Patent GB-1408661-A (GB)
Title: Toy rocket motors and toy rockets
Inventor: GREEN CHARLES J
IPC: A63H27/26
Filed: 1973-02-24
Abstract: 1408661 Rocket propulsion ESTES INDUSTRIES Inc 24 Feb 1973 9152/73 Heading FIJ [Also in Divisions AS and A6 A toy rocket motor comprises a body defining a propellant cavity for receiving and holding a pressurized propellant fluid, the body having an aperture through a peripheral wall and a nozzle connected with the cavity, the body also including a pressure responsive means, e.g. a resilient diaphragm, which is arranged to project through and beyond the aperture and which scales the aperture, the pressure responsive means being movable relative to the aperture in response to pressure changes in the cavity. As shown, a toy rocket motor comprises an aluminium tubular body 60, Figs. 2 and 3 secured at its lower end to a charging and discharge nozzle 38 and closed at its top end by a cap 120. A transverse bulkhead 76 includes a first port 104 leading through a paper washer 100 to an upper chamber 128 below the cap 120, and a second port 89 venting the motor to atmosphere through a duct, &c. 92. A rocket body 12 surrounds and is spaced from the tubular body 60 of the motor, leaving at the top an annular gap containing a helical compression spring 28. A sleeve 24 (see also Figs. 1 and 8) at the lower end of a nose cone 14 of the rocket, is inserted into the annular gap between the rocket body 12 and motor body 60, compressing the spring 28. Holes 74 through the top end of the tubular body 60 are surrounded externally by the nose cone sleeve 24, and internally by a slit cylindrical resilient diaphragm 30. The tubular body 60 of the rocket is charged with a halogenated hydrocarbon from a container 48, Fig. 1, by depressing a valve lever 52. As pressure in the lower chamber 126 of the motor body 60 builds up, gas seeps through the port 104 and the paper washer 100, which is impervious to liquid, to the upper chamber 128 of the rocket, where pressure correspondingly increases, bulging the diaphragm 30 radially through the holes 74 so as to engage frictionally the surrounding sleeve 24. The body and the nose cone 12, 14 of the toy rocket are thus held together. The charged rocket is released from its launching pad 36 by unlatching a catch. A vertical wire 40 guides its initial movement. Gas under pressure is discharged through the nozzle 38, the pressure in the chambers 126, 128 falling. The port 104 acts as a bleed, retaining some pressure in the upper chamber 128 when the lower chamber 126 is almost restored to atmospheric pressure. The pressure in the upper chamber 128 by now has reduced to atmospheric, so that the diaphragm 30 is no longer bulged out through the holes 74 to retain the nose cone 14. The spring 28, Fig. 8, then separates the body and the nose cone, which remain connected only by a lanyard 130. A parachute 132, contained within the nose cone 14, opens to allow the body and the nose cone to return to earth. In a modification, the parachute is dispensed with, the rocket body 222, Fig. 9, being telescoped over the motor casing 220 and retained on the motor casing by a cord 232. When the motor has completed its discharge and allowed protruding portions of its contained diaphragm 230 (similar to the diaphragm 30, Figs. 2, 3) to withdraw into the motor housing, a spring 226 extends the rocket body 222 along the motor 220, Fig. 10 (not shown).