"The ROCK-A-CHUTE is a working model of a type of guided missile. It is powered by an expendable, solid fuel rocket motor. The ROCK-A-CHUTE rises, under its own power, from its launching rampt to a height of from 100 to 500 feet, depending upon the size of the rocket motor used," opens the Bal-Rock MK-1 instructions.

Most model rocketry enthusiasts don't know it, but before there was ever a Model Missiles, Inc., Orville H. Carlisle established a little model rocket company he ran out of the basement of his Norfolk, Nebraska home back in 1954 that he called Bal-Rock Industries. Carlisle tried marketing the company, but, pardon the pun, it never really got off the ground. Bal-Rock Industries produced the Carlisle MK-1, which was powered by the Rock-A-Chute model rocket motor, the inspiration that later led to the creation of Estes Industries. This instruction booklet acompanied those early MK-1's.

The booklet has been captured and converted to Adobe PDF format to share with the readers. Four pages in length, the booklet is 1,153K in size. To view the booklet, click here. You will need Adobe Reader to view the article. If you do not have Adobe Reader, a copy may be downloaded for free from the Adobe website at http://www.adobe.com/.

This segment of From The Archive was made possible by Mark Mayfield and LAUNCH Magazine, whose content contribution made it possible for Rocketry Planet to share this article with you. Part of the challenge we face in the hobby is the archival and preservation of these old sources of information useful to our hobby. Adobe PDF format makes a great medium for the collection and storage of these types of documents because of its portability and cross-platform approach.

If you have something you'd like to share with the readers, send email to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it  with details on the document you have to share. Previous submissions have consisted of submitting magazines or documents in whole, which were be returned upon completion of the scanning process. While this approach is still acceptable, the preference is toward user-generated submissions scanned by the users themselves.

03-30-2008 04:47 PM  #1
Steve_Shannon Will fly beer for rockets   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 1651	Re: Assembling the Bal-Rock Carlisle MK-1 rocket, circa 1954 Oh my God... This rocket had a WARHEAD!!!. Well, that is what they called the nose cone. I guess we lived through it, but we couldn't get away with it now.

03-31-2008 12:04 AM  #2
Bayourat Level 3   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 25	Re: Assembling the Bal-Rock Carlisle MK-1 rocket, circa 1954 Let's see if I got this right. Place on launch rod, Lite Fuse, Get Away! I wonder what impulse the motors were? Only 100-500 feet. Sounds like A's and B's. Cool flashback to a simpler time. I'm sure in today's world the CPSC would have a field day with this

03-31-2008 12:21 AM  #3
UncleVanya   Joined: Sep 2007 Posts: 1425	Re: Assembling the Bal-Rock Carlisle MK-1 rocket, circa 1954 Quote: Let's see if I got this right. Place on launch rod, Lite Fuse, Get Away! I wonder what impulse the motors were? Only 100-500 feet. Sounds like A's and B's. Cool flashback to a simpler time. I'm sure in today's world the CPSC would have a field day with this I keep trying to get my head around the "time element". I've looked at my periodic chart and I can't locate it. Also the idea that pulling the two sections farther apart increases the time is mind blowing. I'm trying to figure out what that did internally...

03-31-2008 12:38 PM  #4
shockwaveriderz Model Rocket Historian   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 18	Re: Assembling the Bal-Rock Carlisle MK-1 rocket, circa 1954 This is a great historical document and my Kudos to both Mark Mayfield @ Launch And Darrell here at Rocketryplanet for publishing it. Great job Guys! I've attached an url to the original Carlisle Rock-A-chute patent so you can see how more clearly how the timing element worked. http://www.google.com/pate...act&zoom=4&dq=toy+rocket In its original incarnation, Orv used an very old fireworks technique by using an external time fuse for the delay train. Basically the way it worked was a hole was drilled just above the end of the propellant grain; the fuse was inserted here; above the fuse was a clay cap. Above this clay cap is where the top a series of holes were the end user could insert the fuse. Which hole you placed the fuse into determined the delay time length. The patent clearly shows and describes all of this. Soon thereafter, Orv at some point, realized that this "setup" introduced problems, like external burning of the time delay meant you had to have larger body tubes to hold the rocket. There was also the problem of external flame. So at some point, Orv changed this external fuse to the now famous and ubitiqious internal integrated delay. And the model rocket motor as we know it today was more or less created.

03-31-2008 12:44 PM  #5
shockwaveriderz Model Rocket Historian   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 18	Re: Assembling the Bal-Rock Carlisle MK-1 rocket, circa 1954 I misspoke on one topic. I didn't mean to say multiple holes... the delay time was determined by the length of the clay cap above the propellant. Thicker meant longer delays. also Irv Wait used an external fuse on his original Enerjet 8, the hobby's 1st composite motor. It was very difficult to get a time delay to work in the very 1st composite motors. Irv took a fuse, and placed it at the top his bates grain motor. The motor was ignited at the top, resulting in the fuse being lit. The time delay was determined by the length of fuse used which was wrapped externally around the motor and then fed into a hole near the top were the ejection charge was. terry dean nar 16158

03-31-2008 12:45 PM  #6
royatl Certified Level One   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 17	Re: Assembling the Bal-Rock Carlisle MK-1 rocket, circa 1954 Quote: In its original incarnation, Orv used an very old fireworks technique by using an external time fuse for the delay train. Irv Waite used a similar system on the early Enerjet motors.

03-31-2008 01:03 PM  #7
Just Jerry Freeform rockets advocate   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 555	Re: Assembling the Bal-Rock Carlisle MK-1 rocket, circa 1954 Quote: also Irv Wait used an external fuse on his original Enerjet 8, the hobby's 1st composite motor. It was very difficult to get a time delay to work in the very 1st composite motors. Irv took a fuse, and placed it at the top his bates grain motor. The motor was ignited at the top, resulting in the fuse being lit. The time delay was determined by the length of fuse used which was wrapped externally around the motor and then fed into a hole near the top were the ejection charge was. terry dean nar 16158 The reason it was difficult to make work internally is the Flexane and AP propellant had low combustion stability. It was also a case bonded coreburner, not a BATES motor. So it was chuffy and had high final thrust with a quick cutoff which tended to extinguish internal delays. With the advent of Kline delays, and BATES motors, and regressive motors, such as the Wood Moonburner and the Goodson Slotburner, Irvine Sideburner, Irvine partial Wood-moon endburner, and Rosenfield partial core endburner and Rosenfield RAT Endburners, delays tended to extinguish less easily. Geometry advances combined with chemistry advances have widened the motor envelope seemingly infinitely. I had the pleasure of selling the first Wood moonburners, Rosenfield partial core endburners, Rosenfield RAT Endburners, Irvine Sideburners, Irvine partial Wood-moon endburners, and BATES motors. Goodson slotburners were initially widely distributed as Aerotech C-slot motors. Just Jerry BTW here is the first safety code from the Rock-A-Chute instructions: "Launch only on calm, still days, for highest flights. It is important that a clear, open area be selected in which to launch the ROCK-A-CHUTE. At least 100 yards of open space is necessary in order to avoid losing the model in the top of a tree, in wires, or on top of buildings."