them also. I had not launched any of my old engines in a LONG time and decided to check out this "lack of delay smoke" discussion that I have seen several times on discussion boards. Anybody know what the deal is with this ? I suspect it is a reduction in sulfur content in the delay element but I'm not sure....I hope it is not the result of some sort of manufacturer cave-in toward the mamby-pamby environmentalists.
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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!! Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't ! Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY. ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC ! Last edited by ghrocketman : 10-11-2005 at 10:10 PM. |
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