Dynasoar Rocketry RC Rocket glider kits

Good job!

Yes better camera... with video capability. Pictures are a substitute for not being able to be there. Haven't been able to fly up here because of the weather, flooded fields etc.


Richard

And to clarify, flying an RC rocket glider is an active process, you should be driving it to where you want it during the entire flight

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Radio Controlled Rocket Glider Kits
Hi All, I've gotten a few people ask for older kits that I no longer make, Bay area rocketry has a few in stock including:

Original profile X-15 RC rocket glider https://www.dynasoarrocketry.com/x-plane-instructions.html
Ikarus https://www.dynasoarrocketry.com/ikarus-kit-instructions.html
HL-10 Lifting body https://www.dynasoarrocketry.com/lifting-body-hl-10-instructions.html
SST https://www.dynasoarrocketry.com/sst-instructions.html
Arc-Light https://www.dynasoarrocketry.com/arc-light-instructions.html

You'd have to call him to find out price and availability.

Frank Burke

I had perfect conditions at my local RC club picnic today and got a 4+ minute glide flight with my Stratodart:

[video=youtube;CmYJfaLm29s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmYJfaLm29s[/video]

Thats excellent. The white puff balls showed good thermal activity, even so 4+ is great for that kind of RCRG. Any better and I might have to think about building one for the CanAm Cup this coming weekend.


Richard

A really nice long glide with rolls and half rolls on the way up!

Yes, even burning some energy with rolls, and considering this I just a flat plate wing with no airfoil.

I made 2 flights with the Strat-Dart during Hellfire-22. On the first flight I had a little bit of trouble on the aft rail button coming unscrewed. I tightened it and it seemed fine. Upon launching the glider flew into the sun. I could not see it nor could the LCO or the RSO. With about one second left on the burn I turned the flaps up using the Specktrum transmitter. However, with the sun blocking the sight along with the flight line of gazebo's and cars I had lost sight of it. The RSO said that the StratoDart had landed behind the flight line. I took a long walk and found the glider unhurt. Two days later I launched the Strato Dart again. I had some salt on the rail buttons, but I think that I removed it all. Also, there might have been some salt on the launch rail, but I think I removed that, too. The low power launch pad is really nice and it was the only one available at Hellfire. I left it standing for a few days and I noticed several other people using it. Anyways, on the second launch the Strato Dart hesitated on the rail a little bit. Somewhere above the rail during the powered flight the Strato Dart started to deviate from a straight up flight. I moved the joystick and it looked like I had regained control and then the Strato Dart deviated again at the last second. Afterwards, as I walked to the landing vicinity I found to my dismay that the Strato Dart had made a one-point landing. I know that Frank will definitely disapprove of this. In any case after post-flight examination the Dart was essentially undamaged. The forward body tube was slightly crimped, but it is hardly noticeable. The internal electronics, battery, and wiring were attached with velcro and had slid forward. The servo wire connections are disconnected and so I will have to enter the fuselage and re-connect them. Other than that the model is undamaged.

I make sure to check my rail button tightness each flight, they can unroll/unscrew due to friction on the rail. I also clean my rail with handi-wipes and then dry and spray with silicone spray to keep it clean and slick. the only time I have binding on the rail is if there is a good gusty wind that blows the wings side to side. Yes, I try to avoid one point landings Glad she is ok!

Frank

aerostadt said:

I made 2 flights with the Strat-Dart during Hellfire-22. On the first flight I had a little bit of trouble on the aft rail button coming unscrewed. I tightened it and it seemed fine. Upon launching the glider flew into the sun. I could not see it nor could the LCO or the RSO. With about one second left on the burn I turned the flaps up using the Specktrum transmitter. However, with the sun blocking the sight along with the flight line of gazebo's and cars I had lost sight of it. The RSO said that the StratoDart had landed behind the flight line. I took a long walk and found the glider unhurt. Two days later I launched the Strato Dart again. I had some salt on the rail buttons, but I think that I removed it all. Also, there might have been some salt on the launch rail, but I think I removed that, too. The low power launch pad is really nice and it was the only one available at Hellfire. I left it standing for a few days and I noticed several other people using it. Anyways, on the second launch the Strato Dart hesitated on the rail a little bit. Somewhere above the rail during the powered flight the Strato Dart started to deviate from a straight up flight. I moved the joystick and it looked like I had regained control and then the Strato Dart deviated again at the last second. Afterwards, as I walked to the landing vicinity I found to my dismay that the Strato Dart had made a one-point landing. I know that Frank will definitely disapprove of this. In any case after post-flight examination the Dart was essentially undamaged. The forward body tube was slightly crimped, but it is hardly noticeable. The internal electronics, battery, and wiring were attached with velcro and had slid forward. The servo wire connections are disconnected and so I will have to enter the fuselage and re-connect them. Other than that the model is undamaged.

View attachment 325479 View attachment 325480

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Our club got invited to do a launch demo at a school after the eclipse, got a couple of flight shots of my Jayhawk RC RG. It's small but you can see it

Jayhawk looks cool! It must have been a busy "space" day with both eclipse and rockets.

Al Clark sent me some nice pics of his finished Valhalla kit. The kit was OOP but I was able to send him a short kit including the cone with canards, tubes, all parts minus the wings/tail surfaces and sent him some templates to use with his own stash of depron. Turned out nicely.

I made a 4' by 2' rack today out of 1x2 using wood screws and pieces of broomstick, the broomstick is hard, and just fits into 24mm motor mounts and is nicely finished and was cheaper than dowell rod. I countersunk the dowells into the 1x2 using an auger, then screwed them in from the bottom, holds 15 rocket gliders and I can slide it into the back of my van and still have room for 2-3 other large rockets. I made it for the sheridan launch this month, hoping to get one more flight on my Titan II/Dynasoar stack and get some photos/Video, and fly all of these if time and weather permits. I wanted this made out of wood so that it can't blow over due to wind by the footprint is smaller than I could do with a pvc structure for the same stability. Planning on bringing my 10" diameter Atlas missile and my 8" Titan II missile as well.

Nice looking models, Frank! The nice thing about the Valhalla kit, which looks the B-70 to me, is that one does not have to cut long slots in the body tube. On the other hand I really like the look of the StratoDart, which does have a long slot in the BT.

Had to post this nice feedback Glenn Greenwell sent:

Mr. Burke, just wanted to say thanks for making our “Rocket Day” we had recently such a success. We built two of the conformal rail launch pads that you show on your site, as well as a Stratodart, a Pegasus and Hypersonic III. In spite of no test flights beforehand all were launched and recovered successfully multiple times. We had many other rockets and RC plane flights during the day, but the boost gliders were the crowd favorite. I think we even converted some RC guys who usually sneer at anything rockets, and they may add to the show next time. Thanks again for your help and look forward to adding to the boost glider fleet. Three dynasoar kits made by Bill Rademacher, Glenn Greenwell and Mark Vance

Hi Frank,
This is Clare Piper and I just joined this forum.
I and my husband Charles Piper have been attending the BALLS experimental rocket launch for many years. Last year I built and flew my own rocket and got a Tripoli Level 1 cert. While I was there, I also bought one of your SR71 kits from Mike Gentile of Bay Area Rocketry. I've been putting it together (with the recommended adhesives) and plan to fly it at BALLS this year. The kit is going together very nicely, so thank you! I'm also building the launcher you described on your site. I hope to get some stills and video of the flight, and will post it here. I'm getting some RC flight experience with a Yellow Bee, so that I can control the Blackbird and not lose it.

That's great, hope you have a great flights! Set up with balance and throws as per the directions and it should work fine, just keep the orientation on the boost straight and without roll so when you go into glide you aren't trying to figure out what direction it is pointing.

Frank

ratha13 said:

Hi Frank,



This is Clare Piper and I just joined this forum.
I and my husband Charles Piper have been attending the BALLS experimental rocket launch for many years. Last year I built and flew my own rocket and got a Tripoli Level 1 cert. While I was there, I also bought one of your SR71 kits from Mike Gentile of Bay Area Rocketry. I've been putting it together (with the recommended adhesives) and plan to fly it at BALLS this year. The kit is going together very nicely, so thank you! I'm also building the launcher you described on your site. I hope to get some stills and video of the flight, and will post it here. I'm getting some RC flight experience with a Yellow Bee, so that I can control the Blackbird and not lose it.

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I've just sent out the first BETA kit of the Orion Starliner to Mark at stickershock for feedback. This design is my lightest at just under 10 oz rtf. The inspiration was the wing planform for the 2001 Space Odyssey Orion III shuttle, with an added tail for stability. This kit uses 2" psII tubing and cone, with a wing/tail using flite test waterproof foam board. This foam board requires the use of bob smith foam cure or beacons foam tac glue since foam safe CA will not stick to the coated paper. The advantage of this is it is slightly thinner than depron and stiffer, but it is brown so requires painting. Plus, I can get this foam board. working with it is slightly different, you can sand the edges round but then should seal them with a light layer of glue before painting. The instructions and build pictures are here if anyone is interested...https://www.dynasoarrocketry.com/orionstarliner.html

Here are pictures of the second prototype on the left and the first prototype using depron wing on the right....I'll finish the second version in pan am markings.

I had a disaster while painting, the masking pulled up the paint on the foam board when I sprayed the black. One of my field buddies said he paints direct and never had a problem but obviously that's what I get for just taking someones word.

I've since read you need to rough up the foam board surface with 320 then paint, then use very lightly tacky masking tape. So I got out some test pieces, sanded them and then I tried krylon fusion and also automative sandable primer and they both soaked through the sanded paper and pulled the paper away from the foam and wrinkled, Model master/Testors small rattle cans seems fine, which is what I've found is the only reliable paint on depron as well, masking and spraying a second color turned out fine with just very minor small flakes pulling up on one test piece, I used green and blue masking and did not try to reduce the tackiness before using, so I think this will probably work fine.

I was able to touch up the areas on my model and it looks ok.

Mark's pan am decals arrived today and look great as expected, they make a nice pair, flite test foamboard wing/tail prototype in Pan Am colors and depron original prototype in Trans World...With the paint the painted foam board version is .5 oz heavier as expected, so right at 10.25 oz.

All, I'm considering moving my website to another server and that means I'll have to rebuild my site on another cms(wordpress or similar) and the current content on godaddy uses their proprietary cms and is not portable. What this means is that if I do this, I won't be copying the older kit instruction photos, but rest assured I've already put all of my kit instructions, and the general instructions online on a blog page at https://drrocketry.blogspot.com/
over on the right there is a link to each kit with a photo of the kit at the top in case you forgot what your kit is called and the CG locations, throws etc are there, just not the individual build photos. My plans are also mirrored there as well.

I'm assuming my domain will be maintained if I do go with another host, but only the current kit instructions will be there and they will have build photos with notes, I will put a link to the blog page on my new host with a pointer to the old kit instructions so you can still find them.

If there is a kit you have not built yet and you really want to have the build photos, you should go to my normal dynasoarrocketry.com site, hover over the Instructions for OOP kits tab and go to your kit, then you can click on each photo and then right click and do a save as so you will have them for reference.

I'd like to be able to move the pictures, but with nearly 30 kits and 20-30 photos with comments on each, it's just too much manual work.

I'll send out a note if/when I do move to a different server, hopefully the site and feel will be similar, content will be the same.

Thanks again.

Frank Burke
dynasoarrocketry.com

Al Clark sent me these great photos of three of my designs he built, the X-20, AQM-37 Jayhawk and Valhalla. Since the X-20, Jayhawk and Valhalla were OOP, I was able to do a short kit for him that included all parts except the wing for the Valhalla, and Depron for the X-20, and bt-80 for the jayhawk, and I included some templates for him to cut his own Depron parts from, since he had his own depron stock, He did a great job.

In addition to the two beta Orion Starliner kits using flite test foam board that are being built, I'm also going to re-look at model plane foam, it is a bit thinner and not as stiff as depron, but is white an wouldn't require painting and surface prep, I rejected this when I was doing profile kits but now that my kits are through the tube wings, they are more supported and with the normal carbon spar may be ok. It should be here Monday.

Here is the first Beta Orion Starliner by Al Clark, he did a beautiful job.



Frank

A customer asked me to work something custom up for him that was styled after the Johnny Quest Dragonfly III jet, so here's what I came up with.

I avoided the bottom scoop since it is in the way for landing, and did a through tube wing and to have proper support got rid of the dihedral. It has the feel of the dragonfly but obviously not exact. I slotted the cone for styrene canards and added a foam block canopy.

At this point instructions and tube/cone are done and I've optimized the wing location so that no nose weight should be needed and have the wing/tail templates worked up, 26" wingspan, 25" long.

I'm in the process of moving my website to a different CMS and host, so if you are looking for instructions etc and something is not working, let me know asap. The older kit instructions are there, linked to a hardcopy of the old site, so the header etc will link to the old site till we get that updated, that will happen over the next week. You may need to clear out your cache/cookies in order for it to resolve to the new site.

A Huge thanks to William Rademacher of armoredplanet.com for offering to help port into wordpress and get me started and hosting the site so I can continue to offer these kits as easy ways to get started with RC RG's.


Frank

Good news, the model plane foam (MPF) is a good enough quality to allow me to proceed with the Orion Starliner as a kit!

burkefj said:

Good news, the model plane foam (MPF) is a good enough quality to allow me to proceed with the Orion Starliner as a kit!

Click to expand...

Great news!

burkefj said:

Good news, the model plane foam (MPF) is a good enough quality to allow me to proceed with the Orion Starliner as a kit!

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[emoji106]

More kits to follow?

Just the three 2" kits for now, but I'm working on some things...

Frank

I picked up some BT-80 tubing and PNC-80BB cones for a good price and worked a prototype based on the X-37B(The Daedalus) This uses the MPF wings with depron tail surfaces. I had finished the painting yesterday, the servos and receiver showed up at 2:00, by 3:00 I was at the field ready for maiden. CG was spot on, boost was nearly hands off for three flights, just a bit of glide trim adjustment was needed, looked very pretty in the air.

Here's the video from today

[video=youtube;oXvFTK5-t5o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXvFTK5-t5o&t=6s[/video]