Hi Hawkmoon; Re: "But without the ability to carry a significant warhead, as well as the proximity fuzing technology, it's like my old fixed cat. He'd get himself all wound up and in position, but when he had the "target" where he wanted it, he couldn't make an "impact". :0)"
(1) The amount of explosives required to destroy or damage an aircraft depends on how close the explosion is to the aircraft. Before you assume that it's not possible to have a lightweight missile put down an aircraft, you might take note that in Mogadishu, the Somalians used RPGs to shoot down five modern US military Blackhawk helicopters. An RPG-7 round weighs about 5 pounds, which should be far less than the amount that an amateur rocketeer can easily move around.
(2) Direct hits on slow moving targets are fairly simple with antiaircraft missiles. The lighter you make the missile the more responsive it can be, and the more likely that it can pull off a direct hit. With direct hits, you frequently don't even need to have a warhead. It is not uncommon for the warhead on an antiaircraft missile to explode too early, leaving the target unscathed, but in the event of a direct hit, the missile body then frequently destroys the aircraft. If you look around the net, you should find accounts of this sort of thing.
(3) At impact, the remaining rocket fuel creates an explosion. The weight of rocket fuel in an amateur rocket can easily exceed the amount of explosives in an RPG. Maybe you don't realize how big these rockets are. Amateur rocket engines are sold by letter classification. Each letter denotes an increase in size of a factor of two. The engines from our youth were A thru E size, with total impulses of up to 40 newton-seconds, and were more like 4th of July bottle rockets than real rocket engines. Here's an order form for a "M" size reloadable engine that achieves 9,600 newton-seconds and carries 9.5 pounds of propellant at takeoff.
kosdon.com
lunar.org
Larger engines are avaiable. For example, if 9.5 pounds of (explosively burning) propellant isn't enough, you can go to this model with nearly 17 pounds of propellant, from Kosdon's competitor, Aerotech:
aerotech-rocketry.com
The instructions should make interesting reading:
High-Power RMS
Reloadable Motor System
RMS 98/15360
...
DO NOT SMOKE when loading these motors or use in the vicinity of open flames.
...
aerotech-rocketry.com
If that still isn't enough for you, why don't you take two of those 17 pound rocket engines and make a two stage monster with 34 pounds of propellant. I doubt that you'll need to put a warhead on it.
To put this into perspective, the airliner at Lockerbie was knocked out of the air with less than 1 pound of explosives:
news.bbc.co.uk
I realize that amateur rocketry requires permits, but the permits are probably fairly easy to fake / obtain. And that doesn't really matter. If you simply examine the instructions for rocket reloading that I give above, it will become perfectly obvious that there is zero high tech knowledge that went into the design of the thing. The primary attribute of the companies that make these toys is probably an ability to operate without liability insurance, rather than rocket scientists. So if 34 pounds of propellant is still too small of a rocket to interest you, it's simple to scale it up. If you doubt my word on this, I'll be happy to post some links showing amateur built rockets with larger motors (but not available commercially).
-- Carl |
