My life in Sounding Rockets
Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2016 3:05 pm
Hey, don't complain, you light the touchpaper and they go upwards (mostly) so it must be an experience in aviation, right ?
Sounding rockets, for them what don't known, are whacking great solid-fuel missiles that when fired straight up for oh, one hundred miles or so, use an instrument package on the nose to look around at the edge-of-space environment, record readings, and then parachute the instrument package back to earth. Unbent, mostly.
A load of such missiles delivered to my former employer and transported to the sounding range in Sardinia were found to have corroded multi-pin connectors on the external power/instrument package link. This plug - think a huge SCART plug - is held into the side of the sounding rocket against two springs, which try and eject it - this is prevented by a pyrotechnic device which fires shortly before motor ignition, the springs eject the connector, the cable falls away, and up she goes. Needless to say if the cable/connector isn't ejected and the motor fires, all sorts of Interesting things happen. Not the least of which is that the sounding rocket tries to drag the launch pad into space behind it (and fails).
It would have cost a fortune to change all the multi pin-connectors, so an alternative solution was found. This consisted of approaching an elderly and unemployed man in the village and asking him to stand next to the sounding rocket with his ear pressed against the side: when he heard relays click and various pumps starting to spin up - and this was explained to him in great detail - followed by shouts over the PA of "get the f*ck out of there you silly old c*nt" - he was to give the connector a massive kick and when it ejected, to throw himself down the gantry steps, following which he should run as quickly as possible (for him) and then when he saw his shadow in front of him outlined by a brilliant light, throw himself face down and hug the ground. For this he was paid a packet of fags and a half- bottle of whiskey per launch.
All worked very well, until he broke his leg, which halved his running speed on subsequent launches.
Sounding rockets, for them what don't known, are whacking great solid-fuel missiles that when fired straight up for oh, one hundred miles or so, use an instrument package on the nose to look around at the edge-of-space environment, record readings, and then parachute the instrument package back to earth. Unbent, mostly.
A load of such missiles delivered to my former employer and transported to the sounding range in Sardinia were found to have corroded multi-pin connectors on the external power/instrument package link. This plug - think a huge SCART plug - is held into the side of the sounding rocket against two springs, which try and eject it - this is prevented by a pyrotechnic device which fires shortly before motor ignition, the springs eject the connector, the cable falls away, and up she goes. Needless to say if the cable/connector isn't ejected and the motor fires, all sorts of Interesting things happen. Not the least of which is that the sounding rocket tries to drag the launch pad into space behind it (and fails).
It would have cost a fortune to change all the multi pin-connectors, so an alternative solution was found. This consisted of approaching an elderly and unemployed man in the village and asking him to stand next to the sounding rocket with his ear pressed against the side: when he heard relays click and various pumps starting to spin up - and this was explained to him in great detail - followed by shouts over the PA of "get the f*ck out of there you silly old c*nt" - he was to give the connector a massive kick and when it ejected, to throw himself down the gantry steps, following which he should run as quickly as possible (for him) and then when he saw his shadow in front of him outlined by a brilliant light, throw himself face down and hug the ground. For this he was paid a packet of fags and a half- bottle of whiskey per launch.
All worked very well, until he broke his leg, which halved his running speed on subsequent launches.