Atlas Mercury 1/12 scale

[aerostadt]

Thanks, gerbsme and K'Tesh. I have no plans for on-board video. I am anxious enough about the remaining issues to close. Attached are the photos in the capsule adapter section to jettison the escape tower. I've shown a 9v Duracell battery, but some new Ni-Cd batteries (brand Chicago Electric Power Systems) from Harbor Freight. The battery will lie flat on the bulkhead plate attached with velcro.

 

[aerostadt]

I was concerned about the amount of JB Weld that I had used to hold the Giant Leap Bell Shaped Nozzle Retainer. There is a very small gap to be filled with more JB Weld as shown in the pictures.



Fortunately, a good friend gave me some disposable hypodermic injectors and these work good for injecting JB Weld. After mixing the JB Weld I used a small diameter wooden dowel to deposit the mix on the inside of the injector. I found some old swamp cooler rubber tubing that was good for attaching to the end to inject the mix into the small gap.

 

[Jmhepworth]

Do you expect to be finished by Hellfire? I'm looking forward to seeing it fly.

Joe


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[aerostadt]

Do you expect to be finished by Hellfire? I'm looking forward to seeing it fly.

Joe


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Joe,
I planning on launching at Hellfire. I still need to get some things ready.
Bob

 

[NJRick]

Aerostadt.....when this Atlas flies....its going to be spectacular!! I can't wait to see the pictures!!

 

[aerostadt]

Aerostadt.....when this Atlas flies....its going to be spectacular!! I can't wait to see the pictures!!

Thanks, NJ

I just put on my decals from Mark at Sticker Shock. I want to say thanks to Mark for working with me as I made some mistakes. It is always a pleasure to work with Mark. Photos on the new look are shown below.


!

 

[NJRick]

Aerostadt! she is gorgeous! just beautiful work on her! is she ready to fly?

Rick

Thanks, NJ

I just put on my decals from Mark at Sticker Shock. I want to say thanks to Mark for working with me as I made some mistakes. It is always a pleasure to work with Mark. Photos on the new look are shown below.


!View attachment 177242 View attachment 177243 View attachment 177244 View attachment 177245 View attachment 177246

 

[Owen Eldridge]

This has to be my favorite thread.

 

[aerostadt]

This has to be my favorite thread.

Thanks Owen. NJ, I think we are going to trying next week at Hellfire-19. I beefed up the clear fin attachments with some inner corner braces or L-brackets. The fins can still be readily removed to fit inside the wooden box cradle for transportation.

 

[NJRick]

can't wait to see launch pics!! gosh she is a beautiful build aerostadt!

Thanks Owen. NJ, I think we are going to trying next week at Hellfire-19. I beefed up the clear fin attachments with some inner corner braces or L-brackets. The fins can still be readily removed to fit inside the wooden box cradle for transportation.

View attachment 178768 View attachment 178767 View attachment 178766

View attachment 178769 View attachment 178770 View attachment 178771

 

[aerostadt]

Last Friday was a beautiful day at Hellfire-19 and we took the plunge and readied the Atlas Mercury. UROC member Joe Hepworth helped transport the rocket to the faraway pads that use the large 1515 rail buttons. I used a dolly purchased from Harbor Freight with a wood pedestal on the bottom to help transport the Atlas. Joe gave me good encouragement, which was appreciated. At the LCO/RSO tent we bumped the escape tower and hurt the tower alignment. I found later that the escape tower A8-3 motor did fire, but I don't know when it fired. (Some things worked well; some did not.) Fortunately, on the way to the pad Joe recruited UROC member Jim Yehle. This event turned out to be invaluable. We found that the Atlas rail button would not fit on the rail. Jim noticed that forward lip of the rail was bent inward a slight amount. The rail buttons were not epoxied in, so we could remove them and test them on the rail. Taking advantage of the relative softness of the aluminum rail, Jim was able to straighten the lip with a wrench.

 

[aerostadt]

I am posting a link to the UROC website, where Jack Anderson has posted a video of the Atlas lift-off. Many thanks to Jack for capturing the video (the label says Saturn, but we know it is an Atlas). For the purpose of the flight I christened the model "Godspeed, John Glenn". These were the words that Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter radioed to John Glenn as the Mercury Friendship 7 capsule left the pad, meaning "God spede you" or "God prosper you".

https://www.uroc.org/index.php/gall...anderson/video/185-bob-morstadt-saturn-rocket

The aft end and plastic fins did well with no appreciable damage. There was damage on the forward end, capsule, and escape tower.

 

[NJRick]

just spectacular!! awesome from the start of this build to the finish!!! very very well done!!!!

I am posting a link to the UROC website, where Jack Anderson has posted a video of the Atlas lift-off. Many thanks to Jack for capturing the video (the label says Saturn, but we know it is an Atlas). For the purpose of the flight I christened the model "Godspeed, John Glenn". These were the words that Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter radioed to John Glenn as the Mercury Friendship 7 capsule left the pad, meaning "God spede you" or "God prosper you".

https://www.uroc.org/index.php/gall...anderson/video/185-bob-morstadt-saturn-rocket

The aft end and plastic fins did well with no appreciable damage. There was damage on the forward end, capsule, and escape tower.

 

[GregGleason]

I can only imagine the elation you felt. Congrats!

:clap::clap::clap:

Greg

 

[luke strawwalker]

Very nice... looked like a great flight...

Altitude?? Later! OL JR

 

[Brent]

Nice flight. Did the tower recover and nose cone recover OK? Looked like the nose cone may have been ok in the video but I could not tell about the tower.

 

[marcusSRG]

Great job and a beautiful bird! FYI I'm pretty sure you can hear the A8 fire just before apogee as the tracking smoke really starts going. Again, well done!!

 

[AfterBurners]

Nice flight...looks like it hit kind of hard. Was there any damage?

 

[Jmhepworth]

It just looks like it hit hard because the salt is pretty unforgiving. No damage on landing at all, at least not to the booster. The capsule split open and spilled John Glenn out onto the salt. I still regret not taking a picture of that before I picked it up. It was rather amusing to see the astronaut on the salt next to the capsule.

It was a terrific flight. Got lots of oo's and ah's as Bob wheeled it out to the pad. And applause when the chute opened.

Joe


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[aerostadt]

I found a little bit of damage to the aft end, but the majority of damage was at the front end. According to RocSim9 the touchdown velocity is about 14 fps, which is not too bad for a scale demo model. Some people talk about 20 fps or more for real sports models. My Gemini-Titan model touches down at about 11 fps. It takes doing to get below 14 fps for the Atlas, but the ratio of the square of the velocities show that it might be worth it. I am just amazed how well the Aerocon 15' diameter chute works. It is very sheer and light and weighs only about 2 pounds and does not cost too much.

Here is the aft end damage. There was no damage to the fins or the aft bulkhead at all. I had expected some damage. The fins were removed for transportation. There is small crack in one of the booster aft skirt 1/64 inch plywood. The crack is above the aft bulkhead and so cannot be reached from the inside. There is a slight indentation into the body tube where the fins pressed in a some amount on landing.

 

[rocketguy101]

I am posting a link to the UROC website, where Jack Anderson has posted a video of the Atlas lift-off. Many thanks to Jack for capturing the video (the label says Saturn, but we know it is an Atlas). For the purpose of the flight I christened the model "Godspeed, John Glenn". These were the words that Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter radioed to John Glenn as the Mercury Friendship 7 capsule left the pad, meaning "God spede you" or "God prosper you".

https://www.uroc.org/index.php/gall...anderson/video/185-bob-morstadt-saturn-rocket

The aft end and plastic fins did well with no appreciable damage. There was damage on the forward end, capsule, and escape tower.

I played the video through VLC so I could get some still shots...spectacular flight!!! Bravo Zulu!!

First set:

 

[rocketguy101]

next set...

 

[rocketguy101]

final set...

 

[aerostadt]

Dave, thanks very much for your close-ups. In the second batch of close-ups starting with the 3rd frame we can see the green mylar chute (it is blur) that is used for the escape tower moving rapidly to the left. These pictures and others indicate that the escape tower did not separate as it should have. The K570 burns for about 3.9 seconds (~ 4 sec) and the escape tower was to separate about 2 seconds later. It looks to me that the escape tower stayed with the Atlas and capsule until the main chute came out. The escape tower A8-3 separation motor did fire. The Durham water putty blast deflector shield, which was attached to the top of the capsule by clay, appears to have done its job of protecting the capsule below, but it is long gone. The main chute ejection loads appear to have been brutal on the capsule integrity. The capsule chute became entangled as shown below. Also, as shown in the in-flight and post-flight photos, the electronics section separated from the capsule hanging on by the electrical wires to fire the escape tower.



I had been thinking of using electronics to fire the parachute at apogee, but abandoned this idea. Thus, I relied on the delay charge to eject the main chute. Rocsim9 gave the delay time after motor firing to apogee to be about 6.9 seconds and I used 7 seconds from the Prodat54 tool. This was the minimum that the prodat tool allowed.

 

[aerostadt]

As I mentioned a month ago some things worked on the Atlas-Mercury and some things did not. I did get a zipper as shown below. This might have been due to relying on the delay charge. Another contributing factor might have been the 1" square relief port that I cut in the base of the black adapter section. One of the zipper break lines was at this location. At one time I was thinking of putting an altimeter on top of the parachute-ejection piston to fire an ejection charge on the other side of the piston. (I have done this successfully once before on a different model.) Since I was unsure of guaranteeing the local ambient pressure in the parachute tube (Would the whole parachute tube be evacuated to the local ambient pressure? Was the relief port a certain number of diameters back from the nose, etc.?), I finally decided to go with the motor manufacturer's delay charge.



One thing that did work surprised me. I asked PML whether I should let the piston have U-bolts, which would take the parachute g-load on opening, or not attach the shock cord to the piston and let the shock cord take the load. PML recommended letting the shock cord take the load. So, I threaded the shock through a tight-fitting slot in the piston plate and wrapped some duct tape around the shock cord to prevent ejection gases from leaking. This worked. There was no damage to the piston or piston plate and it looked like post-flight that the shock cord didn't even move relative to the piston plate.

 

[aerostadt]

I ran out of time before the first flight to put on the LOX supply line, so today I finally completed this detail. It can be clearly seen on Matt Johnson's model and the Estes model. PVC piping is popular in Utah for sprinkler systems, so finding parts was not much of a problem. It was easy to cut a hole in the front for an elbow, but I could not do so in the aft end, because I was near a fin slot and heavy internal construction in the rearward portions of the model. I finally decided to put a wood screw attachment in one PVC T-section and let the aft T-section be left unattached. For the front elbow I epoxied a short section (about 2" length) of PVC pipe to the parachute tube on the inside and the main air frame towards the outside. Thus, the oxygen supply line can be removed for transportation. Some of the very aft PVC sections were attached with PVC cement. I found that the middle T-section without threads on the left and right arms worked best.

 

[NJRick]

Looks awesome Aerostadt....I have enjoyed your post flight analysis. she is a gorgeous bird.

 

[aerostadt]

Thanks, NJ! I finally finished the external piping details with attaching the Fuel Fill and Drain Valve today. That's what Estes calls it. I found a copper elbow fitting at the local plumbing store and put a wood plug and screw in it as shown below.

 

[thobin]

Way cool!

TA

 

[Bojangles]

My Grand Dad worked on these out at Dyess AFB in Abilene, Tx. Well, just the Atlas missiles. Really takes me back seeing this, when I used to visit He always kept models of them in the room I stayed in. One of my earliest memories of rocketry.. Excellent build!!!