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Rocket launching of gliders ? Anyone know if it's been done before ?
An unusual historical question for the combined genius of the list ...
While visiting Ray Ash at Gulgong on Saturday (to scan some great old photos of the early days of Southern Cross Gliding Club for our Back To Camden Week starting 20th September), we were looking through Ray's early log book. It's a British Gliding Association one, marked as 3rd Reprint 1949. On the inside front cover, it lists the Types of Launch as: C = Catapult W = Winch M = Motor car-tow A = Aero-tow and R = Rocket assisted OK, while I can accept that catapult might be another word for Bungy launching, I was a bit taken aback by the notion of launching a glider with a ROCKET ! Ray mentioned he'd never really noticed that before either. I wonder if anyone can point me to any solid evidence of rocket assisted launching of gliders by the British or others. It sounds like a novel, if somewhat dangerous, way to get airborne in a sailplane ! Cheers Jason Armistead Southern Cross Gliding Club Camden NSW Visit http://www.gliding.com.au/ ! |
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"Jason Armistead" wrote in message m... I wonder if anyone can point me to any solid evidence of rocket assisted launching of gliders by the British or others. I recall being told that the L13 was originally intended to have rocket launch as an option, but in a ten-minute Google search I can't find any actual evidence. Perhaps someone else can pick up on this. Vaughn |
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Jason,
The Germans built a rocket-launched fighter in WW2 (the ME 163?). After the fuel was exhausted, it would glide back to the airfield. The hypergolic fuel used made the glider more dangerous to the ground crews than it was to the Allies. Space Shuttle. BTW, does (or did) the Space Shuttle have an airworthiness certificate? Someone here in the US I think is working on a scaled version of the 163, but using a safer fuel I trust. Chuck |
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#6
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On 7 Sep 2003 06:23:06 -0700, (Jason Armistead)
wrote: An unusual historical question for the combined genius of the list ... While visiting Ray Ash at Gulgong on Saturday (to scan some great old photos of the early days of Southern Cross Gliding Club for our Back To Camden Week starting 20th September), we were looking through Ray's early log book. It's a British Gliding Association one, marked as 3rd Reprint 1949. On the inside front cover, it lists the Types of Launch as: C = Catapult W = Winch M = Motor car-tow A = Aero-tow and R = Rocket assisted OK, while I can accept that catapult might be another word for Bungy launching, I was a bit taken aback by the notion of launching a glider with a ROCKET ! Ray mentioned he'd never really noticed that before either. I wonder if anyone can point me to any solid evidence of rocket assisted launching of gliders by the British or others. It sounds like a novel, if somewhat dangerous, way to get airborne in a sailplane ! From http://www.astronautix.com/articles/blalants.htm "Automobile manufacturer Fritz von Opel piloted his own rocket glider, Opel Rak.2, in tests near Frankfurt on 30 September 1928. Its 16 rockets, each producing 50 pounds of thrust, were build by Friedrich Sander a pyrotechnics specialist. The propulsion system combining high-thrust, fast-burning powder rockets for initial acceleration with lower-thrust, slower-burning rockets to sustain velocity. Opel approached Alexander M. Lippisch, a young designer working at the Rhon-Rossitten-Gesellschaft, who had already displayed a penchant for the unorthodox in airplane configuration, with the proposal that he, too, design a glider for rocket power. Max Valier and Alexander Sander also succeeded in arousing enthusiasm for rocket propulsion in a twenty- seven-year-old aircraft designer, Gottlop Espenlaub. His E 15 tail-less design was of interest as a rocketplane. On 11 June, Fritz Stamer effected the first rocket- propelled flight in Lippish's glider. The glider had been dubbed Ente, or Duck. That lead later to the Lippish's Komet - the Messerschmitt Me 163, liquid rocket manned interceptor. " There's a picture he http://www.ig-scale.at/rak1.html HTH Martin -- martin@ : Martin Gregorie gregorie : Harlow, UK demon : co : Zappa fan & glider pilot uk : |
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In article , Ralph Jones
writes: Are you sure they're working on a 163? See the link below. http://www.xcor.com/me163.html Chuck |
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In article ,
(ChuckPilot) wrote: In article , Ralph Jones writes: Are you sure they're working on a 163? See the link below. http://www.xcor.com/me163.html XCOR is developing high reliability, low cost rocket engines for non-government applications. It's all very well to show a rocket on the lab bench, but it's a much bigger deal to actually integrate one into an aircraft. They floated the idea of building an ME163 or Bell X1 replica for someone, and the CEO (Jeff Greason) also asked in this newsgroup whether anyone was interested in rocket launch for their glider. They didn't get any takers, so instead they fitted their rocket engines to a Long-EZ belonging to one of their engineers, producing the EZ-Rocket. The EZ-Rocket was shown (static display) at Oshkosh in 2001 and had two demonstration flights at Oshkosh 2002. XCOR are now working on larger engines and a custom aircraft capable of carrying two people to 100+ km altitude. -- Bruce worked on the XCOR stand at Oshkosh 2002 |
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In article , Jason
Armistead writes An unusual historical question for the combined genius of the list ... While visiting Ray Ash at Gulgong on Saturday (to scan some great old photos of the early days of Southern Cross Gliding Club for our Back To Camden Week starting 20th September), we were looking through Ray's early log book. It's a British Gliding Association one, marked as 3rd Reprint 1949. On the inside front cover, it lists the Types of Launch as: C = Catapult W = Winch M = Motor car-tow A = Aero-tow and R = Rocket assisted OK, while I can accept that catapult might be another word for Bungy launching, I was a bit taken aback by the notion of launching a glider with a ROCKET ! Ray mentioned he'd never really noticed that before either. I wonder if anyone can point me to any solid evidence of rocket assisted launching of gliders by the British or others. It sounds like a novel, if somewhat dangerous, way to get airborne in a sailplane ! Cheers Jason Armistead Southern Cross Gliding Club Camden NSW Visit http://www.gliding.com.au/ ! About 60 years ago the Germans had a fighter which was virtually a rocket launched glider. The rocket used very concentrated hydrogen peroxide reacting with hydrazine. They used to train pilots by towing it empty behind something like a Heinkel 111. And, so they get used to aero-towing, they started by giving them a few A/Ts in conventional gliders. The mission profile was to launch when the B17s were quite close, climb up above the bomber formation and have a go at them on the way down. If there was any fuel remaining in the tanks after the climb, the machine had a nasty habit of exploding on landing. -- Mike Lindsay |
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In article , Ralph Jones
writes On 07 Sep 2003 13:59:21 GMT, (ChuckPilot) wrote: Jason, The Germans built a rocket-launched fighter in WW2 (the ME 163?). After the fuel was exhausted, it would glide back to the airfield. The hypergolic fuel used made the glider more dangerous to the ground crews than it was to the Allies. Space Shuttle. BTW, does (or did) the Space Shuttle have an airworthiness certificate? Someone here in the US I think is working on a scaled version of the 163, but using a safer fuel I trust. Are you sure they're working on a 163? There is a project to produce some Me-262's (jet, not rocket)...with the J-85's they're planning to put in it, it should be a pretty decent airplane. rj A guy I know is restoring an ME 162. They are having the engines rebuilt with modern materials. -- Mike Lindsay |
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