WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2007-01-09 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
[I happen to be on course this week. It caught me off guard – my bosses had changed some arrangements for the 2 weeks I was away for Xmas and for Richard’s funeral. So the next thing I knew I was late and dashing off for a course.
As always happens at these places one runs into a whole gamut of people, but one guy caught me somewhat off guard. He is in computers but then mentioned that he started out life studying chemistry at university. His hobby is experimenting with fuel, and the device he experiments with, which gives him the biggest kick (literally!), is building rockets.
I learned a bunch of things which really fascinated me. He was telling me that he would build rockets of approximately 1 foot in length made out of hardened cardboard. But he said that he has built bigger rockets including a 2 stage rocket (but the 2nd stage misfired). On his larger rockets he even puts in an altimeter to measure the acceleration, height, etc.
His record height as measured by his onboard altimeter is: 4,000 ft!
You can shoot an aircraft down with that thing I told him! Damned right he said. He was telling me that it is illegal to build rockets made out of metal because they could bring down an aircraft. But, he said it is legal to build a fibreglass rocket – and going at the speeds at which they do, if they hit anything, they’ll do serious damage.
He was telling me that he could build a small 1 foot long rocket for about R30 (less than US$5). He said that one of his homemade rockets could reach a height of 2,000 ft in about 2 seconds!
He would build his rockets and fire them out in a field and film it. He hasn’t built any rockets in more than 6 months, and it is a tedious business. But he was telling me that his fascination was the fuel and he was experimenting with all kinds of fuels and mixes.
Of course the rockets can go wrong. His rockets all have parachutes so that when they reach their maximum height the parachutes deploy – but they don’t always do that!!! Sometimes they crash into the ground. One rocket was blown sideways when he launched it and the fin hit the side of the launchpad causing it to fly horizontally at a hell of a speed for a tremendous distance.
I asked him why he still had all his limbs and why he had never had an accident!!! He told me that he did spend some time working in a laboratory and there he learned safety techniques and methods of controlling mixtures and temperatures exactly because building rockets is actually dangerous. Very dangerous! He was explaining how he would melt the fuel and then compact it because all his rockets were solid fuel rockets, but, if you can’t control the temperatures EXACTLY, the fuel could explode. He said one of his secrets was an oil heater rather than a stove because one can control temperatures more exactly with that.
He was telling me that now you can get a small camera on a memory stick, which can also do a video recording, and he wants to put such a little camera, which costs about R390 ($56) in as a payload in one of his rockets so that it actually films its flight!!
I found the discussion utterly fascinating. He told me there are rocket clubs in S.Africa but he does not belong to them because they restrict you too much in terms of the fuels you can use, etc – which is exactly what he is experimenting with.
Also, it is surprising how little fuel his rockets use! I think it is illegal to fire a rocket with more than 1/2 litre of fuel. But he told me that even with tiny amounts of fuel, it is amazing how far the rockets will travel.
The next fuel he was thinking of playing with is very similar to those fertiliser BOMBS that people have built!
Its amazing the kicks people get out of this stuff. I’ve seen film footage of American amateur rocket builders and those guys do amazing stuff. They have rockets that fly almost to the edge of space which they build at their homes and fire off in the desert.
It is the first time I have heard of people building rockets in South Africa. He was telling me how he designs and builds his own rocket engines and tests them, etc. He said to me that if you know how, you can build the rocket fuels using ordinary household chemicals and that most of these solid rocket fuels require a large amount of suger/glucose in the mixture.
I found it all quite amazing. He said he has film footage of a rocket of his which exploded like the one space shuttle. I have asked him for it. I hope he keeps his promise.
The Palestinians I think also build their own rockets which they fire at the Israelis! But those are much bigger things. Jan]