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By: - 19th December 2009 at 14:36 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I certainly had a few 'rockets' from various CFI's etc LOL :D
In my latter days of gliding mostly for low approaches in the YS53 ,they did not appreciate how cr@p the airbrakes were,one end of our field was a little cramped and I needed to stop before getting to the the down slope (guess what...the wheelbrake was cr@p as well LOL)
I have never heard of a 'civvy' rocket launch though,but it sure is a good question AA
rgds baz
By: - 19th December 2009 at 18:20 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I once knew this chap once called Thody Fisher, unfortunately now passed away.
He was a life time Aero engineer, a regular genius, with a string of hi tech projects on his CV i.e. Vulcan, 730, Blue Steel, 188, Bloodhound 2, a really hush hush thing in Aus (Black Knight??), Sea Dart, Rapier, and Concorde.
He once told me that when he was working on the Rapier rocket motor with BAJ approx early 70's, he did a small study (not sure if it was official or not) as to the viability of using a slightly modified rapier motor to launch a glider. From this he told me the glider would have been airborne within it own fuselage length, then would have to rotate immediately to 70 deg + nose up, at just below Vne, to approx 2500ft. He reckoned it a perfectly viable if a little scary. But the problem was the cost, which even then @ 1970's prices was into the many hundreds of £ a go.
By: - 19th December 2009 at 18:40 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Maybe I ought to approach the BGA and see if it can shed light on this. It could be that the category was included more in hope than expectation - unless, in the mid 1970s, the BGA had got wind of a cache of Me 163s, which had been stored in the same hangar in China as the Stirling, coming to the UK! . Perhaps it's surprising that rather than an R category, there was not a J category. I'll have to go away and prepare a few preliminary sketches for my JATO self launching Slingsby Cadet!
By: - 20th December 2009 at 00:21 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Not being a glider person, when I saw this I just had to google this.....lol
I did find this pic showing such a launch :eek:
http://www.pointvista.com/WW2GliderPilots/UnusualGliderDesigns/RocketAssistGlider.jpg
By: - 20th December 2009 at 14:40 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
It's interesting what you learn when given a catalyst which results in an hour or so of web sleuthing!
Sadly I can find nothing more on the Pratt-Reed rocket launched sailplane beyond the picture which hunterxf382 posted. Maybe it was a shortlived experiment and the glider then reverted to a more traditional existence.
The Pratt-Reed was far from being the first glider to use rocket power for self launching. This accolade appears to belong to a German Lippisch Ente, to which rocket pods were added. Sadly one of these exploded and the subsequent fire saw the end of this innovator.
The Lippisch Ente was the trail blazer (if you'll excuse the pun!) for the Opel RAK.1. This was produced by the German car manufacturer at around the same time as it was experimenting with rocket powered cars.
The Russians seem to have got in on the act with the Korolev RP-318. The photos and drawings of this suggest a traditional sailplane design with a small rocket unit installed in the extreme rear fuselage, venting at the tail cone, and the propulsant being located in the rear cockpit. The only web information relating to this is in French and I could not undertake a full translation before bering called to lunch!
There is, of course, the DFS-228 but I don't think that this qualifies in the rocket assisted launch category. Apparently this was towed to 33000 feet, at which height it dropped the tow and used rocket propulsion to boost itself to 75000 feet before gliding back home.
But the bottom line is that I cannot imagine that the BGA had any of these oddities in mind when, in 1977, it printed my log book and made reference to "rocket assisted" as a "type of launch" that I might encounter in the UK!
By: - 20th December 2009 at 18:08 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I guess it was a historic thing,I never had a BGA logbook but from memory,this one was identical layout
Or was the BGA logbook worded 'bungee' instead of 'catapult' ?
I never did a rocket or bungee launch but I suppose 3 out of 5 aint bad :D
By: - 20th December 2009 at 18:38 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Yep, baz, the 'instructions for use' are almost exactly the same in my log book - save only that paragraph 7 refers to the Royal Aero Club and the Association of British Aero Clubs rather than the Department of Civil Aviation. But I'm not willing to scan and post the same two pages from my log book in view of some of the instructors' remarks about my early flights!
By: - 20th December 2009 at 19:08 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
But I'm not willing to scan and post the same two pages from my log book in view of some of the instructors' remarks about my early flights!
Spoilsport :D
That was my 2nd logbook.
Always interesting to look at other peoples logbooks,I dont have my old ATC F3822 for my early flights (got lost years ago) but luckily had copied them into my 1st 'proper' logbook.
No 'elfnsafety in '69 and it is sobering to see I went solo after 21 launches (3 of them were AEF!) on a fragmented weekend course,spookily enough when I started flying in Zim in '83 I took 21 again to solo in a 'Blanket'.
What about the 'catapult' launch in my casa book...is the bga one written as 'bungee',I have a vague memory of a slight difference.
rgds baz
By: - 23rd December 2009 at 17:32 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I once knew this chap once called Thody Fisher, unfortunately now passed away.He was a life time Aero engineer, a regular genius, with a string of hi tech projects on his CV i.e. Vulcan, 730, Blue Steel, 188, Bloodhound 2, a really hush hush thing in Aus (Black Knight??), Sea Dart, Rapier, and Concorde.
He once told me that when he was working on the Rapier rocket motor with BAJ approx early 70's, he did a small study (not sure if it was official or not) as to the viability of using a slightly modified rapier motor to launch a glider. From this he told me the glider would have been airborne within it own fuselage length, then would have to rotate immediately to 70 deg + nose up, at just below Vne, to approx 2500ft. He reckoned it a perfectly viable if a little scary. But the problem was the cost, which even then @ 1970's prices was into the many hundreds of £ a go.
In communication with Wally Kahn, he mentioned that he had known Thoby Fisher. Of him he said:
"For the historical record he was Kitty Wills's brother, i.e. Philip Wills's brother-in-law. In his youth he worked for a time at Slingsby Sailplanes. When I knew him in the late 40's he was working for Dowty in Cheltenham. He owned an Olympia which I was allowed to fly at Staverton in 1948. A very nice guy, very gentle."
He had more to say on the subject of rocket assisted launches. I'll post his input on the subject later on this evening.
By: - 23rd December 2009 at 21:25 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Now on the subject, generally, of rocket assisted launchs of gliders, Wally Kahn expressed the following views:
"How very fascinating! It just shows - you live with something but never question. Looking back in my log books I see that "R - Rocket assisted' was in my first log book in December 1945. The entry survived through the brown card cover log books , through the bright green 4 shillings (Londonderry House) of 1958 but is not shown in the light green one (Kimberley House) in 1979. (These dates are only my own and do not reflect when the changes were made.
Equally noteworthy is that from my first log book in 1945 until the one of 1955, the inside front cover has other interesting material -
"This log book should be kept up to date and should be produced when obtaining a Ministry of Civil Aviation Gliding Licence or renewal, alteration or extension of an existing Licence." (As far as I know since WW II no such licence existed or do I know of one before the war).
Further information was required - "Particulars of all civil flying licences held" and " Past Experience - Civil and Military (both power and gliding).
I suggest that the Ministry of Civil Aviation had a lot to do with the original logbooks - hence these entries.
As far as rocket launches are concerned I remember the late lamented slightly mad Walter Neumark of the inflatable glider fame was keen to try rocket launches but as far as I know nothing ever came of it. In the 50's a totally nutty RAE Farnborough boffin tried to persuade us (Surrey Club at Redhill) to build his steam assisted rocket launching scheme. Regretfully little men in white coats took him away soon after. We never saw him again."
I suspect that I can add no more on the subject - not even if I succumb to scanning and posting the early entries in my BGA log book - so I must pass the baton to others!
By: - 23rd December 2009 at 22:02 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Spoilsport :D
Always interesting to look at other peoples logbooks,
Well baz, I'm still not prepared to scan those pages of my log book - perhaps you can understand why if I quote one of the instructor's remarks:
"Let me know when you next intend to fly - I'll notify the authorities so that they can issue the appropriate NOTAM".
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is ..................................!
By: - 23rd December 2009 at 22:15 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Hmmm...you must have had some pretty bad instructors to write stuff like that,a fair bit of my early flying was ATC but I dont have any stuff like that in either of my logbooks.
I am still of the opinion that the rocket launch classification would have been a military based thing,possibly the early gliding logbooks were heavily based on miltary jargon.
I know we used to have a laugh about the 'R' ....
but it was a good question of yours.
rgds baz
By: - 23rd December 2009 at 22:48 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
...............or I was a b****y awful pupil. On reflection, I think that this is nearer to the mark!
By: - 24th December 2009 at 18:18 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I knew there was footage of von opels 1928 rocket glider flight,found it tonight...video starts at 3.00ish.
Good job the smoke trail hid his landing :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEyf1KFgE-o
sod that for a game of soldiers...looks even dodgier than hang gliding LOL
edit ...light the blue touch paper and retire immediately :D
By: - 24th December 2009 at 18:29 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Jet Powered Hang Glider
as a little aside...here is a completely sane gentleman flying a Jet Powered Hang Glider...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AXuy2-YoQY
I am assuming Kemble is the venue ??
By: - 24th December 2009 at 21:21 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Good job the smoke trail hid his landing
Now if they'd had rocket assisted gliders when I learnt to fly, I suspect that this would have been another of the instructor's remarks in my log book!
By: - 28th February 2015 at 06:11 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
As often happens - found this article whilst searching something else -
From 1931 British Gliding Magazine -
PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS
The most important practical experiments with rocket- driven gliders were carried out at the Wasserkuppe by
Herr A. Lippisch and Hen F. Stamer. These experiments were started on the initiative of the late Herr Valier
(killed in the explosion of his rocket-car). Herr von OpeI
and Herr Sander. A detailed report of the experiments
has been issued by the R.R.G. on June 28. 1928.
During these experiments rocket-propulsion was tried
first on models and later on a full size machine. Herr
Stamer was the pilot and he found the rockets very use- ful when there were no up-currents available. Electric
ignition was used.
These experiments proved that rockets can be used
successfully for the purpose of propulsion of flying
machines but the rockets will have to be further improved.
During one of the experiments Herr Stamer's
machine caught fire while flying and the flames were only extinguished after landing.
CONCLUSIONS
The use of rockets for soaring machines should be care- fUlly considered, as it offers many advantages. With the
aid of a starting rocket the pilot can take off with his
machine without a starting crew or complicated starting equipment, thus the pilot could make one or two halts
during a lengthy cross-country flight. By means of slowburning
low-force rockets the pilot can gain height when
necessary and in this manner he may reach a place where
he can find a natural up-current. However, improved rockets are required. The weight
of the rockets must be small in order that the pilot can carry two or three starting, and five or six auxiliary, rockets. The rockets must be absolutely safe against ex- plosion or detonation. In this last respect much improvement
is required.
There are many other problems which have to be con- sidered such as the position of the rocket. This is largely governed by the centre of gravity of the aircraft, and also
by the danger of fire.
Experimenters should remember that the ordinary com- mercial rockets are not safe enough, Experiments should
only be undertaken with specially built rockets.
By: - 28th February 2015 at 12:11 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Here's a footnote that might interest some: I met Fritz Von Opel during the late 60s. He had a house built on the left side of the Gulf of St. Tropez, in the Med.
He'd recently become interested in sailing and had bought a multihull from the now defunct Prout Bros. Canvey Island, and was looking for crew to sail his boat in a very competitive race around Sardinia and Corsica called the Giraglia (don't know if that is the correct spelling).
From his house he had seen me sail into St. Tropez harbour from Antibes on another make of multihull, which gave him a clue that I might be experienced. Shortly after a chauffeur driven speedboat appeared alongside my vessel with an introduction and an invite to lunch. At that point, I'd never heard of Von Opel but, what a charming, companionable and friendly bloke !
He told me about his experiments with rocket powered cars and aircraft and how lucky he had been to escape long lasting physical damage. I don't know how old he was at that time, probably in his mid sixries but, he possessed tremendous energy. We sailed together numerous times and became good friends.
By: - 5th March 2015 at 15:45 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I dug out my BGA log book (of some vintage), because I wanted to check the longest duration flight made in the T.21C at Keevil,
Despite your 'best efforts' :D the glider in question is still around. It was sold to The Netherlands, then almost destroyed when the canopy blew open on launch and the glider hit a dune trying to make it back to the airfield. It was extensively rebuilt by new owners over a seven-year timespan, and is now flying again. Flew it last year. Lovely ship to fly, though visibility is exceedingly poor and aileron authority is somewhat sluggish. Climbs very well though.
Posts: 5,927
By: avion ancien - 19th December 2009 at 10:42
I dug out my BGA log book (of some vintage), because I wanted to check the longest duration flight made in the T.21C at Keevil, and as I was glancing at the notation to be used for 'type of launch' I noticed that the final category was "R - rocket assisted". Has anyone out there experienced a rocket assisted launch in a civil glider? Can anyone provide details of a method of rocket assisted launch utilised in the civil sector? Did the log book envisage a rocket powered self launching glider? If so did/does any such civil glider exist? Alternatively if it envisaged an external method of launching, powered by rocket, what might this have been?