Estes A10-3T

CATO's of engines D power or less
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Date of incident; Engine Type; Batch Code; Weather information; Extent of Damage
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#1 Estes A10-3T

Post by Commander »

originally posted Sep 23, 2015 by Commander on the original forum
Date: 9/20/15
Manufacturer: Estes
Engine Type: A10-3T
Batch no. A051512

I went out to launch a couple of rockets this past weekend and was thinking of which engine to use in the AMRAAM. I keep a list in Excel of all my motors. Each motor type is also broken down into the batch nos. for that type. Well one of the batches in the A10-3T was highlighted in yellow. I opened the comments for that cell and I had previously entered that one of the engines had a blow through. When I pushed the button, the rocket (a Mini Bomarc on that occasion) jumped off the pad to a height of about 10 to 15 meters, then the nose cone popped off with force and the rocket fell to the ground. The paint around the front area of the engine mount had "melted" and was cracking off the tube and the tube was mis-formed.
So I had just finished repairing the AMRAAM from its last mishap and decided to check two things with one launch. So of course I loaded one of the engines from the questionable batch.

Almost the same thing happened. The rocket went up 10- 15 meters, the nose cone popped and the rocket came down in two pieces (with something else I didn't track going off to the side). A little different damage was done this time, but I am almost positive the engine gave the same performance as before. The nose cone and parachute separated from the rest of the rocket, but not because of a broken shock cord or anything like that, it separated because the engine block at the front of the motor mount was blown out the front of the rocket. The motor casing was the object I didn't track as it was not in the rocket. I don't believe the engine block just failed allowing the casing to shoot out the front of the rocket for two reasons. 1) the front portion of the engine hook was still in it's original position (unbent) and 2) the trajectory of the untracked object was not consistent with that occurrence.
Commander
Starport Sagitta
NAR No.97971
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#2 Re: Estes A10-3T

Post by Commander »

originally posted Nov 06, 2015 by MyGypsy on the original forum

I recently had an A10-3T blow through as well. This one destroyed an Estes Hi-Flier. The lot number was A010413.
Dennis Wright
NAR #98975
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