Hi Bob,

I've always had respect for them because I used to participate in a
high-school rocket contest and I saw ALL kinds of dangerous things happen
(mostly due to crazy stunts, and not the inherent risk of the engines, I
must admit). Thank God, no one ever was hurt.

Yes, it was a standard Estes C6-5. I've never seen this happen, either.
Only other explosion I remember was an air-burst, but I don't remember what
kind of engine.

I don't have any experience in judging what is a safe distance. It actually
lifted off and went halfway up the rod before bursting. All I can say is
that it sent burning pieces of debris about 5 feet away horizontally, shot
something burning brightly (a piece of the engine?) in an arc which was
about 50 feet high, and managed to tear one leg off the launch pad and
damage another leg, leaving the pad laying horizontally on the ground. It
also spooked some cows which were a couple hundred feet away <VBEG>. Myself
and the other guy were about 15 feet away, and I'm glad we were no closer.

As you can tell, I'm excited to have caught it on video :-) Can't wait to
get it up on my site!

Sean

At 10:43 PM 1/18/01 -0500, you wrote:
> > and on the second test, the engine exploded on the pad
>
>Wow, was this a standard ESTES engine?
>
>Never heard of that happening before.
>
>Just curious, what would you say the blast radius was (ie: how close could I
>have been without getting hurt). I ask because I always have to argue with
>people to stay well clear of my model launches and they laugh when they
>see/hear the little pfffffffft of the engine.
>
>Bob Ammerman
>RAm Systems
>(contract development of high performance, high function, low-level
>software)
>
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