Tripoli Motor Testing chairperson, Sue McMurray, announced today that Hypertek Hybrids have seven new hybrid motors officially certified as well as five recertifications of existing Hypetek motors. Minor manufacturing changes were implemented into the new fuel grains resulting in a safer motor with a higher average thrust.

Since Tripoli's motor testing stand is designed for horizontal testing, and hybrids require vertical mounting, Hypertek facilitated the testing procedures with the use of their equipment in Florida. Late last fall, Korey Kline, president of Hypertek, contacted McMurray about several new Hypertek grains that needed testing. The new grains were the same size as the old ones, but with a slightly larger nozzle and without the "finocles", long bumps on the inside of the grain. McMurray requested complete sets of thrust curves on each tank/orifice/grain size combination that would be going to market.

In March of this year, Kline sent an airplane to pick up Dan Wilson, TMT East Chief of Testing, and Richard Kuzma, TMT East Electronics Wizard. They brought along TMT's DAP equipment and collected data sets on each of the motors.

These motors are Certified as of July 31, 1998 and will be due re-certification July 31, 2001. These motors may be flown at regular Tripoli launches by members holding an approved Level 2 Certification with TRA or NAR. The motor data and thrust curves will appear on the TMT web page as soon as possible and have been included in the draft of the new Tripoli TMT Manual.

The following is a brief summary of the Re-Certified and New Hypertek Motors.

TMT's new hybrid vertical thrust stand, which is still in draft form and not yet ready for the machine shop, will be capable of testing the Hypertek Hybrids for the next certification cycle. For more information on these and other certifications, see the TMT website at: http://www.tripoli.org/motors.htm.