[simpits-tech] It's a guy thing...

[Gene Buckle]

> About 2 weeks ago, I was looking around the Web for the BIGGEST sky
> rocket that I could get shipped to me via common freight carrier.  I
> located a fireworks importer in Wisconsin who had this mondo sky
> rocket--biggest thing I had ever seen--called a SkyDragon.  These
> things are 48 inches tall and are mounted on a 1/2-inch wooden dowel.
> Pure aerospace engineering.
>
> I plopped down a bunch of money and had him send me two cases of these
> things.  They arrived at the freight dock a few days ago and I had to
> drive the van over to pick them up.   Two boxes each 2 feet by 2 feet
> by 4 feet in size containing 80 rockets each.   The 'Class 4
> Explosives' sticker on the side of each box was a real bonus.  I am
> gonna have to save them for the scrapbook.
>
> That night, me and the kiddos had a gen-u-ine rocket launch ceremony.
> I placed one of these beauties in a liter-size glass bottle and the
> bottle fell over.  Hmmmm- this thing was waaay too big.  I looked
> around the shop for a pipe to set it in, but realized that the only
> dirt I could drive the pipe into was in plain sight of my neighbor's
> house.  I knew he was a cool guy, but I didn't want him to call the
> cops.  You see - 'projectile-type' fireworks are totally illegal in
> this county.  Actually, I was surprised that the County Sheriff
> Department wasn't waiting for me at the loading dock when I picked
> these things up.  Anyhow, I finally rigged a launch pad by prying up
> one of the driveway drain grates with a crowbar and sitting the stick
> into the deep pit.  Looked sorta like an ICBM silo with its hardened
> lid slid aside.
>
> I asked which of my three kids wanted to light the fuse, but all took
> a few steps back and politely declined.  Chicken-Shits.  Kids just
> aren't made the same nowadays.  They fulfill their danger quotient by
> shooting bad guys in video games.  About as far from real danger as
> you can get, if you ask me. I told the little weenies to stand back as
> I bent to light the device with a Bic lighter.
>
> The lady at the fireworks importer promised me that these things would
> NOT make any noise.  I told her that they HAD to be relatively quiet
> so I could shoot them off in my neighborhood without causing 'undue
> alarm'. She said I wouldn't have any problem.  I emphasized the
> particular legal problems I would have if  there were any type of loud
> report at apogee.  I emphasized the fact that I lived right next to a
> National Park and that any type of firework that was discharged, or
> assumed to be discharged, on that property would get me sent before a
> FEDERAL judge - right after I got sent to the COUNTY judge.  She again
> assured me I would have no problem.
>
> That lying bitch....
>
> That rocket engine had a burn time about as long as any I had EVER
> seen, and the ascent echoed off the surrounding trees.   Diamond shock
> pattern extended from the back end.  It kept going and going and
> going.  When it hit apogee at about 1000 feet,  the rocket
> disintegrated into a huge shower of silent red sparks.  Pretty cool, I
> thought......until the shower of sparks burned out and suddenly
> transformed into a cloud of extremely bright and loud explosions. The
> kids scrambled into the back door 'Three Stooges' style (i.e.: where
> all three try to get through the same closed door at once) and left me
> standing in the smoking haze waiting for the cops to arrive. The dogs
> that live along our street were all barking their heads off at the
> apparition they had just witnessed in the night sky
>
> That ended the fireworks test for the night.
>
> The next day, my oldest son Doug and I decided we were gonna 'neuter'
> one of the rockets so it wouldn't make any noise.  I took him into the
> shed where I store the gardening tools and he saw these two huge cases
> of fireworks standing there.  The kid went nuts.  He wanted to open
> BOTH boxes so he could see what all 159 rockets looked like lined up
> next to each other.  This kid has promise.  I told him: "Since Mom
> only thinks I have a few of these things lying around, maybe that
> wasn't such a good idea."  He mulled that over for a few seconds, then
> gave me a real big smile in agreement. We pulled one of the rockets
> out of the box and re-locked the closet door.
>
> He and I both sat down on the driveway and proceeded to take it apart.
> It was a standard issue big-ass Chinese sky rocket.  I bet they used
> these to kill people 500 years ago.   As I sat there taking layer
> after layer of paper off, his brain was filling with the details of
> construction. Tissue, cardboard, plastic, fuses...etc. Realizing that
> he was mentally storing the design for some future project sorta made
> me shudder.    All I was thinking was the fact that this thing was
> probably put together by a political prisoner in a hellhole somewhere
> who is probably gonna get 'executed' so they can sell his internal
> organs on the transplant market.
>
> Probably not too far from the facts, but I managed to do a bit of
> explaining to him from the standpoint of aerospace engineering
> regarding how the thing worked.  Doug is probably the only 4th grader
> in the U.S. who can now describe the principle of thrust using a
> control volume model.
>
> The rocket was pretty simple.  It had a very large booster engine
> topped with a warhead that contained the red sparkly things that
> exploded. Removing the warhead was as simple as giving a quick twist,
> and I assumed the neutered rocket would fly higher without the
> payload.  I was correct. Doug and I did a daylight 'stealth' test and
> were able to add about 50% to the altitude attained the previous
> night.  We decided to modify four more rockets and put them aside in
> the closet for easy access.  When this was done, Doug had a jar full
> of stuff that came out of the warheads including: 12 fuses about
> 3-inches long each, some paper, 4 plastic nosecones and a big handful
> of these little black balls about the size of 12-gauge buckshot that
> turned out to be the 'red sparkly popper things'.  It appeared that
> the outer layer was a simple gunpowder coating designed to quickly
> burn off as red shower of sparks.   I surmised that the inner core had
> some kind of magnesium thermite that gave off an intense white light
> and a loud bang.  Pretty cool if you ask me.   Lots of energy packed
> into one teeny little ball.
>
> I didn't want to see the popper thingies go to waste, so I told Doug
> we were gonna put them in a hole in the ground and set them off.  He
> gave me another big smile. It's amazing how kids think alike...even
> when separated by 30 years.
>
> As I was digging a shallow hole with my hand, Doug asked if it would
> be alright to put an army man next to these things so that "When they
> go off, it would look like he was getting shot with a machine gun".
> Dang....exactly what I was thinking.  I agreed and he ran off to his
> room to dig something out of the mess.  He returned in about 3
> seconds, out of breath and  holding a cheap plastic imitation of
> Robert E. Lee on horseback and a Civil War cannon.  I pointed out that
> they didn't have true machine guns in the Civil War, but we would
> overlook this for the purpose of the demonstration.  He handed me the
> action figure and I placed it and the cannon next to a rather large
> pile of black beads from which a few of the fuses extended.
>
> I figured that three inches of fuse would take 2 seconds to burn, so I
> had at least that amount of time to stand up and take a few steps
> back.  I neglected to recount the night before.....when the warhead
> ignited IMMEDIATELY upon reaching apogee.  Tricky Chinese.  They had
> installed extremely fast-burning fuse in these things and that fact
> totally escaped me.
>
> I squatted next to Robert Lee and gave a short eulogy.  Doug laughed.
> I took the trusty Bic lighter and placed it next to the fuse.  One
> flick got the lighter going and THIS IMAGE IS ONE I WILL REMEMBER FOR
> A LONG TIME.  My hand holding a lighter next to a pile of explosives.
>
> There is usually a short but noticeable mental pause that occurs
> immediately before something bad or really stupid happens.  It is
> where that little voice in your head says: "You dumbass."
>
> The fuse burn time was in the 1/1000ths of a second range. The pile of
> little popper thingy's immediately ignited into a tremendously
> brilliant ball of fire.  All I could think
> was..."...th....th.....thermite..." Unfortunately, when they are
> viewed at ground level, these little popper thingies become REALLY BIG
> POPPER THINGIES and have a tendency to jump up to 15-feet in every
> direction from their point of ignition.  I instantaneously became
> engulfed in a ball of fire that sounded a lot like being in a
> half-done bag of Orville Reddenbacher's popcorn.
>
> It was all over about as fast as I could snap my fingers.
>
> After the smoke cleared, Doug started laughing his butt off.  That
> meant I was still in one piece.  Doug does not laugh at dismembered
> limbs.   He said I jumped about 10-feet, an action that I do not
> remember.  I checked my clothes for burn marks, and found none.  He
> checked my back to make sure it was not on fire.  No combustion there.
> The driveway was peppered with black holes where the concrete had been
> scarred from these things.
>
> A close one.  Another REAL close one.  My mind ran the tapes again to
> re-hash what it had seen.  All I remembered was being inside something
> akin to a 30-foot diameter........flaming dandelion. Whew.
>
> We examined Ol' Robert E. at ground-zero.
>
> Instead of a machine-gun peppering, he got nuked.   He and the horse
> he rode in on.......and his cannon too.  One side was untouched, but
> the other side was arc-welded.  Real warfare.  Doug examined it real
> quiet-like and then started laughing again.
>
> I assume he will remember the finer points of the lesson as he grows
> older. When I now speak of 'almost being burned beyond recognition' he
> will have a slightly better understanding of what I mean.  I hope that
> this vivid image tempers the knowledge he now has regarding rocket
> construction. Oh well.  After all, if your dad isn't gonna teach you
> how to get your ass blown off, who will?
>
>
>