Parts / Launch Lugs and Rail Guides / Additive Aerospace
Additive Aerospace Rail Guide Testing

Flyaway rail guides are a viable alternative to the installation of rail buttons, lugs, etc… and my personal preference especially on smaller diameter high power rockets (even some low power), but they are extra components and hence make the launch more complex. In an effort to understand them better and use them more effectively we have turned to high-ish speed footage and multiple angles to view the behavior at the point of the release. This video captures some of our testing of Additive Aerospace guides, which seem to work well. While we have had some damage to the guides themselves they have never caused the rocket to fly in an unsafe manner. We hope after seeing the footage you’ll be comfortable with giving flyaway rail guides a try. Enjoy the video and don’t forget to like and subscribe to the channel. We’ll be posting additional video in the future. Note: The red and white rocket used in our testing is a low power rocket (BT-60 airframe) made from cardboard tubes and plastic, flying on D impulse motors. This is intentional, reasoning the lighter rocket would be more affected by the guide. In both test flights you can see the effect of Newton’s 3rd law as the rocket is pushed away from the guide as it releases, sort of cool and a great STEM lesson.

Author Allen Hall
Duration 04:20

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