The largest amateur rocket ever built, at over 46′ tall, weighing in at 617 pounds, will attempt its first flight next weekend at the Thunda Down Under rocketry meet in Australia. This impressive-looking 1:1 scale replica of a V2 was created by the “rocket junkies” at the Rocket Victoria club. The team has been building up to this launch, first flying a 1:10 scale V2, then a 1:4, each time experimenting with lightweight body construction and other innovations. For the 1:1 vehicle, they settled on a radical aluminum frame skinned in shaped foam panels. This is the first time this construction technique has been used on a large scale rocket and the group hopes the lightweight, but sturdy design will launch their baby into the record books. The rocket will be powered by a single Cesaroni O motor with 25,000 Newton-seconds of thrust (similar to a Sidewinder missile).
Good luck to the Rocket Victoria team next weekend. The launch will be recorded, so hopefully we’ll be able to share in the excitement.
11 thoughts on “This Is The Biggest Amateur Rocket Ever Built”
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What could possibly go wrong???
germany called, they want their V2 rocket back! :P
Hardhats seem in order.
Best of luck to them! This sort of envelope-pushing is what the hobby is all about. It’s great when it works and we learn something when it doesn’t.
BTW, I think you meant 25,000 Newton-seconds of impulse with that “O” motor, not 25,000 N of thrust. 25,000 Newtons is nearly 6,000 lbs and would probably launch the center tube of that rocket right through the nose like it wasn’t even there, leaving the rest behind. Depending on which “O” motor it is (25,000 is actually at the low end of the “O” range) it’s probably more like 5,000 Newtons for 5 seconds, hence the 25,000 N-sec. That’s still over 1,000 lbs and a formidable motor.
Yes. You are absolutely right, Jack. My bad. Actually, their bad. I got that from their website. I’ll make that correction.
Thanks. Sometimes I just can’t take my editor’s hat off :-)
BTW, your last name is remarkably close to my daughter’s first name, Bronwyn. Welsh?
Hi Jack,
The motor that we used has a burn time of 1.3 seconds giving us total impulse of almost 31000Ns. Its one aggressive motor and it worked beautifully. Stats on the motor available at thrustcurve.org
The rocket is set up on-site. After getting it all together, a huge windstorm came through and they had to lash it down. The rocket is OK. Launch is scheduled for tomorrow, weather permitting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzcxEXHdHx0
for some reason I was expecting something that big to go a little higher.
Here’s a time-lapse of the assembly on the pad – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltgw70poVN0