Urgent Safety Warning for Air Command

[Tim Chen]

I was thinking about what might happen if someone were to make a flour fuelled rocket and it burst on the launch pad. Would there be enough energy to cause the flour to ignite? It sounds like a pretty dangerous situation to have compressed air and a combustible mixing like that.

I'm not a chemist and I was also wondering if compressing air would make the oxygen more dense and therefore would cause combustibles to burn more readily. In any case think of what might happen if you were filling a rocket full of powder with air and it made a cloud of dust inside the rocket and then a static spark were to be created by the air blowing dust around. The whole rocket could explode like a pipe bomb and make a huge cloud of dust that would get touched off by the primary explosion resulting in a tremendous pyrotechnic display.

Under controlled circumstances it would be pretty cool, but I bet it would be considered a pipebomb and you'd be in deep trouble. I think flammable fuel needs to be explicitly forbidden.

[Cloud Dancers]

I stick to my opinion that this was not a experiment to further the science of water rocketry. If it was then he would have contributed to the forum about it prior to launching. This was a publicity stunt. He was hoping to make one of those (viral videos) on youtube to drive up traffic on his personal website so that he could peddle his "flight computers" or whatever else he has "borrowed" from this forum or other places on the web.

He has had a history of this in the past along with slack safety standards for his flight crew.

Think of him as the "used car salesman" of water rocketry. and you will understand him.

[Cloud Dancers]

I was thinking about what might happen if someone were to make a flour fuelled rocket and it burst on the launch pad. Would there be enough energy to cause the flour to ignite? It sounds like a pretty dangerous situation to have compressed air and a combustible mixing like that.

I'm not a chemist and I was also wondering if compressing air would make the oxygen more dense and therefore would cause combustibles to burn more readily. In any case think of what might happen if you were filling a rocket full of powder with air and it made a cloud of dust inside the rocket and then a static spark were to be created by the air blowing dust around. The whole rocket could explode like a pipe bomb and make a huge cloud of dust that would get touched off by the primary explosion resulting in a tremendous pyrotechnic display.

Under controlled circumstances it would be pretty cool, but I bet it would be considered a pipebomb and you'd be in deep trouble. I think flammable fuel needs to be explicitly forbidden.

I agree Tim,
Flammible fuel belongs in pyro rocketry under their safety rules and regulations.

Another thing that was not considered is what would happen if the nozzle clogged with the powder before all the fuel was expended and the rocket flew up 100 feet and came down with half the fuel still inside. Can you say "falling rock". It would only take a little humidity to cause that.