How to Design, Build and Test Small Liquid-Fuel Rocket Engines (1967)
This book is a great resource, and I would recommend it to to any amateur model rocketry fan.<p>I&#x27;m starting University in September as an adult student of Computer Science and I&#x27;m planning to start a model rocketry society with the goal of putting a 9ft tube above the Karman line and recovering it safely.<p>I&#x27;m still deciding on fuels, but I&#x27;m strongly considering a hypergolic combination of catalyzed pure hydrogen peroxide and kerosene (I&#x27;ve already been granted a recipient competent authority from the explosives department for the storage and transport of usable quantities these for the use in a model rocket).<p>The primary reason for hypergolic fuels is because it doesn&#x27;t require a complex combustion chamber &#x2F; ignition set up. You can mix them together at ambient pressure and temperature and they will spontaneously combust producing heat, steam and pressure. If you can safely handle the dangerous fuels it&#x27;s a much easier route to a liquid fueled rocket engine.<p>One of the difficulties in the UK is going to be finding somewhere to launch from: we don&#x27;t have large swathes of unowned, unmonitored land and the restrictions the CAA (rightfully) place on launching near cities means that it&#x27;ll have to be out in the sticks somewhere. I&#x27;ll probably have to convince a farmer to let us blow up a couple rockets on the back of a fallow field a few times before we get a successful launch off the ground.<p>I&#x27;m trying to plan as much as possible and get all the requisite licenses (I already have a CAA unmanned surveillance drone operator ID, as well as exemption from the need for a flyer ID because I have my flight competency certificates, and exemption from the 400ft amateur flight ceiling as long as I issue a NOTAM (notice to airmen) 1 week before any test flights, and I&#x27;m insured by the UK Rocketry Association) in the hopes that people will &quot;take me seriously&quot; when I found the society.<p>I&#x27;m also working behind the scenes to set up partnerships. I&#x27;ve been in contact with Starchaser Industries and a few other aerospace companies nearby to have them sponsor the program, show us around their rocketry factories and hopefully give us contacts at their company we can bounce ideas off to see if there&#x27;s anything we&#x27;ve missed, or any hazards we are hugely mispredicting.