Examination of the future is still difficult, but I’m starting to make a little progress. I have just a few more weeks in April to analyze before I have my outline of events for the year 2018. I hope to get that done soon.
The work on design of liquid-fueled rocked engines is going slow, but I made a little bit of progress. I got through the fuel and oxidizer flow rates, which is where I gave up the last time I worked on this. Now I’m working on calculations for the combustion chamber and nozzle. Copying the necessary equations into a word processor is excessively tedious, but I need to do this to document my work before I run the numbers.
I paid out a while ago for GURPS Vehicle Builder, which was supposed to aid and simplify the design process. As a writer working with simulations, this gives me a reasonably plausible ballpark estimates for what might be practical to try to actually design. I can only apply it to the real world with great caution, but it is giving me some preliminary ballpark figures. After a couple of hours figuring out how to use it, I established that liquid rocket fueled engines with extreme low values of thrust (below 2 lbs) are probably impractical, even for hobbyists. I need a lot more information about radio control and instrumentation before I can write convincingly about the design program. A few years ago, I make inquiries about the local model rocketry club, which was going through some difficulties. With my revival of interest in the subject, I would like too attend the next launch.