Welcome to my Rocketry Photo Album!

Miscellaneous Photos

Cato (Catastrophic failure of a model rocket motor)

This section serves several purposes.  One, well, it's just cool to see pictures like this.  More importantly, it shows clearly that even with the most catastrophic failure of a model rocket motor that their design greatly reduces the personal hazard in such an event.   These pictures show how the explosive forces are directed fore and aft (effectively destroying the model) but preserves the integrity of the engine housing, preventing hot gasses, fire and shrapnel from being propelled into the audience.

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	...imagine, if you will, a D12-3 moments after ignition, when... I captured this shot quite by accident when the *boom* and concussion of the kato'd motor caused my finger to twitch on the shutter button (I am SO glad of that! :-)  Oh, and that's Chris Travaris's hat in the lower part of the pic *S* I can't recall who's this is, but it was at a NEMROC launch and may have been Len Feshkins (Len, was this yours??)
	Someones small sport model goes up on a cato'd B motor too close to my Maxi-Transport for my tastes....
	One of my sport models suffers heartburn at the hands of a D12
	Now, and E BP motor in a fat, slow, draggy styrofoam rocket with a large crowd of onlookers... THAT's something to remember...  Needless to say, styrofoam rockets don't fair as well with a cato'd motor...
	Interesting shot of an Estes Titan III during a D12 cato.  You can see the payload secion with attached parachute and the two balls of recovery wadding in this nice stop-action shot

Copyright, ©2000, James M. Flis