In article ,
Derek Lyons wrote:
(Henry Spencer) wrote:
A large hot fighter with a *big* internal weapons bay -- the Arrow's was
huge...

The weapon pack *looks* huge because of the amount of square footage
it takes up. But what is has in length, it lacks in depth.

It *was* huge -- circa 400 cubic feet, which is very large indeed for a
fighter internal weapons bay. (Carrying Sparrows internally just plain
takes a lot of room.)

The flat shape (roughly 16x10x2.5ft) would be a little awkward, but not
disastrously so, especially for a high-altitude release where aerodynamics
would be less important. It's inefficient for a rocket that's a single
cylinder, but it's a fairly good fit for three cylinders side by side.
One can imagine non-cylindrical shapes that would fill even more of the
internal volume, but with any reasonably dense rocket, the triple cylinder
is probably already hitting limits on mass.
--
MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046, | Henry Spencer
first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal! |