I once saw a picture of a kangaroo firing two small missles. Is this legal? Is there a law against it?
Rusty

I don't know of any laws against it, but it is a violation of the AMA safety code.

yes i saw that pic too. i think he probably was doing it at a desert (thats what i t looked like) i ythink it was on the simjet site, um.... i don't think its illegal, but it is againest the AMA rules

Correct, not illegal but is against ama rules....

I think this launch took place in Sedona, Arizona. I remember seeing this photo before.

Forgetting about laws and rules for a second...

...anyone know how the ignition system worked? Is it just a pair of small Estes powered rockets with a servo to push the launch button? As I remember them, the igniters had less than perfect reliability...

I once saw a guy launching bottle rockets from a glider. The guy was short a few bricks of a full load though, shorting his RX battery through a wire to ignite. As you might expect the model crashed (badly) with radio problems and the guy never showed up art the field again... but hey, he did launch one successfully...

Kelly

www.variousa.com has rocket and wailer launchers .. look under the accessory section of the big airwolf ....



WOjtek

I did it off of glow powered planes back around 1979 or so. We just loaded a bunch of D cells in a plane and used Estes igniters. Worked very well. We did have issues at first. The igniters worked well on the ground, but would never light the engine in flight. We just added a few more battery cells and it worked fine.

BMFA says something about it being illegal to launch fireworks from a model plane.
a mate of mine taped a rocket onto the back of a model plane a few years ago, he got the engine running and the airplane ready to fly and i lit the rocket with a cigarette, the airplane took off just as the rocket lit, all went well until we realised that the payload on the firework rocket was a big banger.......the tail end of the airplane was blown clean off! one nice flat spin into the ground and the airplane was black bagged, funny is not the word for it, we we're wetting ourselves!

it's a great way of wasting unwanted model airplanes even if it is illegal.

I get a kick out of that good old British since of humor.....

I've always thought RPV rocket / bomb "targeting contests" would be a way to step up the level competition at our Jet Rally's and be a barrel of fun at the same time. I suppose the DOD/FAA/ and the AMA and now DHS might not appreciate the idea.... in the same way we would....
Lee H. DeMary
AMA

Lee, i'd love there to be a contest like this or even just a fun fly shooting stuff from planes.

yeah thats my sense of humour, i once bolted a KJ66 to a model car, it went like crazy.

I guess this proves we are just kids at heart ---- maybe we all should of -- made our home in the armed forces of our countries, then played with the big boys full time........ Oh well
Lee

Though I've never tried releasing anything from an R/C airplane, I did use "live" payload several times on my rockets.

Did you know that geckos could probably fly to the moon! They would make excellent astronauts, and their family doesn't care if things just don't work out during the mission.

Next: Could my Cocker Spaniel sustain 9 G's on my R/C F-16?
Actual cockpit footage coming soon.

A buddy of mine and I won the science fair at my school and went on to the Maryland State Science Fair in 1971/1972 with a project where we launched guppies and small white mice in some model rockets. The very first mouse shot we miscalculated the engine required. We boosted the panicky little guy with a D engine with too short a delay charge. It was still going up like a bat out of hell when the chute came out. It ripped clean off and the !QUOT!payload!QUOT! container fell earthward. In the HUGE 40 acre or so field we were launching from, there was but a single two lane road. Murphy's law was in effect and the damn thing landed smack dab in the middle of one lane of traffic, on the hard concrete. We ran up expecting a smear of blood to be that that was left of our brave Mousonaut. All of the cars were going around him and he was fine, wiggling around, happy as can be. Ahh the bliss of ignorance. We proceeded to boost him towards the heavens many times more. Based on that, I'd say the average white mouse can take 400 or so Gs without a G-suit.

Sounds like something Eddie Weeks would do. (Today)

Woketman
PLEASE do NOT tell us anymore stories like that, i nearly passed out laughing so much..........ok, just another one then.

i have heard that snails have homing instincts, last year i tested this theory by painting snails and catapulting the 'pilots' over the fence to land 2 gardens away, none have returned from their 'mission' as of yet, this may be down to the grass actually being greener in the next door neighbours garden or failure on landing / re-entry.

maybe next time i'll build them mini parachutes.

Paul, please tell us that you AT LEAST equipped your Cosmosnails with landing bags like the recent JPL Mars landers.

Perhaps there was a design flaw in all bags and they failed to inflate upon atmospheric interface during entry into the neighbors yard.

Perhaps they hit a radial flow turbine wheel. We hear there's a lot of them in your area

Wocketman, air bags? sod that, thought snails we're supposed to be hard.
the neighbours have grass in their gardens so i think they all made it, launch number 20 was interesting as that one was painted white.
i kept an eye out in the local papers for some weird story about an albeno snail but never saw anything.
maybe next time i'll print out some logos and stick them to their shells, that'll be interesting, maybe if i glued a toy soldier to the shells that'll get them noticed.
we're all crazy in the UK but thats probably due to us all living in castles

Its not jet-related but... I think there's an old thread in the RCU SPAD forum that shows a group of guys playing target practice with a bunch of SPADs and an anti-aircraft gun. The planes were pretty hard to hit apparently.

A friend at work is designing a 2-axis turret with a paint ball gun. He's got stepper motors on each axis driven by electronics out of an automated printing machine (what we make for a living), and a video camera to track the target. He's a firmware guy... He says he's got the software working with a primitive 'prediction' routine to interpolate where the gun should shoot based on the trajectory of the aircraft, knowing that the paintball will take some time to get there. If the aircraft radically changes course the software is suppose to compensate and keep firing. Hopefully he's got it ready for this summer's combat meets... Adding a some surface-to-air fire would make a 6 or 8-man combat round that much better!

Kelly W

A few years back I offered up my beat up Combat R/C plane for target practice at the local club. We shot at it with potato guns and paint balls. The only time it could ever be hit is when I flew it at a high idle five feet in front of the shooter. Its really cool to see it take a direct hit from a high velocity spud, get the crap knocked out of it, get knocked five feet sideways and then keep flying!

I bet you guys play with Gerbils and empty toilet paper rolss as well! [X(]

i shot up my 80" cap and 30 sized airwolf with paintballs ... tons of fun !!! especially with my fully automatic gun !! (10 shots per sec ! ) i wish i got it on video , here is what was left of the heli ...


Wojtek

David, you and Mark are the only ones here talking about rodents. I aint' touching that one...

Shooting at a helis? Man, there's a fun way to burn cash in a hurry. Why not go a little further and freeze a few paintballs before loading up...

Kelly W

It is my understanding that is against federal law to launch any rocket propelled device by and remote means (i.e. flipping a switch on your transmitter). It is of course permissable to lauch by means of using a connected ignited with long wires.




Ted V.

why would you shoot you helo when you could give it you me? [&o] lol, you guys are crazy, sounds like lots of fun, i once saw a site about some guys making a guided bomb for there scale F-16. i think it was laser guided. if you guys have a link i'd like to see it, it's be fun to put one on the top of a rocket and put an M-80 in their! i'd point that lazer at a transformer a couple of miles away. lmao that'd create a rukus! my and a few friends once taped a golf ball to a crad board roll and tape a C6-5 in it, launched it side ways. it flew all the way to a high way where it hit a car, than got ran over be another and exploded when it got ran over. i can't remember the last time i've run THAT fast. i tell i i was going faster than that rocket! lmao have fun guys, but be safe NOT LIKE ME! lmao!