One Stop Soviet shop

[Fulcrum]

Personally, I wish the Serbians would restore Zeljava Airbase and use it as a museum... such a massive work of construction should not be left to rot like that... then again, if I won a massive ammount of money I might consider buying it off them and living there.

You have to clear the entire area of landmines as when they left, they left behind a good amount of them.

[RussC]

Personally, I wish the Serbians would restore Zeljava Airbase and use it as a museum... such a massive work of construction should not be left to rot like that... then again, if I won a massive ammount of money I might consider buying it off them and living there.

You have to clear the entire area of landmines as when they left, they left behind a good amount of them.

   I was going to say, after reading that original mention of the name- I google Earth'ed the place and have to say, I have never seen a landscape so BOMBed looking ever, even Peenemunde looks cleaner or the outskirts of Ploesti.

   And am curious in that it looks like an emergency airstrip in that there almost no buildings at all...or is this one of those places with hangar space under hillsides and into tunnels?

[pyro-manic]

Yup. It's huge. And completely wrecked. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDeljava_Air_Base

[lancer]

I'd love to give one of those Fishbeds a nice new loving home... I love the Fishbed's look, always have.

As would I! The fishbed is one of my all time fave aircraft....

[Overkiller]

.

[PR19_Kit]

OK, so where did it go? 

I'm SERIOUSLY impressed by the size of the erector actuator. Considering how fast it swung up into position they must have the mother of all pumps on board that truck!

[Sauragnmon]

I found it interesting that a split second before the launch canister goes up, the canister lid blows off.  That was quite impressive.

If you look on the right in the related videos, there's a good demonstration for the BM-30 Smerch 300mm rocket system, documenting a number of the special munitions it can deliver.  There's also a link on That for the BM-27 Uragan 220mm rocket system where you get to see that launching a rapid salvo.

[Hobbes]

Considering how fast it swung up into position

It almost looks like they counterweighted the launch tube, and let gravity do most of the work.

[Sauragnmon]

It seems that it's not counterweighted, but that there are compressed gas units somewhere on the launcher that provide that massive lift speed - This video at the end has a nice broadside view, and if you look, when the launch canister is fully elevated, it's venting gasses that I surmise are involved in the rapid rise of the launch canister.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j9q0kq2usY&feature=related

[PR19_Kit]

Having spent much of my life as a hydraulic control engineer in one way or another systems like this naturally interest me.

If it uses accumulators to lift the launch tube there'd be no need to vent the pre-charge gas after lift, the gas could be contained within the system for next time. Not only that, unless they went to some lengths to fit non-return valves or some other locking mechanism the tube could fall back down again when the pressure was removed. Not a good idea I'd have thought.

That lift jack piston is around 2 ft dia, and the stroke length is around 5 ft. looking at the view of it at the end of the vid where the guy is cleaning it off. As it has to be a single acting ram (the outer dia. of the cylinder is only just larger than the piston) the volume of oil it needs would be around 117 galls at full lift. not counting the amount in the pipework and valves etc. It takes 10 secs to lift the tube into position so the flow rate required would be 702 galls/min!

Believe me, that's a BIG pump!

[Hobbes]

it's venting gasses that I surmise are involved in the rapid rise of the launch canister.

I assumed that those gases are part of the cold gas ejection system.

[lancer]

OK, so where did it go? 

I'm SERIOUSLY impressed by the size of the erector actuator. Considering how fast it swung up into position they must have the mother of all pumps on board that truck!

Either that or a LOT of viagra!!!!!

Seriously though it was VERY impressive.

[RussC]

it's venting gasses that I surmise are involved in the rapid rise of the launch canister.

I assumed that those gases are part of the cold gas ejection system.

My reading of the launch sequence, was that the vented gas seen at the bottom of the missile canister was indeed from the "cold launch" system.




Duncan

Same here. A lot of these cold launchers use solid propellant to create steam as the prime mover, as it damages the rocket less. In that same group of videos as the ones linked are cold launches of the older SS18 and 19, both massive objects. These are supposedly used with black powder.

[Sauragnmon]

That wasn't the gas I was talking about.  In the video I posted, on what used to be the bottom of the canister in its stored position, there is some gas that comes off around the upper part just after it's raised.  I wasn't referring to the massive plumes of blown gas from the cold launch, but to a smaller, differently coloured, bit of gas that comes off just after it's raised, like a cylinder venting at its full capacity.

[PR19_Kit]

Accumulator pre-charge gas is very pure nitrogen (for reasons I could go on an on about for over an hour.....) so even it was venting it would be invisible. But as I said above it's not likely or practical that they'd just throw it away so I reason that any visible vented gas is due to something else going on.