Appendix A. Places to Buy Stuff or Find Information
This appendix lists sources of materials or information you need to make rockets.
Model Rocket Parts and Supplies
Here are some suppliers you’ll find useful.
Aero Pack, Inc.
http://aeropack.net/motorretainers.asp
Aero Pack is best known for a full line of motor retainers like the ones seen on every rocket in this book. These are available from many rocket part companies, as well as directly from Aero Pack. They also supply a number of hard-to-find items, like swivels and other recovery hardware, tail cones, and minimum diameter retainers.
AeroTech Consumer Aerospace
http://www.aerotech-rocketry.com
AeroTech manufactures rocket motors and reloads. While the company makes some of its own motors, it actually concentrates more on the reloads for reloadable motors. Many of the motors people refer to as AeroTech reloadable motors were originally built by a partner company called Rouse-Tech, which AeroTech later acquired.
“Building the AeroTech H128W-M” describes how to prepare and fly one of AeroTech’s motors.
Altus Metrum
Altus Metrum makes a series of altimeters, including the TeleMega 2 with GPS featured in “GPS”. Their website has free software and information about their offerings. The altimeters are available through other retailers, such as Apogee Components.
Apogee Components
Apogee Components sells both low- and high-power rocketry supplies, kits, and motors. They are a great resource for parts and kits and have a fantastic collection of technical reports and how-to guides. When you place a qualifying order, they send you CDs chock-full of them.
Apogee Components also markets RockSim, the most popular rocket simulator for model rocketry.
Cesaroni Technology Incorporated
http://www.cesaroni.net/solidrocket.php
CTI makes rocket motors, both for the high-power rocket community and for professional and military use. Their Pro-X® line of rocket motors appear throughout the book. You can find a detailed tear down of their H163-14A in “Building the Cesaroni H163-14A”.
Estes Industries
The 800-pound gorilla of the low-power model rocket world, Estes Industries has been around since the dawn of model rocketry.
While you might think of Estes as only a low-power rocketry company, their Pro Series line of rockets work quite well with smaller high-power motors. Some of their kits would work well for a Level 1 certification flight.
You can frequently find Estes parts discounted through other retailers like Amazon. Their Pro Series kits are also available from some local retailers.
Featherweight Altimeters LLC
http://www.featherweightaltimeters.com
Featherweight Altimeters makes the Raven altimeter seen in Chapter 7.
Hobby Lobby
Hobby Lobby is one of the more reliable suppliers of rocketry supplies you are likely to find in your local area. While specialized hobby stores are great, they aren’t in smaller cities, and even in large ones they may be fairly far away. Hobby Lobby has a nice selection of rocket motors, launchers, igniters, recovery wadding, and rocket kits. While they mostly cater to low-power rocketry, they do carry the Estes Pro Series, which fly well on small H motors.
Best of all, they frequently offer 40% off coupons for a single item. Do a web search for “hobby lobby 40 off” to find the coupons.
LOC Precision
LOC Precision has a great selection of kits and supplies. It is one of the better places to look for heavy fiber (paper) body tubes. While most fliers switch to fiberglass for supersonic flight, these inexpensive, light tubes are great for most high-power rocketry.
LOC Precision was selected as the supplier for Callisto in Chapter 3.
Madcow Rocketry
https://www.madcowrocketry.com
Madcow Rocketry offers a wide selection of kits and parts for high-power rocketry. They have an especially good selection of fiberglass body tubes, couplers, and bulk plates.
Madcow Rocketry was selected as the supplier for Ganymede in Chapter 13.
PerfectFlite
PerfectFlite makes several altimeters, timers, and accessories. Their StratoLogger is shown in Chapter 8.
Prairie Twister Rocketry
http://ptrocketry.blogspot.com
Prairie Twister Rocketry builds and sells the cable cutter used for dual deployment in Chapter 7.
Pratt Hobbies, Inc.
Pratt Hobbies offers a selection of hobby products that are difficult to find from other sources, like launch controllers, ejection canisters, and the Microbeacon seen in Chapter 10.
Public Missiles Ltd.
PML provides a lot of basic rocketry supplies and kits, but they also create a wide selection of custom parts and accessories for high-power rocketry. It’s worth stopping by their site for both the common items and their unique ones.
PML is the supplier selected for Deimos in Chapter 6.
Wildman Rocketry
https://www.wildmanrocketry.com
Wildman Rocketry is one of the larger online retailers for high-power rocketry. You can find practically anything you need on their site, from fiberglass parts to motor reloads.
Wildman Rocketry is the supplier selected for Phobos in Chapter 6.
Clubs and Information Websites
Here are some websites for various clubs and other resources.
Author’s Website
http://www.byteworks.us/Byte_Works/Make_Rockets.html
Rocket simulation files for the rockets in this book are available from my website.
OpenRocket
http://openrocket.sourceforge.net
OpenRocket is a free rocket simulator that runs on Linux, macOS, or Windows. It started life as a thesis project. This website is the place to go for downloads, further information, or, if you are a programmer and inclined to help, to join the project team.
ThrustCurve.org
This site provides thrust curves for most commercially available motors. You can check plots of the thrust curves right on the site, allowing you to pick appropriate motors for a given liftoff weight. You can also download the motor data in common formats suitable for most rocket simulators. These formats use ASCII files to store the data, so you can open the files in any text editor to look at the raw data yourself.
General Supplies and Hardware
These companies can supply you with various tools and other items you’ll need.
Country Brook Design
http://www.countrybrookdesign.com
These folks sell nylon straps in all sorts of sizes and colors. They are a great source when you want to order larger quantities, and tend to be less expensive than other sources.