Who was the principles of this company? What were their products? How long did they exist? Looking for old-timers who might have been around in the mid to late 80's that might have some background information on this company.....when they were still inn Taylorsville,KY...
TIA
shockie B)
One of the owners did a demo flight at Danville, Ill. in October fest 1989. He had a white lab coat on and a Franken mask. His motor catoed in the rocket. The company then did market share after that.
That means before TRA motor certs, you had no certs what soever for HPR.
If people saw your motors fail, they did not buy them. Market rules.
Anyway. I think Jerry might have bought the assets and dot rules on the manufacturing etc..
Art
And if you were not fortunate enough to see it happen or hear about it, you stood a good chance of being shafted. I'd rather have the motor makers prove their stuff works, than have them use my money and rocket to do it.
I remember when Ravenna produced their first commercial batch of motors, which ALL catoed due to their supplier giving them the wrong particle size of AP. How many flyers and vendors lost out on that? Motor certs would have caught that before the motors ever got to the users.
Maybe not.
It's possible for a vendor to cert their motors & then sometime down the road get a wrong or bad chemical & have what you described happen. Hopefully, all the motor vendors do QA testing on each batch to prevent such happenings.
Phil Stein
SNIP
Phil Stein
Carter and Weber. IIRC one of the first names was Don. Jerry should know for sure.
Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!
Was that the "quasi-legal" Danville launch by the prison, or the ILLEGAL launch that the ACS proprietors ran the year before. "Secret" field location, cuz they had no waiver. There was a VOR less than a mile from the flying field. You could see the cone sticking up above the corn.
I saw plenty of ACS motors fail at that launch 1988. Ditto for USR motors. That's the launch my wife overheard the local URS sales guy (Joe?) tell a prospective customer that the motors came with Jerry's personal guarantee!
Even some AT and Vulcan motors failed that day. Oney one vendor was perfect: Rocketflite.
Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!
The leagal launch by the prison.
I never heard the 88 was illeagal.
Art
Well, when you keep the site a secret, claim to have a waiver but don't, and there are jets flying overhead all day cuz you're less than a mile from a VOR, it's quite illegal. I wonder what happened to the organizers for running a launch without a waiver. Is there any precedent for discipinary action here?
:-)
Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!
L911's and H170's usually worked, the rest usually CATO'd. They were non-standard diameters and were rarely flown for both the above reasons.
Tom
Nothing illegal with keeping a launch site a secret.
They were more popular in CA and NV and OR than in other states. CA flyers for example painted their rockets less often, than so when a motor catoed and the motor was replaced there was not much rocket heartache.
The cato rate was about 20% for some motors and about 5% for others. Don Carter and Mark Weber were not rocket motor design geniuses but they had a willingness to prooduce low priced products for consumers and jump through the legal hoops of the time.
Mark Weber co-founded Tripoli BTW.
Mark Weber was also the principal of Wirlwind which was amotor company who sold OEM RDC motors. They were certified at some point.
Jerry
Since rocket flying with or without a waiver is "VFR" (visual flight rules) and since VOR cones do not fly, it matters not whether or not there was a cone.
As for waivers, I do ont know or care if waivers were filed. I filed waivers for my launches and I was falsely accused of never filing for any waivers by "allegedly believable Tripoli leaders" of the time. So I take with a grain of salt any such accusations.
I do know this from the ACS company files. As soon as ACS motors were available there was a concrntrated effort by Rosenfield to discredit them and attack them with a variety of backhanded methods. Something I have seen first hand as well.
USR motors got better later. There were some marginal batches of agressive motors (ie 29mm H80 and I150). It seems that making cool motors is actually hard. They have since been perfected.
Jerry
FAA says VFR and TRA says, hang the bastards.
TRA has no jurisdiction.
Jerry
We have extensive programs to test chemicals before they are introduced to production for this very reason.
Of course the facts are wrong about most allegations re ACS.
I have fixed that.
Bob, the launch with the private field was called Central Blast-1. I just found my inventation from ACS-Reaction Labs of Batavia, Ohio Oct 29.30 , 1988
This was not a danvill dare it seems after all !
, "Art Upt> > One of the owners did a demo flight at Danville, Ill. in October fest 1989.
kewl, I never had heard any allegations anyway, just saw a Cato, he he.
I know you bought the company and now have control of the manufactureing maybe ?
art
For most of the years USR was making reliable certified motors it was doing so with ACS propellant and shipping approvals and just making more reliable and diverse motor designs.
Buying ACS made sense and properly rewarded the principals for a job well done.
My personal opinion is that many of their motors were crap, but many more were not.
They were all cheap. Dirt cheap.
>
Shockie, I found my ACS Catalog, and scanned it. Jerry was so kind as to provide webserver space for the scans.
here is the 87 catalog for you.
Art
Looking for old-timers who might have been around in the mid
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