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openrocket-database - Enhanced components database for OpenRocket

This project is aimed at sport rocketry people who use OpenRocket for design and flight simulation.

This is an enhanced parts database for OpenRocket, providing a massive number of additional rocket parts (nose cones, body tubes, transitions, etc.) and corrections to the built-in parts database formerly contained in the OpenRocket jar file.

Installing this package does not change how OpenRocket works in any way. It only changes what components are available for selection in the menus.

As of the 2022.02 OpenRocket release (Feb 2023), this database is automatically installed along with OpenRocket, and you don't have to do anything special to install it.

For the old OpenRocket 15.03, you have to do a slightly technical installation. It's not very complicated, but there's a bit of command line work. You'll need to be able to use a git client to grab this repo, and create a soft symlink so that OpenRocket finds the database when it starts up.

Compatibility

OpenRocket compatibility: OpenRocket 15.03 and 2022.02 and newer releases.

Thus far this database does not use any of the new data fields present in the 2022+ OpenRocket releases that are incompatible with 15.03. However, it is now about time to drop this backward compatibility.

System compatibility: works anywhere OpenRocket can run

Release Notes

1.0.0.5

  • Fixes
    • PR34: ARR BlueTube couplers were incorrectly designated as body tubes
    • LOC: Fix 1.90 tube and ring dimensions to match recently published website data

1.0.0.4

  • Fixes
    • PR30: Fix (inconsequential) wrong unit of measure specs for bulk nylon and delrin in BMS and Rocketarium files.

1.0.0.3

  • Fixes
    • Everywhere: fix UnitsOfMeasure for materials densities to SI units (kg/m3 etc.) THIS HAS NO IMPACT because OpenRocket does not parse UnitsOfMeasure for materials in .orc files

1.0.0.2

  • Additions
    • Top Flight: add all streamers from Dec 2022 website
    • publicmissiles: added missing full length couplers CTF-xx
  • Fixes
    • Rocketarium: remove all nylon parachutes and streamers - they are resale from TopFlight and PML/LOC
    • Rocketarium: remove all phenolic tubes and couplers - they are OEM from PML and exist in that file.

1.0.0.1

  • Major updates
    • BMS: various additions and corrections
    • Rocketarium: new file but not reviewed
    • README: update to current situation

0.9.4.0

  • Fixes
    • Estes_classic: improve documentation of PNC-80BB
  • Additions
    • BMS: add new file and authoritative documentation of nose cone shoulder lengths
    • Estes: add original BNC-70AJ drawing and notes on discrepancy with catalog listings
    • LOC: add new parachute lineup from 2022 website

0.9.3.7

  • Fixes
    • LOC: slightly adjust size of BT-1.52/MMT-1.52 to match 2022 website spec
  • Additions
    • LOC: add LOC brand plywood centering rings now that we have data
    • LOC: add new BT-1.9 tube and 2.75" length of MMT-0.71

0.9.3.6 - 12 Sep 2022

  • Fixes
    • Issue #14 - wrong diameters for publicmissiles QT2.1
    • Fix introduction to not say the legacy database is gone

0.9.3.5 - 16 Aug 2022

  • Fixes
    • PR #12 from luzpaz, corrects various spelling typos in comments

0.9.3.4 - 15 Aug 2022

  • Fixes from issue #11 reported by davesrocketshop
    • quest - fix a number of broken units refs for plastic parts and tubes
    • competition_chutes - fix one units ref
    • bluetube - fix a few units refs, change plywood material to Baltic birch per 2022 website
    • semroc - fix 202 balsa parts (about 1/4 of total) with wrong material string, yikes
    • semroc - change all mfr name to SEMROC, about 1/3 were "Semroc"

0.9.3.3 - 13 Aug 2022

  • Fixes
    • multiple files - fix typos from issue #10 reported by davesrocketshop

0.9.3.2 - 26 Jul 2022

  • Updates
    • tube_data.txt - added Wildman glass and carbon tubes

0.9.3.1 - 13 Jul 2022

  • Fixes
    • giantleap - fix units error in 2.56/38 centering ring

0.9.3.0 - 1 Jul 2022

  • Updates
    • giant leap - redid and upgraded the whole file with all available data
  • Fixes
    • publicmissiles - fix a units error

0.9.2.33 - 29 Jun 2022

  • Updates
    • readme - installation is vastly simpler for new 2022 OpenRocket
    • estes_classic - added PN 046005, BT-65 size 12" 3-slot paper tube for Green Eggs
    • estes_classic - added PN 046008, BT-65 size 18" unslotted paper tube for Olympus
    • estes_classic - added numeric PNs to various items

0.9.1.21 - 13 May 2022

  • Fixes
    • Merged pull request #8 from questionablerocket with a handful of units errors fixed

0.9.1.20 - 30 Mar 2022

  • Updates
    • estes_classic - add PNC-50YR PN 72604 per info from Brohm and K'tesh

0.9.1.19 - 21 Mar 2022

  • Updates
    • Giant Leap - put OR 15.x legacy file back in to pick up the phenolic tubes. Not reformatted yet.

0.9.1.18 - Mar 2022

  • Updates
    • estes_classic - add two user-reported tubes, a transition, and a nose cone, all from Black Star Voyager

0.9.1.17 - Jan 2022

  • Fixes
    • README - Windows installation instructions - make sure in C:\ before doing git clone, add info on uninstalling and the need to remove the symlink when doing so.

0.9.1.16 - Jan 2022

  • Fixes
    • README - minor clean up
  • Updates
    • publicmissiles - add PML file, centering rings not complete
    • madcow - minor doc change

0.9.1.15 - Sep 2021

  • Fixes
    • README - fix broken URL for Estes catalog archive
  • Updates
    • apogee - add new file with TARC foam nose cones and egg protectors
    • README - add info about not being able to remove the old database when using the packaged installers
    • README - move some old release notes to the archive file

0.9.1.14 - Jun 2021

  • Updates
    • madcow - update error tag about switch band SKUs, website behavior has changed

0.9.1.13 - Jan 2021

  • Fixes
    • quest - fix incorrect length of 10mm tube - was 10 meters
  • Updates
    • quest - change most tube dimensions to inches now that official specs are mostly in inches
    • README - note demise of Semroc legacy website, end of FSI reboot, revival of Giant Leap Magna-frame tubes

0.9.1.12 - Jan 2021

  • Fixes
    • Bluetube - Add missing CenteringRing opening tag (closes issue #3)

0.9.1.11 - Oct 2020

  • Fixes
    • Madcow - update FC80 ID/OD to match newly published dimensions of FT80
    • Madcow - ID/OD of FC55 changed noticeably now that data has been published
    • Madcow - remove more source error tags based on website data improvements
    • Madcow - 4" tube SKU changed from T39 -> T40

0.9.1.10 - Apr 2020

  • Fixes
    • Madcow - add FC75 and newly published mfr data for FC80
    • Madcow - update body_tube_data.xlsx for mfr website changes and fixes
    • Madcow - source error for FT11 SKUs removed; fixed on madcow.com

Release notes from older versions can be seen here

WARNINGS

DO NOT ASSUME THAT ANY INFORMATION IN THIS DATABASE IS CORRECT FOR YOUR APPLICATION.

Users should ALWAYS WEIGH AND MEASURE YOUR ACTUAL PARTS and use those values in your OpenRocket simulation. Database errors, unannounced revisions to parts, and manufacturing variances can all cause OpenRocket to give incorrect CG and CP locations, and hence incorrect stability margin estimates.

DO NOT ASSUME THAT YOUR ROCKET WILL BE STABLE JUST BECAUSE OpenRocket SAYS IT IS.

OpenRocket relies on mathematics that are only approximations. It cannot handle many cases, especially those involving asymmetric lift/drag.

Installing and Uninstalling

Installing with OpenRocket 22.xx releases

You don't have to do anything. This is the default database for the new OpenRocket.

If you want to update OpenRocket 22.02+ to use a newer version of this database, the procedure given below for installing into OpenRocket 15.03 works for that.

Installing with OpenRocket 15.03 (last stable release from 2015)

For all OS types, I recommend you create a symlink to the cloned git repo so that OpenRocket will find the components database there. Doing it this way allows OpenRocket to automatically find the updated files after you do a 'git pull' to grab the latest version from GitHub. Otherwise you would have to copy updated files to where OpenRocket expects them.

Mac

git clone https://github.com/dbcook/openrocket-database.git
cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/OpenRocket
ln -s ~/openrocket-database/orc Components

Linux

git clone https://github.com/dbcook/openrocket-database.git
cd ~/.openrocket
ln -s ~/openrocket-database/orc Components

Windows

Here you need to clone the git repo and create a soft directory symlink to where you cloned it.

  • Install git for Windows (https://git-for-windows.github.io/)
  • Get a command prompt. You either have to use "Run as administrator" or have Developer Mode enabled. Run the following:
cd c:\
git clone https://github.com/dbcook/openrocket-database.git
mklink /D %APPDATA%\OpenRocket\Components C:\openrocket-database\orc

Uninstalling from OpenRocket 15.03

General procedure:

  1. Delete the symlink you created during the installation procedure.
  2. Delete the openrocket-database directory where you cloned the git repo.

In all environments, if you have created the symlink ('ln -s' or 'mklink' depending on your system) you must remove it if you are:

  • Uninstalling the parts database
  • Moving the parts database files to a different directory (here you must re-create the symlink to point to the new location)
  • Restoring "factory original" OpenRocket behavior

Removing the symlink can be done with 'unlink' in Linux/Mac or 'rmdir' in Windows. Not doing this may cause errors when OpenRocket tries to load parts files from a nonexistent directory.

Reporting Problems

Please file issues here on GitHub so that they can be tracked and get comments. I'm very interested in:

  • Data for missing parts, including source attribution.
  • Parts that insert into OpenRocket with zero mass (indicates a problem in the material definition)

If you have a large contribution, please fork the repo, make your changes, and submit a pull request.

Please don't report problems on TRF, via email, etc. - use GitHub issues; others may be ignored.

Features and improvements

  • Detailed documentation on how the components database works, and much info about restrictions and limitations.
  • Much research data added as comments in the XML .orc files
  • Mass overrides mostly removed - material densities set correctly
  • Mass data for tubing analyzed to remove outliers and derive correct average densities
  • Master materials reference file built, with heavily researched data
  • Estes file vastly enhanced: added missing parts, PNs, Pro Series II parts, many errors fixed
  • Semroc: many errors and conflicts resolved, missing parts added
  • LOC Precision: many conflicts and errors resolved, parachutes added
  • BMS: complete coverage, updated to latest website specs
  • New manufacturer files added: Top Flight, Madcow, MPC, Rocketarium, generic chutes/streamers

State of the Project

2024: still in maintenance mode; planning to hand the project off to the OpenRocket dev community this year. 2022: now making minor updates only

2021: after 5+ years of development, I feel this project is mostly complete and the effort is at the point of diminishing returns. All of the major, historic rocketry vendors that provided usable information have been covered in considerable detail. This encompasses Estes, Quest, MPC, and Semroc (which includes most Centuri parts) on the low power side, plus LOC and Madcow on the high power side. Indexing of new Estes parts is no longer possible, and corrections to the Semroc parts are also now impossible since the legacy Semroc web server has crashed irrecoverably.

The information about how OpenRocket databases work in version 15.03 has been through several iterations including code dives and is pretty accurate, but it's somewhat Mac centric because that's what I use most.

Possible Updates

  • Add discountrocketry / modelrockets.us file - they source their own tubes and some nose cones
  • Build a separate Centuri file (but compatible tubes and nose cones are in the Semroc file)
  • Review / upgrade PML stock file. PML has been acquired by LOC however, with considerable removal of data; maybe no longer feasible.
  • Add historic FSI and CMR parts, though they are no longer available anywhere

Database Files Status

File In OR 15.03 Upgrade/Completion State
Estes.orc Yes 100% - split - see new files below
loc_precision.orc Yes 100%
semroc.orc Yes 100% - believed complete, SEMROC website died, ending cleanup efforts
bluetube.orc Yes 100% - tubes and couplers are done, still needs CRs and NCs
Quest.orc Yes 98% - everything known is done
bms.orc Yes 99% - updated with direct info from BMS
Fliskits.orc Yes -- Won't do, few or no unique parts
giantleaprocketry.orc Yes 95% - totally new file created, many old errors fixed
publicmissiles.orc Yes 75% - need to finish centering rings and glassed couplers
apogee.orc No 75% - New file added with TARC foam NCs and egg protectors
rocketarium.orc No 75% - ready for detailed validation
fsi.orc No -- won't do for now, historical completeness only
cmr.orc No -- won't do for now, historical completeness only
mpc.orc No 98% - all known data included
estes_classic.orc No 99% - classic era parts are complete
estes_ps2.orc No 98%
madcow.orc No 99%
top_flight.orc No 100%
competition_chutes.orc No 100%
modelrocket.us No. -- worth doing; they have their own line of tubes, nose cones and rings

There are files I may never do, or do in very abbreviated form, or not finish.

  • Fliskits - Jim Flis ceased operations of Fliskits in 2018; no unique parts except nose cones. A file exists in OR 15.03 but it has not been updated.
  • Public Missiles - acquired by LOC 2022-2023, former website has disappeared and LOC does not list enough data to make finishing the file feasible.
  • CMR - the unique tube sizes are no longer made by anyone, so very limited usefulness.
  • FSI - same story as CMR with unique tube sizes that are no longer made by anyone.

Software validation tests are needed to make sure that parts generate reasonable masses and have internally consistent dimensions. I experimented with creating some .ork design files for this, but there are limitations to the usefulness of that due to how OpenRocket copies components into the .ork file, so something better is needed.

Future Parts Database Organization

See this discussion

Data Gathering Discussion

Accurate data is really hard to come by for many items, and it's getting harder. There are some good sources such as the Brohm body tube / nose cone kit cross references and archived catalogs from the era of domestic in-house production. However, some manufacturers such as LOC Precision and Quest have never provided complete or accurate parts data.

Model Rocket Documentation Archives

The main online resources for model rocket kit and parts information are:

The JimZ plan site offers kit instructions and fin pattern and decal scans. Coverage includes a great many vintage Estes kits, plus some Centuri and other plans. Scan quality is sometimes poor from having been done a long time ago on weak equipment, and sometimes utility is compromised by lack of pixel scale control or reference rulers in the scans. Many of the decal images are pretty poor. There have not been any new additions to this site since circa 2010 or so.

The Rocketshoppe plans site is similar to the JimZ site, with instructions plus fin and decal scans. There is some overlap in coverage with JimZ. The decal and pattern scans often suffer the same kinds of problems as on the JimZ site, for the same reasons. I don't know if new plans are actively being added to Rocketshoppe.

The Estes instructions archive is only instructions; there are no fins or decal scans. But the quality of the scans is uniformly good, and coverage is pretty good. There is no Centuri material even though Estes owns it all.

The Estes catalog archive contains excellent quality scans of Estes catalogs all the way back to the legendary No. 261 catalogs. It has pretty much made ninfinger.org obsolete for Estes catalogs due to the much higher scan quality. There are as yet no Centuri catalogs there.

The ninfinger.org site has a lot of scans of rocket catalogs and documents, including some of the more obscure vendors. Scan quality is sometimes very poor, but there are important and unique resources there such as early Aerotech and Canaroc catalogs.

Data Availability by Manufacturer

This section discusses the parts data situation for various prominent model rocket vendors.

Estes

Estes Corporate History

Estes has an archive with many kit instructions and nearly all back catalogs on its website, and many kits have instructions plus fin and decal scans on the two prominent rocketry archive sites (JimZ and Ye Olde Rocket Shoppe). In addition, John Brohm produced comprehensive Estes body tube and nose cone kit cross-references in 2007 that contain a lot of hard-to-find data.

Early catalogs were comprehensive and accurate in their specs for parts, usually giving full dimensions and a representative weight.

Estes produced an encyclopedic "Custom Parts Catalog" in 1974 that is a valuable reference, though it contains many errors.

John Brohm published ca. 2007 a pair of valuable documents that cross-reference Estes nose cones and body tubes to the kits in which they were used. These contain information not available anywhere else, and have been highly valuable for this project.

Contract Manufacturing

In the last two decades, the use of offshore contract manufacturing in China by Estes has drastically limited our ability to get parts data. Estes production now works roughly like this:

  • Kits are assembled and packaged by the overseas contractor using parts that are either made or sourced by the overseas contractor.
  • The only thing that comes back to the USA is fully packaged finished product.
  • The manufacturers do not send back parts to Estes unless Estes specifically asks (and pays) for that to happen.
  • There is a cost associated with every SKU (product) that gets packaged and sent back to the USA, creating a strong disincentive to have the contract manufacturer package up a lot of individual parts.
  • A few Estes kits - typically small production run scale models - are actually produced in Penrose.
  • Customer service requests for incomplete or damaged kits are handled by sending an entire new kit; the parts are not separately inventoried by Estes.
  • Newer kits have no PNs listed in the kit instructions, since the parts can't be obtained separately.
  • Some parts, such as nose cones, that are made available at retail are bundled into assortments, with the assortment having its own PN. The internal PNs of the constituents aren't published, nor their specs. In some cases the actual contents of Estes assortments can change over time.

The way that outsourced contract manufacturing works now guarantees that individual part details will not be publicly available unless the manufacturer goes to extra expense to provide it.

As Estes shifted production to China, in addition to the issues created by contract manufacturing, other things happened that affected the ability to get Estes parts info:

  • Even for parts that are listed separately on the Estes website, little or no dimension or weight data is usually given anymore.
  • The number of obvious errors in Estes catalogs increased substantially after about year 2000.

Estes did not produce a catalog for 2017. Catalog production resumed in 2018 but with little parts information.

Thus we have better parts data on legacy (1960s through the late 1980s) parts than for newer ones. At this writing, the only way to index the parts used in newer kits is by obtaining and measuring actual samples, which I think is not going to happen broadly. In the future we'll likely have almost no new parts data until 3D scanning and shape-matching become convenient.

Part Numbers

The Estes part numbering scheme is as convoluted as you might expect for a company that started as a small operation in the early 1960s. The first part numbering system was very mnemonic, e.g. "BT-20J" was a body tube. In the 1970s Estes introduced pure numeric ("non-significant") PNs, first of 4 digits and later 5-6 digits. Many parts from the transition period had multiple PNs including the original and and one or both flavors of numeric PNs. The traditional part numbers gradually disappeared from catalogs and kit instructions, all but vanishing by 2010.

A much more detailed explanation of Estes part identifiers may be found here

Centuri Engineering

Up until about 1971-1972, Centuri catalogs had parts listings nearly on par with Estes. But the Centuri catalog parts listings after the Damon acquisition in 1972 are sparse and omit many dimensions. The overall completeness is much less than for Estes in the same era, even though the same parent company owned both brands.

Almost no Centuri kit instructions listed any part numbers. Centuri kit instructions are not archived on the official Estes instructions pages, even though Estes owns the rights to all things Centuri. Various plans do exist on the JimZ plans site and RocketShoppe, but coverage is poor - neither site has even 50% of known Centuri kits.

No Centuri parts file is provided with the stock OpenRocket.

Fortunately, the SEMROC online listings provide data for many Centuri-compatible tubes and nose cones. Given SEMROC's attention to detail, the SEMROC dimensions for Centuri parts can be considered authoritative when they exist, unless analysis clearly shows errors. However, even the SEMROC listings are incomplete; there were many blank entries for manufacturer PN in the SEMROC Centuri kit cross-reference pages.

Overall, we can probably construct a reasonable Centuri parts file, but it may be impossible to have comprenehsive data in the period between 1972 and Centuri's end of production around 1980.

LOC Precision

LOC Precision was an early high power kit vendor, founded in 1986 by Ron and Deb Schulz in Ohio. It was acquired in late 2000 by Barry Lynch when Ron and Deb retired, and most recently sold in November 2016 to Dave Barber and Jason Turicik of Plymouth, WI. (source: LOC website 2018)

Dimensional data from LOC Precision prior to the Barber/Turicik era is notoriously incomplete and error-filled, but I've was able to resolve most of it using Apogee's tabulated data and some measurements of actual parts. In the Barber/Turicik era the website data has improved but there are still gaps.

In 2022 LOC Precision acquired the hobby rocket business of Public Missiles Ltd (PML). PML's former website publicmissiles.com has gone offline as of September 2022, resulting in the loss of some parts data. Many of these parts have reappeared on the LOC website, but often without dimensions and weights. The PML file here was being built from the original PML website and as things stand it cannot be completed due to lack of data.

SEMROC

SEMROC (now a part of eRockets.biz) is unique in that a majority of its parts are dimensionally exact reproductions of classic Estes and Centuri parts. The late Carl McLawhorn was a fanatic about getting those things right, and data from the SEMROC legacy website has helped resolve uncertainties about some obscure Estes parts, especially tubes and nose cones. eRockets acquired SEMROC after Carl's passing and has done a fantastic job of getting nearly all the SEMROC parts back into production and indexing them on the erockets.biz website.

The body tube and nose cone listings on the old SEMROC website were unique resources, and I have digested them into a table of dimensions text file and a spreadsheet. Sadly, in late 2020 the server that hosted the legacy SEMROC website died in a hardware crash. eRockets has said that it cannot be restored, so that resource is gone.

Semroc is known for its vast array of Estes and Centuri compatible nose cones, but they also make some nose cones for their own kits. This leads to some complications. There are nose cones produced by SEMROC with Estes style designations that are not referenced in any known Estes literature. These fall into a few different situations:

  1. Specialty parts Estes made that never received a traditional PN. In the era after Estes stopped assigning "BNC-xxx" codes, they would assign a numeric PN only, and might never appear in a catalog. Semroc appears to have created BNC-xxx designators for these. Example:

    • BNC-5RA PN 70217 for #0893 Red Alert (PN given in instructions, no known Estes use of "BNC-5RA")

  2. Semroc-specific parts that Semroc made for their own unique kits. If they were made to mate with an Estes tube size, Semroc would assign a made-up Estes style BNC-xxx designation. Example:

    • BNC-20MG (1.9 inch odd shape for Semroc Moon Go)

  3. Semroc unique parts that are upscales/downscales of other well known Estes nose cones as indicated by Semroc on their website. Example:

    • BNC-20LS (2.0 inch elliptical, downscale of BNC-60L)

  4. Semroc parts that are balsa versions of Estes plastic PNC-xxx parts that had no Estes balsa equivalent. Examples:

    • BNC-20ED (4.2 inch "capsule", version of PNC-20ED from Saros, Nomad)
    • BNC-50KP (balsa version of PNC-50K, which was not the same shape as Estes BNC-50K)
    • BNC-50S (balsa version of PNC-50S; Estes never made a balsa version)
Nose Cone Shape Drawings

It turns out that the shape drawings on the nose cone individual pages on the Semroc legacy site were accurately to scale, and to make things even better, they were mostly at the same scale. Randy Boadway, owner of eRockets, confirmed to me at NARAM-60 in 2018 that the drawings do in fact come directly from the software that controls the nose cone making machines, so they were authoritative.

On the new e-rockets/Semroc site, the pixel scaling of the drawings is not as consistent as on the legacy site, but the drawings are still very useful and remain authoritative.

To exploit this you have to be careful about the browser zoom factor. In Chrome, hitting 'zoom in' five times gives you 200 pixels/inch in the Semroc legacy site drawings. Here is a list of zoom factors for Chrome on the Semroc legacy site images:

  • +0 - 100 pix per inch
  • +1 - 110 pix per inch
  • +2 - 125 pix per inch
  • +3 - 150 pix per inch
  • +4 - 175 pix per inch
  • +5 - 200 pix per inch

This enabled me to do pixel measurements in Gimp and get reasonably accurate shoulder lengths (and sometimes other doubtful dimensions) for all the Semroc nose cones. The drawings allowed correction of some errors in tabulation, and also enabled good determination of the hole dimensions in drilled nose cones.

The nose cone drawings have also proven that Semroc did not scale the shoulder length exactly, just the shape of the exposed portion of the nose cone or transition. Randy Boadway also confirmed this to me at NARAM-60.

BMS (Balsa Machining Service)

BMS is operated by Bill and Mary Saindon of Pahrump, NV. Much of the BMS business is balsa parts, but body tubes and Aerotech motors are also available. Lists of tubes and balsa parts are on the BMS website.

The balsa parts lists mostly do not show shoulder lengths, while the tube listings give full dimensions. No mass/weight data is given. BMS makes a significant number of their own unique centering rings. Bill Saindon has privately provided a list of shoulder lengths for all the balsa parts that have shoulders.

The BMS part numbering is somewhat Estes-like, but with considerable modifications. The classic Estes tube series numbers (5, 20, 50, 55, 60, 70, 80) appear somewhere in the BMS part number. Other designations are used for Centuri compatible items.

In addition to their own stocked parts, BMS also makes custom balsa parts for other rocket kit makers. These are not listed in this database.

Fliskits

Fliskits, operated by Jim Flis, ceased operation during 2018 after 16 years in business. Fliskits was most noted for making very imaginative kits, and for great customer service.

There is a 2-page 2014 Fliskits kit catalog online, but it has no parts information. There are, however, many useful snapshots of fliskits.com in the Internet Wayback Machine.

Fliskits body tube sizes were all Estes standard. There is a variety of nose cones that were likely made by BMS or Semroc - fortunately, full dimensions are given. There is only one balsa transition, and all the centering rings look identical to BMS rings. Apart from the nose cones, there do not look to be any custom parts.

MRI (Model Rocket Industries)

The lineage of MRI, MPC and AVI is sequentially connected. There is an article with some historical information reported directly from Myke Bergenske on this blog post by Chris Michielssen

MRI was started by Myke Bergenske of Wisconsin, who later was the owner of AVI. Myke may have acquired Central Rocket Company from Richard Goldsmith in the early 1960s per a post from Terry Dean on oldrocketforum.com on 11 June 2007. Myke subsequently made some kind of deal with General Mills circa 1969, leading to MRI being morphed into MPC, which operated as a division of General Mills. In 1973, the MPC rocket line was bought back by Myke and re-branded as AVI. AVI finally went out of business in 1979.

Information about this chain of events can be found here

A 1969 MRI catalog scan is available on ninfinger.org. It has tube OD, length and weight, and nose cone length (presumably exposed length) and weight. The tubes use the T15, T20, etc. metric style part numbers. Balsa transitions also have length and weight data.

MPC

MPC, a division of General Mills, entered the business as a successor to MRI, and produced rocket parts and kits from ca. 1969 to 1973, when the product line was transferred back to Myke Bergenske d/b/a AVI. AVI continued to manufacture and sell kits under the MPC name (with substitutions for some originally plastic parts) until around 1978-1979. The kit line is historically significant as many of them were designed by G. Harry Stine, one of the principal founders of model rocketry.

Very short MPC catalogs were produced in 1969 and 1970, followed by a Minirocs brochure when 13mm motors and rockets were introduced. The 1970 "catalog 2" lists the parts, with part numbers and partial dimensions. Tubes were made in metric 5, 15, 20, 25, and 30mm sizes. Only the OD of the tubes is given, and the nose cones are only identified by what tube size they fit and a general profile drawing.

Myke Bergenske is reported in the blog post cited above to have claimed that in 1970, MPC sales exceeded those of Estes.

The only online presence of the MPC catalogs is on http://vintagevendingwarehouse.weebly.com/history-of-mpc.html

Tubes and nose cones that may have been added when the Miniroc line was introduced are not separately cataloged anywhere. A couple have been identified (3 cal ellipsoid and 5 cal ogive T-15 nose cones) by pulling information from kit descriptions and instructions.

The MRI/MPC metric tube sizing system has persisted to the present (2022) due to its adoption by Quest, which not coincidentally was founded by Bill Stine, son of MPC designer G. Harry Stine. I have confirmed that the modern day Quest tubes have identical dimensions to the original MRI/MPC tubes, with a uniform 0.5mm (.020") wall thickness. Quest gives dimensions for some but not all of its tubes. The Quest data combined with a few actual parts should let us definitively recover the nose cone shoulder diameters appropriate for the metric tubes.

Despite the thin information, I have been able to build a relatively complete MPC parts file which is now included with this package. Any parts that may have been created during the AVI ownership era have not been included yet. I do not think there are many.

AVI (Aerospace Vehicles Inc.)

AVI was created around 1973 when Myke Bergenske bought back the MPC business from General Mills. AVI was famous for having an enormous newspaper style catalog in which many of the items were not really available, and for making some very nice black powder motors, including a 24mm "E11.8". AVI continued production of various MPC kits, with some substitutions to replace expensive injection molded parts. AVI ceased operation around 1979, at which time some of its motor making equipment was transferred to FSI, allowing FSI to enter the 18mm motor market to supplement its by then nonstandard 21mm and 27mm motor lines.

I do not believe that AVI actually produced enough unique parts to make an OpenRocket file necessary.

An interesting side note is that the AVI and FSI motor making equipment surfaced again circa 2015 - in very poor condition (I saw photos at NARAM-58) - when David Lucas and the late Dave Bucher located and bought up residsual assets of FSI in a short-lived attempt to restart production of some FSI products. See the FSI section for more details.

Madcow Rocketry

Madcow Rocketry, owned by Mike Stoop, is a mid to high power vendor operating in the Los Angeles area for the past several years (as of 2022). Madcow acquired the Rocketry Warehouse fiberglass kit line in 2016, but not the fiberglass tube/nose cone manufacturing operation. The tubes and nose cones sold by Madcow were and continue to be made by the former owner of Rocketry Warehouse, Curtis Taylor.

Madcow also acquired the Polecat Rocketry line of kits around the start of 2019.

To the best of my knowledge, Madcow Rocketry has never published a print catalog.

Madcow has spotty dimensional and mass data on its website; perhaps 2/3 of the parts have some useful data. Mass information is missing for many nose cones, especially the larger ones. For numerous parts including FT115, FC45, FC55 and FC80 there is no data at all. The published data for some items is suspect; in some cases there is very little clearance between the OD of couplers and the ID of the mating body tube.

Madcow tube-size-related SKU nomenclature is extremely inconsistent in multiple aspects:

  • Inches (FT40) vs millimeters (T38)
  • Insisde diameter (FT30) vs outside diameter (FT40)
  • Different designators used for the same sizes (cardboard T39 vs fiberglass FT40)
  • Mating coupler/tube SKUs with designators that don't match, going in both directions (fiberglass FT22 tube uses FC54 coupler, but cardboard T54 uses C22 coupler)

Quest Aerospace

Quest Aerospace was founded by Bill Stine, son of G. Harry Stine, who himself was a founder of MMI. Quest was originally called Quest Aerospace Education, Inc. and was based in Phoenix. Later it was reported operating from Colorado. Most recently it became a division of RCS RMS, Inc. (parent company of Aerotech) in about 2016, and operates from Cedar City, UT. Quest formerly sold 18mm and 20mm black powder motors, which have been discontinued in 2017-2018 (reportedly due to sourcing problems in China) in favor of "Q-Jet" composite A through E motors designed by Aerotech.

The Quest website has good dimensions for most body tubes, but incomplete or no dimensions for nose cones and other part types. There is basically no useful mass data anywhere in their literature.

In the latest editions of the website (last examined in Jan 2021), Quest now gives dimensions for nearly all of their body tubes in inch units. The Quest file here has been updated to match.

Quest makes several ready-to-fly Micromaxx (1/4" diameter motor) rockets that can only be had as part of starter sets:

  • Space Fighter
  • Flying Saucer
  • No Mercy
  • Critical Mass
  • Saturn V
  • Space Shuttle

There is also one builder MMX rocket in the form of the Boingo, available only in a 12-pack. It has a foam nose cone that is not sold separately and for which no PN is given.

The parts content of these Micromaxx rockets is totally undocumented.

Chris Michielssen reported to me (personal message, Nov 2019) that there was also an MMX X-15 starter set, which Dane Boles at one time had "a few" for sale.

Side note: The Saturn V and Space Shuttle are offered in a "Space Pioneers" starter set, which is a reference to the New Canaan YMCA Space Pioneers founded by G. Harry Stine (father of Quest founder Bill Stine), one of the early NAR sections from the 1960s.

A fair fraction of Quest kit instructions are available, and all of the instructions examined have part lists with numeric PNs and brief descriptions.

Quest currently has at least 38 kits in production (counting from the website as of March 2018), while the Quest website has around 30 plans on its Downloadable Instructions page. Ye Old Rocket Shoppe has 14 plan sets that are mostly not listed on the Quest site, while the JimZ plans site has no Quest data. None of the posted plans appear to be for Micromaxx sized models.

Comparing the instructions reveals that Quest used product number 1005 for two completely different models, the Tracer and the Starhawk.

The quest.orc included with stock OpenRocket 15.03 had many errors. I constructed a completely new Quest file with better dimensions; however the masses are all computed volumetrically and are mostly unverified.

FSI - Flight Systems Inc.

FSI was originally based in Raytown, MO and was run by Harold Reese, a pytotechnics specialist, and later by his son Lonnie. It operated from the 1960s until the mid 1990s - the last known catalog was 1996. FSI made their own black powder motors in A through F classes, and also made an early composite propellant motor called the Thunderbolt. FSI was notable for producing motors in odd diameters (21mm and 27mm) that were never adopted by any later vendor, leading to unique tube sizes.

In about 2015 the decaying FSI and AVI motor making equipment and some remaining parts inventory were located and acquired by Dave Bucher and David Lucas, who announced a relaunch of the company. At NARAM-58 they sold a small number of some FSI branded kits made from NOS parts with substitutions to enable use of 24mm motors. However, their website never went live for orders, and the passing of Dave Bucher in 2017 effectively halted the reboot attempt. The 2017 website is gone, but Facebook posts resurfaced in 2018 with two new people identifying themselves only as "B.G." and "R.M." apparently joining Dave Lucas. The Facebook posts made it clear they planned only on bringing out a few new kits.

The FSI restart is not known to have had individual parts on sale, and did not produce any new motors. In 2020 I was told privately that the new FSI has ceased operation and that the FSI assets are again for sale.

The modified old stock FSI kits sold at NARAM-58 are exceedingly rare, as they were made legitimately under the FSI name but no more than a few tens of them exist.

FSI had printed catalogs that provided good data on tube sizes, which have already been incorporated into tube_data.txt. Catalogs were produced only sporadically, but the product line changed slowly. FSI did sell almost all of the parts that went into their kits, so making a good parts file looks feasible. One unusual FSI part series was the hardwood nose cones. Getting proper weights for these may be challenging since the specific type of hardwood wasn't given, and it's not certain that the same type of wood was always used.

Apogee

Apogee started as a competition specialty supplier called Apogee Components that was run by Ed LaCroix of Minneapolis at least as far back as 1994. Apogee Components carried various parts including lightweight phenolic "blackshaft" tubing, nose cones, etc.

A 1994 Apogee catalog can be seen here on ninfinger.org It has good dimensions and weights for the competition parts.

At some time a number of years ago (check date), Apogee Components was sold to Tim van Milligan of Colorado, who turned it into a general retail outlet for various rocket companies including Estes, Quest, LOC, and others. It is still officially named Apogee Components.

Apogee now mostly sells parts OEM'd from other vendors. Their website is notable for having a lot of tabular dimension and mass data that seems to have been obtained from actual measurement of parts. Their website is the only source of published mass data for a number of LOC components. It is not error free, but has helped resolve inconsistencies in LOC and Madcow data.

Apogee does make a few own-design parts, including the foam egg protectors and nose cones widely used by TARC teams, and foam ejection plugs used in NAR/FAI competition. I don't believe they make any tubes or nose cones that aren't available elsewhere except a foam TARC nose cone.
A very small Apogee file has been built listing the TARC foam parts.

Wildman Rocketry

Wildman Rocketry is operated by Tim and Jackie Lehr of Van Orin, Illinois. It is one of the most important high power vendors and sells many large fiberglass HPR kits of their own design, along with parts.

Wildman provides so little data that it is probably not worthwhile to try to make a parts file, though there are certain unique parts, such as the 3" and 4" polycarbonate nose cones used for the Punisher 3 and 4.

For most Wildman fiberglass tube sizes (1.6, 2.2, 2.6, 3.0, 4.0, 5.5, 6.0 inches), you can find reasonable equivalents in the Madcow file.

Giant Leap Rocketry (GLR)

(History from various sources including Giant Leap Rocketry Inc. Facebook page, Aerotech news archives, etc.)

Giant Leap Rocketry was originally founded on June 1, 1997 in Baton Rouge, LA. As of 2002 (rmrfaq archive) their address was 6061 Hibiscus Drive, Baton Rouge, LA 70808, and the company was selling phenolic tubing and fiberglass nose cones. The owners were Ed Shihadeh of Baton Rouge and Kent Burnett. In a 2022 TRF post, Kent said he had worked for Giant Leap from 2000-2016.

In 2005, Giant Leap was selling Aerotech motors; but as of 2018 they were no longer selling motors.

Giant Leap Rocketry was sold in October 2016 to Dix Densley of Hillsboro, OR and Bob Martell of Portland, OR. Operations have been moved to Hillsboro, OR. I haven't found any information about any other ownership changes between 2005 and 2016. Dix and Bob totally overhauled the website in 2021 and announced they had acquired all the products of Acme Rocketry.

There doesn't seem to have been any systematic production of print catalogs. The company had minimal presence on Facebook between their account starting in 2012 and fall 2016 right before the company was sold. There are no Giant Leap catalogs on Ninfinger.org, and Google searches come up empty.

GLR offers four different types of tubes:

  • Phenolic
  • Fiberglass (new in the Dix & Bob era)
  • Magnaframe (hybrid vulcanized fiber and phenolic)
  • K-frame (hybrid Kevlar and fiberglass) - only available in 6" diameter (2022)

Giant Leap offers very limited dimensional data on their current website. Tubing is only identified by outside diameter, and weights are not given.

There is a file on the Giant Leap website with RockSim data for most classes of Giant Leap parts. A preliminary look at the files in the zip shows useful dimensions, but not much mass information and a number of obvious errors. There are some inconsistencies as well; e.g. all tube families are shown as having "Kraft phenolic" material. This file may be very old, evidenced by the absence of the fiberglass tube line, the presence of the now-vanished Dynawind+Magnaframe tubes, and significant changes to the nose cone and centering ring product lines.

Nonetheless the Giant Leap file here has been updated with the best available information.

Missing Manufacturers

There are several product lines from legacy and major manufacturers - especially high power vendors - that were not represented in OpenRocket 15.03. Some of these are now covered in this database.

  • Centuri (many cloneable kits with parts different than Estes). The Semroc parts file contains many closely compatible parts including all nose cones and tube sizes.
  • Apogee Components / Ed LaCroix. The original Apogee made competition parts that the later Apogee under Tim van Milligan did not carry forward.
  • CMR (long defunct but had unique tube sizes)
  • FSI (long defunct but had unique tube sizes)
  • ModelRockets.us (Discount Rocketry), offers tubes with heavier wall than Estes, and various plastic nose cones. Notable for being one of the smaller vendors with actual manufacturing capability.
  • Very small manufacturers, many of which made only kits:
    • Kopter Rockets (Walt Senoski)
    • Pine Cap Assoc. (proprietor unknown)
    • US Rockets (Jerry Irvine)
    • Aerospace Specialty Products (ASP, Andy Jackson)
    • Qualified Competition Rockets (Ken Brown)
  • Canaroc (reported long defunct in 2011 along with its parent Irwin Group of Toronto)
  • High power kit and parts vendors
    • Wildman
    • Rocketry Warehouse (pre Madcow acquisition)
    • Polecat Aerospace (pre Madcow acquisition)
  • Recovery specialists: Fruity, Rocketman, Sky Angle, and B2 parachutes

OpenRocket Usage and Quirks

For most things, you can use OpenRocket as you normally would. However, there are a few things you should know about if you want maximum accuracy.

Hollow One-Piece Plastic and Fiberglass Nose Cones

Due to limitations in what OpenRocket allows you to specify for nose cones, partial manual entry is required to get the most accurate mass and CG locations for heavier one-piece hollow plastic or fiberglass nose cones (currently this affects LOC only):

  • When putting in a plastic nose cone, go select the nose cone from the presets database. At this point the displayed mass will be too small, because the shoulder thickness is zero and the "end capped" setting is not on.
  • Select and copy the "Wall thickness" value on the General tab for the nose cone.
  • Switch to the Shoulder tab, and paste into the "Thickness" field.
  • Turn on "End capped". Now the mass at the bottom of the nose cone dialog will be correct, and the nose cone CG will also be correct.

At present, only the LOC nose cones and transitions have been adjusted so this procedure works, because they are pretty heavy and the CG actually moves a fair amount.

Size Matching in the OpenRocket Parts Selection Dialogs

The 'match fore diameter' (the field name varies slightly) option in the parts selection dialogs is very useful for narrowing the giant list to potentially compatible parts. However, in 15.03 it is buggy and when choosing couplers or inner tubes it sometimes shows parts that are slightly too large to fit inside the outer tube. Verify your dimensions!

Metal Tip Fiberglass Nose Cones

The density of aluminum at 2.7 g/cm3 is a little more than that of fiberglass (1.8 to 2.2 g/cm3). Metal tip nose cones will weigh slightly more than composite tip versions and have their CG slightly further forward, but the delta is not that large and OpenRocket has no good way to model this in a single component. For highest accuracy in mass, CG and moments of inertia, you can add a small mass object at the nose cone tip to make up the difference.

Should you care about this level of accuracy, I also suggest you weigh your individual nose cone parts and adjust accordingly. Manufacturer data is scarce and there are individual part variations.

Advanced Tactics for Complex Nose Cone Shapes

Many specialty nose cones do not match one of the simple CP-computable shapes modeled by OpenRocket. In these cases an approximate shape is used and noted in comments in the .orc file. If the mass is too far off as a result, one of two things may have been done in the .orc files in this project:

  • For hollow nose cones, the wall thickness will be adjusted to correct the mass. This preserves the accuracy of the moments of inertia.
  • For solid nose cones, a mass override may be used.

If you are trying to make a visually accurate OR file, some nose cone shapes that are composites of other simple shapes (BNC-55AM, Honest John etc.) can be modeled using a shoulderless forward cone, one or more transitions, and tube extensions for cylindrical nose cone sections. Short (even zero) length 'phantom' tubes may need to be added to join those items. However, there is no way to do this kind of thing as a single component preset in a .orc file, so if you want that level of fidelity you will have to do it manually. Jim Parsons (TRF user K'tesh) has posted many examples of these techniques in various TRF threads. In cases like the Honest John and Demon nose cones, you will get very good appearance with reasonable drag and CP computations. However for parts with draggy appliques like the Odyssey nose cone, there is no real way in OpenRocket to get the drag correct.

Parachute / Streamer Descent Performance Simulation

OpenRocket has very basic parachute / streamer performance modeling that is not suitable for anything more than a first order estimate of descent rate. A better parachute descent rate calculator can be found on the Fruity Chutes website here: Fruity Chutes Descent Rate Calculator. This model has some built-in parameters for chutes from other manufacturers, and an explanation of how the equivalent Cd and area are determined.

Conventions

Various conventions have been adopted to make the database files more organized, readable, and usable from the OpenRocket user interface.

  • Mass overrides have been eliminated to the maximum extent possible. This has primarily been done by using good density values for the materials, and adjusting non-significant dimensions such as wall thickness of hollow parts. One case where mass overrides become necessary is for oddly shaped, solid nose cones where OpenRocket cannot model the shape properly and the standard material density produces a notably incorrect mass when applied to the approximate shape chosen. Drilled nose cones and tail cones also often need mass overrides as they can weigh less than half of what an un-drilled part weighs.

  • CG overrides are never used, though I may revisit this decision for some drilled parts.

  • Units of measure for dimensions have been set to the units used in the manufacturer's specifications. For example, dimensional specs of Estes body tubes have all been changed to inches, allowing direct comparison to Estes catalogs. The OpenRocket original files have almost all lengths in meters, which obstructs comparison to catalog values for the entire USA rocket industry.

  • Descriptions have been regularized to the engineering standard of a comma-separated list of attributes, progressing from the most general to the most specific. For example, a Semroc BNC-5AW has the description "Nose cone, balsa, BT-5, 2.25", elliptical, PN BNC-5AW".

  • Materials entries have been consolidated into a master reference file generic_materials.orc and pasted into the parts database .orc files where used. Note that the master materials file is not actually processed by OpenRocket; it is just used as a source of truth for the materials pasted into the actual component files.

  • Materials entries not actually used in each component file have been removed.

  • Synthetic part numbers have been generated for components for which dimensions are known but there is no documented part number from the vendor. For example, the 12.25 inch BT-5 used in the Estes #2009 Rain Maker is assigned a PN of "BT-5_12.25in".

  • When multiple part numbers are known for a given item, they are given as a comma-delimited list in the PartNumber field.

  • Items not uniquely tied to any given manufacturer have been assigned a manufacturer name of "Generic xxxx", where xxxx (if present) may be a category like "competition".

  • Body tubes are listed in descending order of length so that if you sort on Description, they will appear in that order as long as other attributes of the tube series are identical.

  • Leading zeroes have been removed from part numbers, except in certain cases where they are consisdered significant.

Technical Info - how OpenRocket Parts Databases Work

OpenRocket File Types

There are two major kinds of files we are concerned with in OpenRocket:

  • Component definition files *.orc
  • Rocket definition files *.ork

The .orc component database files start life as ascii XML and are human-readable in the OpenRocket source tree. However, when the OpenRocket jar is built they are serialized into a single binary file. If you want to see the original built-in files you have to grab the OpenRocket source code from SourceForge. You can either clone the repo and dig in, or look around on the GitHub site. In the source tree the .orc files are under

swing/resources-src/datafiles/presets/

The .ork rocket definition files are always binary and there is no very easy way to inspect them.

There is no .xsd XML schema definition file to go with the .orc files, though there probably should be.

Built-in Component Databases (in OpenRocket 15.03)

The OpenRocket builtin databases are embedded in the main OpenRocket jar as a serialized binary file in datafiles/presets/system.ser inside the jar.

There is nothing in the manifest META-INF/MANIFEST.MF that refers to this file, so updating or removing it does not require altering the manifest.

State of the Built-In Databases (in OpenRocket 15.03)

In the OpenRocket source tree, the .orc files are extremely stale and no one has worked on them recently. The most recent change to the Estes file was in April 2014, and the rest have not changed since 2013 or before.

The new 2022 OpenRocket betas have adopted this database. At present the betas also contain the legacy 15.03 database, which can be activated with a "show legacy" option in the component selection dialog.

OpenRocket Data File Search Path

When OpenRocket starts up, it hunts down all the database files on its search path and loads all the parts ("components") from them into a single giant list. When you choose "From database..." in the presets menu for any type of item in the UI, OpenRocket will show you the whole list of items of that type.

The general search order for database files is:

  • Items existing in the active document (we still need details on this from a code dive)
  • Files included in the OpenRocket jar under datafiles/presets/system.ser (possibly no longer true in 2022 betas)
  • External .orc files in platform-dependent locations, as described below

Windows External File Locations

  • If %APPDATA% is set: %APPDATA%/OpenRocket/Components/*.orc
  • If %APPDATA% is not set: %HOMEPATH%/OpenRocket/Components/*.orc

TBD need description of how Windows stores locally added prefs in the registry!

Linux External File Locations

  • $HOME/.openrocket/Components/*.orc

Mac OSX External File Locations

  • $HOME/Library/Application Support/OpenRocket/Components/*.orc
  • Preferences in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.java.util.pref.plist

The OSX prefs are only used to hold materials definitions, not components. Unfortunately, it is only the prefs values that appear in the materials dropdown when editing a component.

Top Level Structure of .orc Database Files

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<OpenRocketComponent>
    <Version>0.1</Version>
    <Materials>
        <Material UnitsOfMeasure="g/cm3">
            <Name>xxxx</Name>
            <Density>0.0</Density>
            <Type>BULK</Type>
        </Material>
        ...
    </Materials>
    <Components>
        <Transition>
        </Transition>
        ...
    </Components>
</OpenRocketComponent>

Organization of .orc Database Files

Each .orc file has a set of material definitions at the top. These material definitions only have scope within the current datafile.

Conversely any given .orc presets database file can only use materials defined in the same file. This is why in OpenRocket there are duplicate material definitions (with identical names) in various built-in .orc files. In some cases the density values among these duplicates don't agree. Some of this might be intentional to capture the fact that different manufacturer's typical materials vary, but the variances don't look designed or systematic.

There is no provision for generic, non manufacturer specific materials except via the compiled-in default materials.

IMPORTANT: The material definition referenced by a component is only consulted when the component is first created in your .ork file! If you subsequently save the .ork, then update the material definition in the .orc, and reload your .ork design, the material definitions for existing components WILL NOT BE UPDATED. If you change the density for some material, in order to get your design to update you must manually open the affected components, and re-select the component preset from the database. This behavior may seem like a bug, but is actually needed to allow .ork files to be opened by any copy of OpenRocket, even if it doesn't have the same database files or stored presets as yours.

Listing available XML tags

You can find out the XML tags that can be used in .orc files via doing the following in an OpenRocket source tree:

find . -name "*.java" | xargs grep XmlElement

Note that you will not find specific entries for EngineBlock, CenteringRing, Bulkhead, and LaunchLug. These exist but all are special cases of BodyTube and have the same allowed fields of InsideDiameter, OutsideDiameter, and Length.

Enum Values for Nose Cone and Transition Shapes

The allowed values for the Shape element in NoseCone and Transition elements are:

  • CONICAL
  • ELLIPSOID
  • HAACK
  • OGIVE
  • PARABOLIC
  • POWER

The HAACK, OGIVE, PARABOLIC and POWER types all take a numeric shape parameter that can be set in the UI, but that cannot be specified in a .orc file and get set to a default value when such a part is selected.

Units of Measure in Component Database Files

Materials definitions in .orc files all must have density specified in one of the following units of measure using the "UnitsOfMeasure" attribute:

Bulk density:  g/cm3, kg/m3, lb/ft3
Areal density: g/cm2, oz/in2
Line density:  g/cm, oz/in

In the stock built-in OpenRocket databases, all materials are specified in g/cm3, g/cm2 or g/m.

For components you use the "Unit" attribute in the component definitions to specify other units as desired. In the standard OpenRocket presets files they were all metric, even for American parts, which makes checking the dimensions against the USA manufacturers' Imperial units specs very laborious. In my custom .orc files I have specified the units to be those of the manufacturer's published data to make it easier to check for errors.

Units recognized by OpenRocket are found in the source tree in

core/src/net/openrocket/sf/unit/UnitGroup.java

Here are the most useful units groups:

Length:  mm, cm, m, in, in/64, ft
Distance:  m, km, ft, yd, mi, nmi
Velocity:  m/s, km/h, ft/s, mph
Mass:  g, kg, oz, lb   (slugs missing)
Angle:  deg, rad, arcmin
Density (bulk):  g/cm3, kg/dm3, kg/m3
Density (surface):  g/cm2, g/m2, kg/m2, oz/in2, oz/ft2, lb/ft2
Density (line):  g/m, kg/m, oz/ft
Force:  N, lbf, kgf
Impulse:  Ns, lbf*s

OpenRocket 15.03 .orc Database File Limitations

NOTE: information in this section has not been updated for the OpenRocket 2022 betas.

There are some pretty serious limitations on what can be specified in the .orc component database files. Some of these could potentially be fixed easily; others are more structural.

  • General limitations:
    • Cannot 'include' other .orc files
    • Cannot make components that are groupings of other components
    • Can only reference materials from within the same file
    • Cannot define any graphic appearance attributes
    • Cannot define component finish
    • No support for multiple part numbers or SKUs
    • No way to specify the comment to be displayed in the UI comment tab
    • No support for component versioning
  • Body tubes:
    • Cannot designate a body tube as a motor tube
    • Cannot specify motor overhang or default ignition parameters as seen in UI
  • Nose cones/transitions:
    • Cannot specify shape parameter for OGIVE, POWER, PARABOLIC and HAACK shapes
    • Cannot specify wall thickness for nose cone or transition shoulders
    • Cannot specify whether nose cone or transition shoulders are capped
    • Cannot directly specify a rear-facing nose cone for pods or nozzle cones. However, you can fake this out by creating a reducing transition with a zero aft shoulder diameter.
    • No support for drilled-for-a-tube solid (balsa) tail cones. You can only define a fully filled part, or hollow with constant wall thickness. Therefore, there is no good way to model an Estes BTC-55Z or similar part.
  • Parachutes:
    • Cannot set drag coefficient for parachutes, though UI has this
  • Streamers:
    • Cannot set drag coefficient or Cd automatic mode, though UI has them
    • You can set thickness in .orc streamer components but it does not appear in the UI and may have no effect
    • Cannot specify a minimum packing length (usually the streamer width + margin)
  • Fins:
    • Cannot define finset or tubefin components at all
  • Mass components:
    • Cannot define mass components at all
  • Shock cords:
    • Cannot define shock cord components at all
  • Additional problems not specific to .orc files:
    • OR does not model moments of inertia for hollow NC/transition shoulders
    • OpenRocket only supports tubular launch lugs - no support for rail buttons or guides (fixed in 2022 betas)
    • No support for lug standoffs (maybe fixed in 2022 betas)
    • Cannot attach a mass object to a parachute (e.g. Chute Release device)
    • Cannot attach a mass object to a streamer
    • Cannot attach finsets to nose cones and transitions (thus cannot model Estes Sprint XL), couplers, inner tubes (fixed in 2022 betas)
    • Cannot define bulkheads with offcenter holes in them
    • Cannot define centering rings with multiple holes for cluster motor mounts
    • No support for streamer attachment lines
    • No support for parachutes with spill holes
    • No support for different parachute designs (flat, spherical, toroid, x-form, etc.)
    • Cannot specify packing volume or packed length/diameter for parachutes
  • UI issues related to component databases and part selection
    • Diameter matching in the UI is buggy
    • If you are defining a nose cone and load one from the database with a different shape, the shape dropdown doesn't update and the displayed mass doesn't recompute. I haven't verified it, but this may also be a bug with transitions.
    • UI part selection dialog expands poorly, only 1/3 of the area gets used for the main table
    • UI doesn't visually distinguish between component intrinsic attributes and parameters related to their placement or use in the design like relative position, radial position, etc.
    • The filter field in the parts selection UI defaults to near zero width (on Mac at least)
    • UI doesn't remember last size of the parts selection dialogs, you have to resize every time
    • Duplicating a part, whether by copy/paste or by creating a 2nd one attached to the same parent component, always puts them right on top of each other. That is useful for items that are going to be distributed radially about the centerline like cluster motor tubes, but not helpful for centering rings, launch lugs, and bulkheads.
    • Packing diameter of parachutes, streamers and shock cords should default to the ID of the parent body tube, and packing length of streamers should default to the width of the streamer.
    • Relative (axial) position and radial position of components really should be on the same tab.

Hardcoded Default Materials and Preference/Registry Augmentation of the Materials Dropdown List

When you pop up the dialog for a new nose cone, even before picking from the database via the upper right dropdown, there is a default list of materials available. These are hardcoded in Databases.java. However if you click Custom and add a new material to the list, it gets persisted using Prefs and lands in (on OSX)

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.java.util.pref.plist  (binary file)

At this point it doesn't look like there's any way to add materials to this dropdown list via a .orc file - a severe limitation. There is code in Databases.java that adds database listeners for line/surface/bulk materials, but the actual listener in MaterialStorage.java only adds the material to the preferences, and only if the material is flagged as user-defined.

There is also no UI to remove a material defined in the prefs, though there's code in the MaterialStorage DatabaseListener that will remove the pref on elementRemoved() firing. But you can use Apple's property list editor included in the Apple Developer Tools X Code package from developer.apple.com/xcode, or with TextWrangler from barebones.com.

See also (on OSX)

~/Library/Preferences/openrocket.favoritepresets.*.plist

which look like they will contain the presets you designate (by checking items in the database) for the various component types (nose cone, body tube, etc.)

After you pick an item from the database, the "Component material" dropdown still shows the same generic list...it does NOT show the list of materials defined in the manufacturer specific .orc file. This means if you change the material for a catalog component to something in the dropdown, you are not able to change it back to the original material defined in the manufacturer .orc file.

Windows We need solid information about how this works in Windows from a contributor!

References

John Brohm, Estes Nose Cone Reference, version 10.1

Cross reference that lists Estes nose cones used in kits by numeric part number, traditional part number, and kit usage. Does not list dimensions or mass/weight data. Last updated circa 2008 so does not include recent kits and many plastic cones. Fails to list nose cones that apepared in a catalog but were never used in a kit, such as BNC-55AA, BNC-10B, and multiple BNC-30xx. Contains some scattered errors.

John Brohm, Estes Body Tube Reference

Cross reference listing Estes body tubes and the kits in which they appear. Shows lengths, BT-xxx designators, numeric part numbers, and PNs of the kits.

Semroc legacy site nose cone listing

this resource is now dead

Shows all the nose cones Semroc and its owner Carl McLawhorn knew of, with dimensions. Annoyingly fails to list shoulder lengths, but provides correct dimensions for many parts for which Estes data is erroneous or not otherwise available. You must use this in conjunction with the Semroc nose cone compatibility list since the overall nose cone listing shows many items representing parts that were never issued by Estes as balsa nose cones.

Semroc legacy site nose cone compatibility list page

this resource is now dead

Shows which Estes BNC and PNC series nose cones were made by Semroc, and shows the Semroc BNC equivalents for the Estes plastic PNC nose cones. Very helpful for determining which parts were ever actually made by Estes.

Catalog archive on the Estes site

Downloadable PDFs of nearly all Estes and many Centuri catalogs with high quality scans.

Estes official instructions archive

This resource from Estes contains good quality downloadable PDF scans of the instructions for many kits. However it is very incomplete in kit coverage, and does not include scans of fins, templates, cardstock parts, or decals.

Catalogs on Ninfinger.org

This site contains scans of historic model rocket catalogs from Estes, Centuri, FSI, LOC, and others. Some of the Estes and Centuri catalog scans here are old and of poor quality - check the Estes catalog archive listed above for generally better versions.

MPC History and Catalogs

This is the only site where I could find any scans of MPC catalogs. There are also 3 MPC kit documentation sets on JimZ and more on plans.rocketshoppe.com. I was able to use this information to build a reasonable MPC parts file.

Quest Downloadable Instructions

This page has about 30 instruction sets for Quest kits. It is not complete and actually does not include most of the 14 plans on the Ye Olde Rocket Shoppe plans site. It also does not include any Micromaxx kits. Quality of the PDF files is very good.