The L2 journey begins!

Well gang, I have decided to go after my NAR Level 2 certification.

I am scheduled to take the written exam at Whitakers this month and hope to attempt the flight in October.

I will be using a scratch built slightly scaled down version of DG&A rocketry's Armageddon that I've outlined in the Scratch Build Forum.

At this point, Rocksim has it sitting at 154 oz. dry weight. I won't be using electronics or dual deployment and want to keep it in the same county when it comes down.

I plan on getting the CR's and fins cut out Sunday morning and I'll get some pics as soon as there are some to take.

Wish me luck!!

Jason

Were there for ya man!!! Luck...

I'm sure you'll do just fine! She should fly GREAT on an J350 of one of the Cesaroni J's.

I do have a question for the canard fins.

I was wondering if I would need to do them TTW or not. I was thinking so, but there's not going to be anything inside to but them against.

Anyone got any great ideas for me? or do I just need to surface mount them and give good epoxy fillets?

Jason

I think you will be fine with surface mounting them with good fillets. Unless you plan to go supersonic

Jase,

A thought on the canards (actually 2 thoughts):

1. If you separate the rocket there, you can go through the wall there and then use the coupler to anchor them to (or you can add an extra coupler to anchor those, since you want the weight anyway). Might help a bit.

2. The Yank kit I used for my level 1 had some fairly thick flexible phenolic tubing. If you put a slight angle on the trailing edge of the canards and bevel the edges fairly sharp, you could slot the tube SLIGHTLY shorter than the fins, and, since the canards are smaller than your BT, push the fins through from the inside, which will really wedge them into the BT (you'll end up pushing up a bit of the BT, but you can either trim that and/or cover with your fillets). I ended up not even needing to tack mine and used 30 min. epoxy (don't have West Systems yet) for the fillets so that it would seep down in between the fin and the BT. They come out purty strong that way.

Both the methods Kermie outlined will certainly add strength. I have used the slotting method on minimum diameter rockets. I inserted a motor covered with wax paper and then epoxied the fins into the slots. Once dry, I just rempoved the motor and paper. And added fillets of course.

I have heard of people making a small fin tab and adding fillets to the inside also.

The major failure modes for fins are 1. hard landings and 2. flutter at high speed. You won't have a problem with #1 with forward fins, and with the standard 38mm motors you will not have to worry about #2 either. Even with a much bigger motor you won't have problems IMHO.