Check out Alex on the Aggression website

[pdfox]

www.aggressionkiteboarding.com

Alex is having a great time in Hatteras this summer, working for GS in the Aggression factory. Riding or surfing when the wind or swell hits. It should be a summer to remember. He'll be back in town around 8/9. Jordan is headed up there to help him drive back. I think they are stopping to visit Dave in Cape Fear.

Paul

[E-Bone]

Hell, yeah, that is a sweet photo! Looking good, Alex. Sorry I punk'd out and didn't make it to OBX after my house exploded.

[Eagle]

A summer to remember for sure. You can't buy a summer camp like that, kite, surf and boardbuilding. Makes my summer camp experience of model rocketery, space camp and archery look pretty lame.

Have a safe trip home and bring us some wind.

[E-Bone]

I was going to make fun of you for the model rocketry bit, Eagle, but then you mentioned archery, as well. My personal risk management program thus forbids me from talking sh*t.

[toby wilson]

Nice pic Alex! I can see how proud of you your Father is and we all are every bit as proud to be able to say "Hey, that guy on the Aggression website is one of our bros!!!" Keep up the good work Alex and we can't wait to see you back home in St. Pete!!!

[Eagle]

I was going to make fun of you for the model rocketry bit, Eagle, but then you mentioned archery, as well. My personal risk management program thus forbids me from talking sh*t.

My archery skills pale in comparison to my Beowulf .50 cal skillz.
Rockets were and still are pretty cool. I used to build 2 and 3 stage rockets, complete with matchbox kockroach-pits attached to parachutes.
When I evolved into making homemade rpg's with the rocket engines, my rocketry days came to an abrupt halt via Pop's.

[tomstock]

Model rockets rock. I have a home-made relay launcher right here I built for the big ones.. G-J... but I like chad staging C's (taping a booster stage motor to the bottom of a single stage) when I get bored...

Rocketry is pretty darn fun, but too expensive these days...

Water rocketry is pretty cool too. Built a two stage rocket out of 16 1 liter bottles, launched it from a PVC launcher with a bike pump, pumped to 120PSI. It went about 300 feet, dropped the stage, and continued to about 1200 feet, recovered by parachute.

Tried a 2nd launch and it exploded on the pad. Scared the crap out of me and the police officer watching me

:oops:

I packed it up for the day... soaking wet...

[BigR]

That is pretty amazing Tom, since the rules of rocketry state that you should maximize your propellent thrust to weight ratio and water is darn heavy for a propellent!

Anyways, never ever should one put any homemade nitroglycerin into the top stage of a multi-stage rocket ( in case it decides not to go vertical for some reason and instead hit the neighbors tree! )

[bryanleighty]

my best friend is a propulsion engineer..true rocket scientist.. works for a company in Seattle that works on space shuttles, missles, etc.. amazing stuff.

when he came out to Florida a month ago or so i took him over to the kennedy space center and he nearly passed out from excitement..

funny that when the folks were giving the tours, he would take over the conversaions with the guide and explain everthing in more detail..

his big thing is the stabilization thrusters on the front of the shuttles.. i guess those are his babies...

his wife has a very very big life insurance policy out on him.

[tomstock]

BigR, 120lbs of thrust -vs- 5lbs of water

[Eagle]

Tom-

Have you had any experience with the reloadable rocket engines utilizing black powder??

[tomstock]

I think all of the reloads are using composite fuel because black power is too brittle for reloads (but there may be a BP reload that I'm not aware of).

The composite motors are all more aggressive than the black powder motors in the same size. They don't seem to be much cheaper than black powder though unfortunately... unless you do a lot of launches.

I've sort of ended up in the middle ground of rockety... large model rockets... D - G. Check out www.the-launch-pad.com

I was into High Powered Rocketry for awhile but WAAAAY to expensive. $25-$100 per launch. Ouch!

Rocketry! LOL :)

You could always roll your own Sugar Motor (basically black powder) reloads as long as you keep them sealed (sugar motors are hygroscopic).

-Real men love rockets-

[E-Bone]

OK, this shit lookz cool, and we owe it all to Alex. Where do I buy some of this stuff here in town?

[Eagle]

There is one reloadable engine case that I have seen used w/ black powder, the company will not endorse this and claims the casing can explode. http://www.apogeerockets.com/Rouse-Tech_Motors.asp

EboNE- most hobby shops carry the rocket kits, some do not carry the engines. The real good stuff along with the engines can be found online.
The link Tom posted is awesome for the kits but do not sell the engines.

[BigR]

BigR, 120lbs of thrust -vs- 5lbs of water

Uhhh - uh, nice try Tom!

Thrust Curves are specified functions of time. Therefore a thrust that maintains equal average force over it's specified life is preferable to one
that expends all of its " Newton / Sec's " in the first second.

Still quite admirable, I'da loved to see the expressions when that thing blew up at 120 psi!

[tomstock]

You are right BigR, a single bottle with open neck for a nozzle is around 380N.

Walmart sells model rockets and motors, but only up to size 'C'.

Phil's Hobby shop in Pinellas Park sells a bunch of kits and motors...