I need any help I can get identifying the rocket in the attached photo. I found this doing a bit of historical research in the area of Tuckerton, NJ and I was told that it was taken in the area during WWII as the army was doing missile research. I've asked around for as much info as I can get and there's someone who will be able to tell me about the facilities in a few days, but its not likely he'll know anything about the rocket itself. If anyone can give me some info on this bird I will be indescribably grateful. I'd like to build a full-scale version, but to do that I need to know what it is and determine its actual dimensions.

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Randy D
NAR 78422
South Jersey Area Rocketry Society
NAR Section 593

Don't know what that is but it is a great candidate for a 1-1 scale model!

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" Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act. " George Orwell

Those white boosters look like they have a 38mm core and 29mm surrounding motor cluster. Mission points!

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Man, that would be a really cool build. The way all those lower body tubes are off the center line, maybe the engines could be canted outward so the bird would still fly relatively straight if there was a misfire on launch.

Well now that you mention it, there WAS one photo of launch where it seemed to have spin to it. The problem with that photo though is that the rocket is sort of blurry so its hard to tell what was really going on. I'll have more photos and hopefully more info in the next couple of days.

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Randy D
NAR 78422
South Jersey Area Rocketry Society
NAR Section 593

Alright, so I've discovered that this rocket MIGHT be called the "Cobra" and it was definitely part of a Navy program to develop ramjet powered surface-to-air missiles in the late 1940s. There were about 9 missiles (that I've read of so far) developed from this program with several variants of each. I think this one was the Cobra because it's the closest fit to the written descriptions I've found. Very cool program and very cool missiles.

I have run into another problem, though. I'm trying to put this design into RockSim 8 and I can't really figure out how to do that. The big problem I'm running into is designing the fins on the boosters. I know in v9 there's an ability to design parallel boosters (these are not to be jettisoned) as separate components which would (I assume) allow them to have their own fins if needed, but I'm not going to be making the upgrade so I need to figure out if I can do this in v8.

EDIT: I think I figured it out. Just took a hell of a lot of trial and error.

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Randy D
NAR 78422
South Jersey Area Rocketry Society
NAR Section 593

It looks like the outboards are 5" HVAR (High Velocity Aircraft Rocket) manifolded together in front so the chamber pressures would be the same. Wish we could see the back of the central body so we could see if it is another HVAR with a larger diameter warhead of some kind. I don't see an air intake anywhere from this angle. Never heard of this critter, but i'll bet the picture is from the China Lake proving ground where the FFAR and the HVAR were developed. I've attached some files of army and Navy bombardment rockets that resemble the center body of this critter. I love these mysterious old pics.
-Braz

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yeah, what he said... Those definitely look like the underwing rockets developed late in the war for use on ground targets... I've seen them in some of my documentaries in gun camera and chase plane footage... really cool...

It would make an interesting model... OL JR

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In case you haven't found it already, this appears to be the same vehicle that's in your photo:


http://www.designation-systems.net/...p1/ptv-n-4.html


and there's some other information here:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...GhkNZjAeWXDmfWA

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Bill Spadafora
http://www.billsplumbing.com
billspad@comcast.net bill@billsplumbing.com

Thanks for the input, guys. Especially to Bill because I hadn't been able to find any info confirming that I was indeed looking at the Cobra test vehicle.

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Randy D
NAR 78422
South Jersey Area Rocketry Society
NAR Section 593