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  #1  
Old 06-27-2010, 08:52 PM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Default Skylark 8, 9, 16, and 17

Hello All,

In addition to powering the Falstaff vehicles (see: http://fuseurop.univ-perp.fr/falsta_e.htm ), the 36" diameter Stonechat rocket motor--the largest plastic propellant motor and possibly the largest solid motor of any kind ever produced by the British--was also proposed for use in several designed-but-never-built variants of the BAe (British Aerospace) Skylark sounding rocket. These designs (please see below for more information) would make good Future/Fiction Scale model rockets.

An artist's illustration of the proposed Skylark 17 in a late-1990s British Aerospace Skylark Sounding Rockets marketing booklet that I have shows it with the same fins and even the same paint scheme (white overall with two thin black circumferential stripes on the motor and a thin black spiral stripe between the other two stripes) as the operational Falstaff vehicles. The 36" constant-diameter Skylark 17 in the illustration has a rounded-tip, short conical nose cone like the ones in the Estes Yankee and Centuri X-24 Bug kits. I have e-mailed the successors to British Aerospace and the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) for more material on these Skylark variants and on the Falstaff vehicles. The Stonechat-powered Skylark versions were as follows:

The Skylark 8, 9, 16, and 17 would all have used the 36" diameter Stonechat rocket motor as the first stage, either with or without upper stages depending on the version. The Encyclopedia Astronautica article on the Skylark rocket series (see: www.astronautix.com/lvs/skylark.htm ) briefly describes the Skylark 8, 9, 16, and 17 thusly (the relevant article text is reproduced below):


Version: Skylark 8.

Skylark version with Stonechat booster and Waxwing second stage motor. Never built.


Version: Skylark 9.

Skylark single-stage version with Stonechat motor. This would make it similar to the Falstaff test version. Never built.


Version: Skylark 16.

Skylark version with shortened Stonechat motor. Never built.


Version: Skylark 17.

Skylark version with Stonechat booster and Mage 2 second stage motor. Never built.
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Old 08-17-2015, 04:42 AM
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Skyrocket Skyrocket is offline
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In this diagram for sounding rocket configurations considered for ESA's MAXUS program the Skylark-8, -16 and -17 are shown.
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Old 08-17-2015, 05:27 AM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Skyrocket
In this diagram for sounding rocket configurations considered for ESA's MAXUS program the Skylark-8, -16 and -17 are shown.
Thank you for posting that, Gunter! That looks like a Skylark-17 variant with a "sub-caliber" payload section that is a 438 mm (17.25") diameter standard (Raven, with or without Cuckoo or Goldfinch boosters) Skylark payload section and conical nose cone. The BAe brochure I have shows a 'straight 36" diameter' Skylark-17 (including its payload section). Also:

Jean-Jacques Serra (see: http://fuseurop.univ-perp.fr/index_e.htm [his e-mail address is on his "Rockets in Europe" website]) has several dimensioned drawings of the various Stonechat-based Skylark variants; some even had three instead of four fins, which were enlarged versions of the 438 mm Skylark's three clipped delta fins. These would all make nice Concept Scale model rockets (the NAR has this scale category, and the FAI may adopt it as well); Concept Scale covers proposed-but-never-built, cancelled, and built-but-not-yet-flown rockets and spacecraft, as well as science fiction rockets and spacecraft.
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http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
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