Dynasoar Rocketry RC Rocket glider kits

So I got the bright idea that I can offer the lifting body kit with one of three body/fin styles to give a different appearance, the original HL-10 based version, an X-24A based version and an X-20 based version, all while keeping the wing planform, CG and templates/instructions identical, just gives you some variety.

That is a great idea!

I like kits with options like that.

I may not be able to resist getting one once I clear my backlog a little bit....

In addition to the new Klima Me-163, I could not resist one of the little 950mm Mini DLG gliders from HobbyKing when the put them on sale, with servos, for under 40 bucks the week of Thanksgiving. Looks highly convertible to RMS-RC 24mm power.

Now I need to start two more project threads .....

Here are the two prototypes for the other body styles...ready to fly....they look pretty boring plain but when painted/decaled/panel lined they'll look pretty good. I found some old switching regulators I pulled off my rocket gliders when I switched to just using a single cell lipo to power them, so I sold them and that paid for the foam and servos, I had some spare receivers and pieces of leftover carbon scraps from my kits sitting around so it didn't cost me anything to prototype them. For the X-20 the wingtips are vertical with a very slight inward(toe in) angle with gives a bit of shuttlecock stability, the X-24A the tips are angled outward slightly with slight toe-in and are taller than the HL-10 style because it is more correct and there is also a bit more forward side area on the X-24A body ahead of the CG so I wanted to be sure I didn't have a lateral stability issue.


Frank

I am definitely going to have to get one version or another of this after recovering from Xmas and my recent Black Friday sales indulgences in for rockets and RC aircraft. Hobbyking just had too many awesome deals to pass up.

I will just have to be your unofficial product demo pilot at NARAM 58.... Assuming they all survive until then, I will have the InteR/Ceptor, X-15 and the lifting body there, plus some of my own rocket powered Depron.

Very cool. BTW, Tom, have you worked with mpf(model plane foam) at all?

tab28682 said:

I am definitely going to have to get one version or another of this after recovering from Xmas and my recent Black Friday sales indulgences in for rockets and RC aircraft. Hobbyking just had too many awesome deals to pass up.

I will just have to be your unofficial product demo pilot at NARAM 58.... Assuming they all survive until then, I will have the InteR/Ceptor, X-15 and the lifting body there, plus some of my own rocket powered Depron.

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burkefj said:

Very cool. BTW, Tom, have you worked with mpf(model plane foam) at all?

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Have not tried them yet, but had heard the name. Have not heard any reports about them.

The price certainly is attractive, if it is at least close to as nice as Depron from RC Foam.

I've ordered a box, we'll see. They have a good price on carbon if you buy it and ship it with their foam, sheets are 24x48 and run about $5.50 to me delivered compared to $8.20 for depron, you are closer to them so it might be cheaper even to you.

Frank

tab28682 said:

Have not tried them yet, but had heard the name. Have not heard any reports about them.

The price certainly is attractive, if it is at least close to as nice as Depron from RC Foam.

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Looking forward to a report on this new foam supplier.

Finished the x-20 style, and added the panel lines for the x-24 style

Looking good and will look killer with the Stickershock vinyl.

Taking care of errands and stuff this AM, but hope to cut some more Depron later today. Looking a little windy to go fly RC at 15-20.

Here's the X-24A Style with Stickershock markings, doesn't look too bad.

I had about an hour break in the constant rain and got to do the two maiden flights on the X-20 and X-24A style lifting body profiles, I set them up exactly as the HL-10 style and everything was hands off perfect, glide trim etc, the X-20 style needed no elevator in turns, really simple to fly and land.

[video=youtube;dNEYhO-A_RI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNEYhO-A_RI[/video]

Frank, very nice--happy and excited that I picked up one of your kits.

Everyone that hasn't gotten one of Frank's kits I'll tell you you need to get one. They come with all accessories needed short of electronics installation. At $48 these kits are a steal! In my mind, Frank is really doing us all in the rocketry community a service making it easy to step into RC controlled rocketry.

Thank you Tim.

dixontj93060 said:

Frank, very nice--happy and excited that I picked up one of your kits.

Everyone that hasn't gotten one of Frank's kits I'll tell you you need to get one. They come with all accessories needed short of electronics installation. At $48 these kits are a steal! In my mind, Frank is really doing us all in the rocketry community a service making it easy to step into RC controlled rocketry.

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This was my latest project, based on one I had done back on 2008. As I built it I took photos just like I would if it was a kit, I've posted the instructions on my dynasoar web page link below so you can see how it goes together. All the electronics except for the servos are inside the tube. It is based on the Mach 10, but I've changed the geometry a bit for so I can fit it into a box, and I did away with the ejecting nose weight. I'm calling it a Mach 2...

Before I spend time cutting templates I'd like to see if there is enough interest first. In addition, I found a great deal on the markings, The USAF, stars/bars and wing panel line/black markings(anything that isn't red or blue on the model) that were discontinued from another rc kit so I will provide those free with the first five models. You'll still have to do your own canopy color and/or accents, I used some red/blue vinyl scraps I had leftover from stickershock23. I include printed templates on photo paper for the red accents as well as for the canopy.

It has a Mig 15, F-86 and even Huckebein(https://www.fiddlersgreen.net/models/Aircraft/Focke-Wulf-Huckebein.html) look so you could decorate it in a variety of schemes.

So, let me know if this is something that interests you. It will require a receiver, two servos, two 12" servo wire extensions, a 500mah 1s lipo battery and a transmitter with delta mixing.

There is a video on the main page showing three flights.

Frank

burkefj said:

I had about an hour break in the constant rain and got to do the two maiden flights on the X-20 and X-24A style lifting body profiles, I set them up exactly as the HL-10 style and everything was hands off perfect, glide trim etc, the X-20 style needed no elevator in turns, really simple to fly and land.

[video=youtube;dNEYhO-A_RI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNEYhO-A_RI[/video]

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Very cool and the glide ratio is much better than I thought it would be.

Unfortunately, those are over 250g flight weight and radio controlled, and because of the extreme threat that poses to our nation and its people, you must register yourself with the federal government if you fly them on 21 Dec 2015 and thereafter. Note that if those same aircraft were free flight and not radio controlled they would, for some reason, be of no concern to the DOT/FAA because they would then, for some reason, not be a hazard to anyone. As a matter of fact, they could weigh up to 55 pounds and not require your registration as long as they weren't remotely controlled.

https://www.faa.gov/uas/registration/faqs/

Don't rush to register because this legislative idiocy may be fought in the courts. You have up to 19 Feb 2016 to register yourself before flying anything you owned prior to 21 Dec 2015. Anything purchased on or after 21 Dec 2015 that is remotely controlled (including an unmanned stunt kite according to an interpretation of their wording) and over 250g requires that you register yourself prior to flying it.

EDIT: The fine for not registering yourself can be up to $27,500. Also, please read the FAQ and make your own interpretation of the date for registration requirements as I'm giving you MY interpretation of the rules. I don't want you fined $27,500 on my account.

Here is the flight video from Saturday..it glides pretty well...

[video=youtube;l2YN05H5njE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2YN05H5njE[/video]

burkefj said:

Here is the flight video from Saturday..it glides pretty well...

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I think "pretty well" is an understatement! That looked great!

On the other hand...I think "Mach 10" is an overstatement! LOL

Also I'll add that while I'm interested in the Mach 2, I'm not ready for it yet. I still have to build and fly the X-15 & SR71. I'd definitely consider it in the Spring.

BTW - Blame FAA registration on me...many hobbies I finally decide to really dive into suddenly have all hell break loose and decades of freedom suddenly get legislated out of existence.

I've gotten enough orders to make it a kit, so it's available now in the site.

Here is the first model assembled from the kit templates....done in soviet style so I have a good guy and bad guy....

Frank

Here's another soviet style and I did one in pseudo german markings...

I've been exerimenting with updating my IntR/Ceptor kit to remove the tail surfaces and change to elevon control to make it look more like the original interceptor and allow me to cut some of the kit cost. Here is just the boost portion of the maiden flight without markings..I'm still waiting for my stickershock markings to finish it up. It actually cut the weight by quite a bit, part from removing the tail/carbon and part from the servos being more forward and not needing as much compensating nose weight for CG, these flights are at about 7.6 ounces ready to fly on the e-6 motor, almost too light for the speed as it goes pretty high, I actually lost it for a second when I pitched over and I just was looking at tail end of a white line....

Wingspan is the same at 21 inches, length is slightly shorter at 39" due to the removal of the tail section. Glide is still quite good as the wing loading reduces. Decals from stickershock will remain unchanged since wing/fuse/vertical tail are unchanged.

That does look good, too.

I actually have come to really like the look of your version with the horizontal tail. Great to have both options, I think.

I know what you mean..one of my main objectives was to reduce cost, but also to reduce my reliance on 1/8" carbon rods, they are getting more $$ and harder to find, I can find torque tubes to work with 1/8" diameter but not smaller. 3mm rods are very common and much cheaper now, but I can't find a source for 3mm id aluminum thin wall tube that isn't expensive, and I have to buy the arms for the torque tubes which are not cheap and I don't trust any hand made or other cludgy means.

One option I was considering was getting rid of the full movable tail and just go to a large elevator surface, think of the forward part of the horizontal tail being fixed and the rear part movable, I can still do differential like an elevon just not have to have the torque tube arrangement. Once i was thinking about that I thought why not just do elevons and dump the tail, so I tried that.

tab28682 said:

That does look good, too.

I actually have come to really like the look of your version with the horizontal tail. Great to have both options, I think.

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Here is the updated kit prototype all finished with markings.

Thought I would slip in this fun picture from ASA last weekend, as it is all about Interceptors!

I was prepping the InteR/Ceptor for launch on the pad and someone took a picture of this Cosmic Interceptor getting ready to head to the pad with my InteR/Ceptor prepping in the background.

I do not know who the owner of this Cosmic Interceptor is, but it sadly had a CATO of (what looks to be) an E30 when it launched a bit later.

Thanks for sharing those Tom. I got out today and got more video of my kit conversions of the Interceptors with all three wing versions, as well as some footage of my new updated kit, which flies really great and is about $4 cheaper. I even got some onboard video. Unfortunately I tried flying it on an D-5 quest motor which decided to spew fire and flame forward from the motor mount, I have that on video as well, but here are some stills...I guess that's the risk with bp motors, every once in a while. There is a gaping 1" wide by 4" long melted hole forward of the motor mount, but as a testament to the kit and design, I was able to tape over the hole with masking tape and fly it again on an E-6 with video camera onboard and it flew great.

Frank

Here's the onboard video from the updated IntR/Ceptor Kit

[video=youtube;YaXIs85VeYU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaXIs85VeYU&feature=youtu.be[/video]

Very cool!

Maybe I was considering going down the wrong path... I wanted to make a rocket powered RC car, maybe I should consider a RC rocket