Why do the flames from rockets seem to be proportionally as large as the rocket itself?

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I’m a big rocket nerd and have watched a lot of launches and every time I see one, the flames produced by the engines seem to be just as large as the size of the rocket. Is this simply a coincidence or is there a reason behind it?

In: Engineering

5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Either I am misunderstanding your question or all the other commentators are.
Of course a bigger rocket makes a bigger flame. But why is the flame the same size as the rocket? Why not 50% of the size, or 150%?
That is how I understand OP’s question.
Personally I have no idea, and from watching rocket launches myself I think the length of the flame varies a lot depending on where they are in the burn (altitude etc), but I have also noticed that they are about the same length fairly frequently.
Here is a picture of the Falcon X to demonstrate.

https://spaceflight101.com/falcon-9-orbcomm-flight2/wp-content/uploads/sites/57/2015/12/16698990295_88e932fafb_k.jpg

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