#1
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Silo launch
There are photos available of a rocket launch from a silo where a smoke ring is pushed upward out of the silo. When I was younger we had a 25 gallon oil drum ( approximate size ). We thought about setting it in the ground and launching a rocket out of it from below ground level. We figured if we put saltpeter and sugar below the engine that it might increase the chances of blowing a smoke ring out of the barrel upon ignition. For some reason we never tried it.
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#2
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I dug a post hole one time with a 4 inch hand post hole digger- in our hard clay it was quite stable and didn't cave in... then I pushed a launch rod down several inches into the bottom of it, slid my wires down to the bottom of the hole and pulled the clips back up, then hooked up the ignitor, slid the rocket down the rod, stepped back a few feet, and launched it. No smoke ring but it was kinda neat...
Seen vids of guys launching waterproofed rockets from underwater, like sub-launched missiles. Pretty neat. The "smoke ring" is from Minuteman silos... they are solid silos-- no exhaust vents, essentially just really big, really strong concrete holes in the ground. The missile is solid propellant so the casing is thick to withstand the motor pressure and so there's no risk of damage from "acoustics" like with liquid propellant missiles, which have much thinner skins and are more easily damaged, thus Atlas and Titan I/Titan II all had exhaust ducts from the flame bucket under the engines back up to the surface to vent the engine blast at liftoff. Minuteman literally used "fire in the hole" where when the key was turned in the control capsule the missile ignited and as soon as the engine came up to pressure, it blasted right out of the silo through it's own fire... The smoke ring effect is because there's like maybe 5 feet of clearance all the way around the missile sitting in the silo, and the silo is 90 feet deep IIRC from the tour at the Minuteman museum tour near Wall, South Dakota... They take you down in the capsule and then out to a silo that had the concrete lid removed and a glass lid put in its place, with a deactivated missile inside. You can lean over the railing and put your face to the glass and see all the way to the bottom of the silo-- the RV/nosecone is about maybe 5 feet or so below the glass... VERY COOL... They did a LOT of test firing of missiles out of test silos built at Vandenberg... Most pointed at Kwajalein... Later! OL J R
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#3
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There was a team from, I think, Austin who tried launching competition rockets out of a PVC tube. It made an interesting throoooomp sound.
I never saw a smoke ring. Bill
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#4
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Quote:
The “I-Beam Kids” Team from the Pittsburgh PA area use a 10 foot PVC tube launcher. But it has rails inside of it, so it is a tower that has no effect from wind during launch due to the tube. Also, they almost always use a piston launcher with it. The bottom is NOT sealed, because that would actually impede the launch more than help it (Note that the models are usually 13 to 18mm diameter, and the 3.5 to 4” ID of the tube to allow clearance for the fins means a very tiny percentage of the body frontal area compared to the open area of the tube).
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#5
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I did some underwater rockets in the early 70’s using a “wet silo”, a plastic tube with a Mylar seal over the top, with an anchor, so the silo floated upright under the surface. So, the rocket flew thru a few feet of water.
But what I want to post here, is Joe Barnard’s silo rocket, “Thoomp” (Using guided TVC of course, with an F10 motor I think). He used compressed air to push the rocket out of the silo tube, then the rocket ignited its’ motor in mid-air. Well....that was the plan. I think this video is the best edited video he has ever done. Even the music is his. Also, he has a “guest star”, sort of, which makes it even funnier. In all ways, impressive tech, impressive video, a bit sad, sometimes funny (you may LOL at least once), and VERY entertaining. “Thanks for watching” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6G_o5Idmqns
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#6
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Interesting project.
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