X-20 Dyna-Soar with titan booster....

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Had another really nice flight today in the updated silver scheme on an H-97 in Dayton Washington. It was really way too windy, 10mph constant with gusts up to 20....handled the wind really nice once off the rail, I pushed forward a bit to keep it going up wind, and then pulled full up to get it to stall slightly nose up till the altimeter ejected the glider, the wind was blowing hard so the glider couldn't make much headway and finally just settled flat. ....My display nozzles were too heavy to risk launching it with them attached, but I did fly them on the Titan II I flew later in the day and they flew and survived no problem.
 

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Here is the flight video:

[video=youtube;LZTD6Z8tbDg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZTD6Z8tbDg[/video]
 
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Had a nice low-wind nominal flite at the tri cities yesterday, was able to have my kids prep the motor and deployment charge in the van during the drive, setup the launch pad and prep and launch 3 minutes before the waiver closed:)


Frank

[video=youtube;MDBb_KmGGIs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDBb_KmGGIs[/video]
 
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Just saw this thread and read through it watched most of the videos. (Some of them would not play though - said they were private and I needed to log in.) As someone who's never really thought about anything other than a regular tube based rocket, this was a great thread to learn from and now I want to go back and look at your other build threads. It's hard to believe that such a large rocket can be so light weight.

Thanks for your write-ups and video, very informative. And when I was a kid the Dyna-Soar really captured my imagination so it's great to see such a large scale model flying.


Tony
 
Thanks Tony, I was cleaning up son of the old videos that weren't great as I got better ones so I've removed the offending ones that didn't work.

Frank
 
Had another perfect flight in Sherwood Oregon this weekend, thanks to Olivia and George Rachor for helping to set up and recover.

[video=youtube;tFeeJ_ljUe0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFeeJ_ljUe0[/video]
 
I saw this fly today!
Never thought I'd see an 8" diameter rocket fly on an H97 motor!
Was a cool flight!
Frank never ceases to impress.
 
It's actually overstable, building out of foam, all the recovery gear weight is at the top, motor is small, only added a few ounces of nose weight.

Flew again today, worked great even in wind. Giving her a nice retirement now that I've gotten good video and still flight shots after 2 years and more than 10 successful flights which is way more than I thought it would ever survive. Like they say, so many things to go wrong and only one thing that can go right...

Frank
Beautiful flight... how is it stable with all that fin area up top?
 
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Gary Goncher got some great action shots of the Titan II and glider...a great one showing the ejection of the chute and glider coming off, another with the booster landing about 100 yards behind us as I'm flying and another with the glider and me behind it.

2017_Fillibles_Folly-19.jpg2017_Fillibles_Folly-90.jpg2017_Fillibles_Folly-20.jpg2017_Fillibles_Folly-21.jpg2017_Fillibles_Folly-22.jpg2017_Fillibles_Folly-23.jpg
 
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Frank....

Congratulations on your Titan II/Dyna-Soar being featured in the Focal Point section of April's Model Aviation.
 
A nice way to wrap up this project with a cover photo! She's now sitting in my spare room, retired after 10 successful flights, maybe when I get tired of looking at it, I'll risk it again for a large audience, I felt I'd pushed my luck with it far enough:)

cover.jpg
 
I just watched this in the expanded view of post #105, which is a beautiful flight !!

OK. I just got the latest Sport Rocketry in the mail this morning. The Dyna-Soar cover looks great!
 
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I've pulled the Titan II-Dynasoar out of retirement for potentially one or two more flights. I've painted the fins silver now, and added two nozzles at the base, the glider is now fitted with onboard ignition so I hope to have it eject, glide for a short time, then ignite an onboard E-6 for a second boost. Lots to go wrong as usual, but it has had 11 flawless flights so far. Since it is slightly heavier in this configuration I'm going to use an H-115 dark matter motor for boost as opposed to the usual H-97. This also is about 3 oz lighter so that along with the extra 3 oz of glider motor/onboard battery for ignition should keep my CG conservative. Fingers crossed for good weather on the 24th in Touchet Washington.
 
I've pulled the Titan II-Dynasoar out of retirement for potentially one or two more flights. I've painted the fins silver now, and added two nozzles at the base, the glider is now fitted with onboard ignition so I hope to have it eject, glide for a short time, then ignite an onboard E-6 for a second boost. Lots to go wrong as usual, but it has had 11 flawless flights so far. Since it is slightly heavier in this configuration I'm going to use an H-115 dark matter motor for boost as opposed to the usual H-97. This also is about 3 oz lighter so that along with the extra 3 oz of glider motor/onboard battery for ignition should keep my CG conservative. Fingers crossed for good weather on the 24th in Touchet Washington.
When I was a kid the Dynasoar concept really captured my imagination, as I'm sure it did with so many others. I hope you have a good flight and I am looking forward to photos/video. Thanks for the update.


Tony
 
the glider is now fitted with onboard ignition so I hope to have it eject, glide for a short time, then ignite an onboard E-6 for a second boost. Lots to go wrong as usual, but it has had 11 flawless flights so far. Since it is slightly heavier in this configuration I'm going to use an H-115 dark matter motor for boost as opposed to the usual H-97. This also is about 3 oz lighter so that along with the extra 3 oz of glider motor/onboard battery for ignition should keep my CG conservative. Fingers crossed for good weather on the 24th in Touchet Washington.

You just gotta push the envelope, dontcha?

;)

Ignition by RC control?

You gonna ignite it horizontal and then aim up? or aim it up and then ignite?

Interesting concept: could an extra motor be added to your “regular” single stage gliders (obviously accounting for weight and CG) under RC ignition control? You could get a “second” boost and glide from each flight with only one trip to the pad.
 
Yes throttle turns on the electronic switch when above 50%

I'll try to pitch up as soon as it ignites to avoid overspeed of the model.

At these sizes and waits and distance to the motor adding a second motor wouldn't work, additional required nose weight would make the model too heavy for the e6 (a motorway is 1.75 Oz and then the required nose weight would be around 1.25 Oz so 3 oz extra plus about .75 oz for the extra ignition battery and ignition circuit and wiring, if you try to ignite it off the flight battery you risk a brownout of the radio when the ignition happens) so you get a crappy boost with the first motor due to weight and then after the second motor Burns out the CG shift is way too much, I don't think you could trim that out.

You just gotta push the envelope, dontcha?

;)

Ignition by RC control?

You gonna ignite it horizontal and then aim up? or aim it up and then ignite?

Interesting concept: could an extra motor be added to your “regular” single stage gliders (obviously accounting for weight and CG) under RC ignition control? You could get a “second” boost and glide from each flight with only one trip to the pad.
 
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Flight #12 turned out to be the final flight of the stack, on an H-115 the boost was nice and straight, and I pulled "up" a bit at the end to keep it pointed up till ejection, flipped to normal control mode and ejection was clean and the glider came off cleanly but the chute did not inflate and the booster streamlined straight in with irreperable damage, but it had a good life and lasted much longer than I ever expected:



Afterward I used the onboard ignition system to fly two more standalone flights of the Dyna-Soar glider on E-6 motors and it continues to fly great.

 
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