Does anyone have any liquid fuel rocket plans?

I would advise you to take -extreme- caution when building liquid-fuel rockets. When, not if, something goes wrong, you'd best be behind sturdy concrete.

John Carmack is http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home and he has plenty of information regarding the construction of rockets using mono-propellants, as well as some recent work with bi-propellants.

Take care.

 

i haven't worked much with propellants just the other end of it
but here is a good reference site
http://members.aol.com/ricnakk/index.html [Broken]

 

I'll second the recommendation that you are extremely careful. Liquid rockets are commonly referred to as 'bombs'

 

i suggest you launch it from at least a good 50 yards away from you and i think you should have some kind of shack with a sturdy window to watch it in or a concrete bunker

whats being used as propellant here?

 

I suggest you don't listen to Ki Man. HE can stand 50 feet away... I would stand at LEAST 50 m away.

Remember... when the shuttle launches, there are the astronauts inside... and nobody else for 3 MILES!

Cheers...

 

did i say feet. i meant yards

*edits old post* told you i had bad charisma

depends on what type of rocket it is. if its an expirimental rocket then i'd be pretty far. if its one of those smaller model/kit kind i wouldn't be as worried, but when the kind of rocket your making is nicknamed a bomb, be afraid. be very afraid

 

And depends on how big it is :P

Shoot off a 500 pound rocket and you might want to have a car nearby for transportation.

and an FAA permit.

Looking back on these rocket launches we did back in high school... im rather amazed at how close we stood to the rockets. Hell, one nearly hit one of us while another smashed into hte hood of the teacher's truck!

 

LOL! i hope that happens to my english teachers car when we launch of model rockets this year.

the movie october sky is a really good movie. also 20 minutes in it shows how dangerous rocketry can really be.
should we get behind something? *boom* they all get knocked over and a piece of fence goes flying. that was with a really small rocket too. second one, it goes flying into the mine and nearly takes a head off

 

umm... i just did a search and this was my first hit

http://www.wishmasterjo.com/ [Broken]

looks pretty good too. is that what you were looking for?

 

Tom10331, what are you using for propellants? Most of what I've seen out there for liquid fuels are dangerous for various reasons.

ANother point to consider is how much of your chosen fuel you can store/posess legally.

Either way please be careful and good luck. I hope this project works like a dream!

 

IF not then do what I do...get it sent to a store in Ogdensburg NY, (jsut over the border) and then drive down and pick it up. Of course, this is depending on how far Burlington is from teh border....

 

LOX from a welding store? I thought that was just gasseous oxygen in a high pressure cylinder.

If you are using LOX please don't get it near any petroleum based products and watch out for it's cryogenic properties (very dangerous).

Say I have a sidebar question folks, Could you use the evaporation of the LOX to pressurize the LOX tank and then use something to pressurize the Ethanol tank and use that to move the fuel possibly saving weight by eliminating the fuel pump Pros, cons comments?

 

You wouldn't be able to maintain a constant pressure in your tank as the LOX gets consumed without either a pump or an inert gas pressurant system EDIT: unless the reaction is REEEEALY slow.

If the pressure in the combustion chamber then gets larger than the tank pressure, the combustion will stop or you'll have a pretty explosion without a checkvalve.