WESLEY CHAPEL, Florida USA — In an online announcement earlier today, Paul Holmes, chairman of the Tripoli Rocketry Association's TMT motor testing division released their latest certification results for four newly certified motors from Jim Harris' company, Gorilla Motors.

In March of this year, Gorilla Motors was given certifications on three new motors and two new cases, the 54-1050 and the 54-1400 series. The Gorilla cases are a distinctive green color and are of a snap-ring-closure design. There are two reloads for the 54-1050 case, the J365BL and the J465GT; and one reload for the 54-1400 case, the J450BL.  All of these are plugged designs with no tracking smoke.
 
The J365BL-P is a 33.2% "J" motor that has 852.4 N-seconds total impulse, with 498 Newtons maximum, for an average impulse of 364.9 Newtons and a 2.38 seccond burn time.  There is a total of 498 grams of propellant in a standard Bates grain format, total weight is 2.65 pounds. The thrust profile rises to 60 pounds at the .1 second point, followed by a slow rise to 110 pounds at the one second point, then slowly decaying to around 85 pounds at the 2.1 second point with a return to zero after 2.38 seconds.  
 
The J450BL-P is a 75% "J" motor that has a 1120 N-seconds total impulse, with 601 Newtons maximum, an average impulse of 442.4 Newtons and a 2.57 second burn time.  This motor contains around 658 grams of propellant with a total weight of 3.2 pounds. The thrust profile is identical to the J365BL, but with 80, 130 and 90 pounds at the respective profile change points.

Both of these motors utilize Gorilla's Black Lightning forumla, a sparky formulation that produces great visual results.
 
The J465GT-P "Green Tornado" motor is a green flame, low smoke propellant forumla.  This reload produces a 60% "J" motor with 1023 N-seconds of total impulse, maximum thrust of 662.6 Newtons, and average thrust of 466.9 Newtons, for a 2.24 second burn time. There is approximately 566 grams of propellant for this reload, with a total weight of 2.6 pounds.  This Bates-grained motor is similar to Gorilla's sparky motor thrust curve profile, rising to 90 pounds at .1 second, then slowly moving to the maximum 145 pounds at the 1.25 second point, before decaying to 80 pounds at the 2 second point and then dropping to zero at the end of burn time.

From today's announcement, joining the other Gorilla Black Lightning motors is a new 54-1760-series motor, the K533BL-P Black Lightning motor.  The K533BL-P is a 10% "K" motor, with 1419.75 N-seconds impulse that burns for 2.66 seconds with a maximum thrust of 1419.76 Newtons.  The thrust curve reveals an initial rise to 105 pounds of thrust, with a gradual curve rise up to 156 pounds at .75 seconds, then the curve slowly decays to the 110 pound point at 2.25 seconds, with a straight drop to 0 at the 2.66 second point.

The next three motors are in Gorilla's new White Cloud formula, which produces white smoke with flame.  All three are "Moonburner" design motors and come in the three available Gorilla Motors 54mm case sizes: 54-1050, 1400 and 1750 respectively.  Like the previous motors certified in March, these also are all plugged, no tracking smoke motors.

The first is a J167WC, a 48% "J", with 949.97 N-seconds total impulse that burns for 5.677 seconds, producing a maximum thrust of 366.47 Newtons.  The thrust curve is an immediate straight rise up to 65 pounds, then a gradual rise to the maximum point of 83 pounds at the .4 second point.  The thrust curve then drops again to 70 pounds at the .5 second point, where it is a straight line curve to 0 pounds at the 5.7 second point.

Next is the K222WC, a 2% "K", with 1314.46 N-seconds total impulse that burns for 5.9375 seconds, producing a maximum thrust of 444.35 Newtons.  The thrust curve is an immediate straight rise up to 90 pounds, with a gradual rise to the maximum point of 95 pounds at the .4 second point.  The thrust curve then drops again to 75 pounds at the .5 second point, where it is a straight line curve to 0 pounds at the 5.937 second point.

Last, the K327WC is a 26% "K", with 1615.57 N-seconds total impulse that burns for 5.18 seconds, producing a maximum thrust of 684.54 Newtons.  The thrust curve is an immediate straight rise up to 125 pounds, with a gradual rise to the maximum point of 147 pounds at the .5 second point.  The thrust curve then drops again to 120 pounds at the .65 second point, where it is a straight line curve to 0 pounds at the 5.18 second point.

This brings the total number of certified motors for Gorilla Motors to seven. Next to be submitted are 54/2550 sparky and a 54/2550 long burn motors. For more information, contact Jim Harris at: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it  or visit his website at http://www.gorillarocketmotors.com/.

Documents: Gorilla Motors RockSIM file (7K .RSE file)