Is CTI still shipping motors?

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This has been asked and answered at great length already here, I’d encourage you to search.

If I recall the last update I heard correctly, CTI is still recovering from the warehouse fire they suffered recently. They are producing motors, production is increasing slowly, and some of their more specialized propellants may never return.

Several vendors are getting shipments per their posts here in TRF.
 
CTI is currently shipping: White Thunder, Green, Smokey Sam, CStar and Skidmark. The hold up for the other propellants is the scarce availability of a key ingredient which they are working on securing. The only outcome from the fire several years ago is that they are no longer making VMax propellant.

The longer lead times are due to the large mil/aero contracts CTI has and their limited manpower. Also, there have been delays since covid on supplies from their vendors and machine shops.

https://amwprox.com/ has a large inventory of CTI products. Robert says that the inventory counts on the website are fairly current. They also have a large order on the way from CTI. Other dealers might not have stock because they aren't willing to place an order with the long lead time and capital outlay.
 
jsdemar said:
CTI is currently shipping: White Thunder, Green, Smokey Sam, CStar and Skidmark. The hold up for the other propellants is the scarce availability of a key ingredient which they are working on securing. The only outcome from the fire several years ago is that they are no longer making VMax propellant.

The longer lead times are due to the large mil/aero contracts CTI has and their limited manpower. Also, there have been delays since covid on supplies from their vendors and machine shops.

https://amwprox.com/ has a large inventory of CTI products. Robert says that the inventory counts on the website are fairly current. They also have a large order on the way from CTI. Other dealers might not have stock because they aren't willing to place an order with the long lead time and capital outlay.
Click to expand...
You got me stumped a little here John, what would the common scarce ingredient between Blue Streak, Red Lightning, Pink, White, Classic, Imax, and Mellow be………..hmm
 
jhill9693 said:
This has been asked and answered at great length already here, I’d encourage you to search.

If I recall the last update I heard correctly, CTI is still recovering from the warehouse fire they suffered recently.
Click to expand...

Recent as in the one 7 years ago or recent as in so recent I haven’t heard anything about it yet?
 
M and above are motors that I am surprised anyone carries. I would only carry them if someone preordered them.
 
Sounds great that they appear to be shipping a little more regularly. Any word on the long 54mm cases and their CATO issues?
 
jhill9693 said:
Again, it’s been asked and answered. Just search the forum.
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To be fair, it's been asked, acknowledged many times by CTI...but NEVER answered by them with a cause nor a solution. Same with the short 54mm nozzle/1st grain burn through issues.

And it's burried in the CTI thread.

The gluing of the forward end and greasing the crap out of the case and liner are consumer solutions that add a measure of reliability, but do not address the root causes of the 54 failures.
 
Banzai88 said:
The gluing of the forward end and greasing the crap out of the case and liner are consumer solutions that add a measure of reliability, but do not address the root causes of the 54 failures.
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True, and FWIW I had a K1440 trash my 6G case with a bubble at the forward closure last month, despite the gluing and greasing.

Long Pro54 motors were never terribly reliable even before the fire, but since then they have gotten noticeably worse and I just don't think they have the resources to figure out why.

AFAIK the last thing that was said ( https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/cti-discussion-thread.162183/page-16#post-2174184 ) was
We have been looking into the P54 failures, and testing some new ideas to hopefully fix the problem in the near future. Unfortunately we've been very busy and getting results is taking longer than expected.
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That was in Aug 2021.
 
Last edited:
mhanna said:
Sounds great that they appear to be shipping a little more regularly. Any word on the long 54mm cases and their CATO issues?
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Just a single anecdotal report here, but I flew an L990 two weeks ago and all was good. The load and the 6GXL case were no-charge replacements from CTI for an L990 CATO over a year ago. I epoxied the forward closure as I always do on these motors, but did not put alot of grease on the liner, just used silicone spray in the case. Did not epoxy the nozzle.

Just ordered an L265 from Wildman for more 6XL fun in a few weeks. The one L990 CATO is the only one I’ve had on CTI (or any other) motor.
 
I'm working with a new NASA SLI team and they decided to switch to Aerotech due to reliability and warrantee time frames. I was just hoping to get a quick read on the very latest info.
 
mhanna said:
I'm working with a new NASA SLI team and they decided to switch to Aerotech due to reliability and warrantee time frames. I was just hoping to get a quick read on the very latest info.
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Have you guys considered Loki, you don’t need to worry about warrantees with Loki
 
We have not considered Loki, I only have experience with Aerotech and Cesaroni motors so our discussions went that direction.
 
I have never had a Cesaroni motor fail.

I have never had a Loki motor fail.

There is a saying, "An idiot doesn't learn from his mistakes. A smart man does learn from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others."

I guess we will all make up our mind for ourselves.


X Files The Truth Is Out There GIF by The X-Files
 
cwbullet said:
Do you think they do not CATO?
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Based on mess reports and the countless flights I have witnessed, the old saying “a mountain and a mole hill would be a pretty accurate comparison between CTI CATO’s and Loki CATO’s. I never recall hearing about a ton of Loki forward closure issues, or a bunch of burn throughs at the nozzle, or bulging cases below the forward closure after tribal remedies to correct the issues that the manufacturer should be addressing. Loki being snap ring would also lend itself to teams doing IREC or Spaceport that would like to transition from COTS to SRAD.

To answer your question, can a Loki CATO, of course it could, any manufacturer can have a motor CATO. The better question would be “what is the likelihood of a Loki motor CATO’ing compared to the rash of CATO’s that CTI is having?” Answer would be extremely low.
 
Rschub said:
I have never had a Cesaroni motor fail.

I have never had a Loki motor fail.

There is a saying, "An idiot doesn't learn from his mistakes. A smart man does learn from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others."

I guess we will all make up our mind for ourselves.


X Files The Truth Is Out There GIF by The X-Files
Click to expand...
A wise saying, but the big issue with CTI has been the longer 54 5, 6 and 6xl motors, long burn 2 grain Skids, and 6xl 38’s, I don’t believe I’ve seen you fly any of these motor configurations so your results don’t really fall into the parameters that he was inquiring about with long 54’s
 
sharkbait said:
Loki being snap ring would also lend itself to teams doing IREC or Spaceport that would like to transition from COTS to SRAD.
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The Spaceport Cup motors are generally all 75mm and 98mm. The issues with the longer 38mm and 54mm CTI wouldn't effect the teams at the competition. Some groups might be using them for L1/L2 cert flights, but those are typically the shorter CTI motors.
 
sharkbait said:
I don’t believe I’ve seen you fly any of these motor configurations
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You are correct. That was my point about learning from the mistakes of others. I will get a 54mm rocket someday....

The very first day Ken put a CTI case in my hand, I was unimpressed, but that was all there was available. And when I see the liner almost melted through on 2-3 grain 38mm I have to wonder.

Anyway, you are right, the current discussion is out of my league at the present time.
 
jsdemar said:
The Spaceport Cup motors are generally all 75mm and 98mm. The issues with the longer 38mm and 54mm CTI wouldn't effect the teams at the competition. Some groups might be using them for L1/L2 cert flights, but those are typically the shorter CTI motors.
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Intent was leaning snap ring hardware and then transitioning from COTS to SRAD. Our WVU team has a state of the art machine shop at the university and makes their own 98 & 152 hardware and nozzles, but with the right propellent in the right rocket a Loki 54/4000 could be competitive if one wanted to go that route
 
Rschub said:
You are correct. That was my point about learning from the mistakes of others. I will get a 54mm rocket someday....

The very first day Ken put a CTI case in my hand, I was unimpressed, but that was all there was available. And when I see the liner almost melted through on 2-3 grain 38mm I have to wonder.

Anyway, you are right, the current discussion is out of my league at the present time.
Click to expand...
You’re moving along quite nicely, hopefully sometime next season I can coax you over to the Dark Side, definitely no warranties there 😧
 

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