RC Bomarc rocket glider

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It's now got over 35 flights on it using E-12-0 Estes, Aerotech E-12 RC and E-15 Aerotech. I'm pleased that an RC bomarc that lands on the pods has survived with nothing other than a bit of blackening on the rear of the tail from the rocket motor exhaust.

Video will be up shortly...

Frank
 
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Was really calm this morning so I went out and finally got some decent video thanks to my son of the model flying on aerotech E-12 motors.


[video=youtube;W57XVpWSalg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W57XVpWSalg&feature=youtu.be[/video]
 
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Here's some great flight shots courtesy of our club president Gary Goncher at the silverton oregon launch last weekend.

Silverton-18.jpg

Silverton-20.jpg

Silverton-21.jpg
 
That thing is so inspirational to me!
I barely have time for rocketry without the challenges of RC, but this build makes me want to begin the research phase and see if I can learn it.
I was recently gifted an NCR Bomarc, that was begun, but I did'nt have the time to start it. I did have time however to research the Bomarc, and even did a few small scale mock-ups to understand it's characteristics.
I think that using foam and carbon fiber, I could at least build an airframe, and since I would not dare fly it until I had some real RC experience, I would not worry about it as much as I do when I build a rocket.
It's time to take that sheet with the parts templates to Staples and get my foam lathe finished.
Those parts can be made so much lighter with CF!!!! The body tube will not be cardboard for the most part, and anything that does have a glassine layer will loose it's glassine layer before it even gets near the build. Have you ever weighed that stuff? It's the heaviest part of the tube!
I don't dare build anything that might be even remotely unstable, as I have very high standards when it comes to safety and the necessity to keep my rockets close at landing.
 
Thank you, and glad this is inspirational. For weights, here is a breakdown: BT-80 lightweight tubing here weighed 2.75 ounces for 34" length and the coupler weighed .5 ounces. This tubing is pretty thin(.021) to remove the outer coating and I wanted to leave it white to save paint weight. The cone weighs 1.6 ounces and took 3/4 of an ounce of nose weight. Electronics and small battery weighed 2 ounces including pushrods, the servo extensions to get the receiver/battery as far forward as possible to help CG. E-12 motor weighs 53 grams/1.86 ounces. Foam and wing/tail and carbon reinforcement weigh 2.25 ounces. The ramjets with standoffs weighed 2 ounces each as they have some carbon rods to tie into the main body and the wood ramjet intakes. The motor tube and rail buttons and skids make up the rest. The only way I could see to reduce weight would be to get rid of the coupler that I used to help reinforce the front of the ramjet mount to take the landing stress on the main tube. AUW is 16.7 ounces rtf. Glide weight of 15.5 ounces. At this size which is the same as the madcow kit with a slightly upsized wing, it's about the maximum weight that I would feel comfortable flying/landing, it is definitely flyable and lands nicely without damage, but the flight time is fairly short. I think any increase in weight would really shorten flights, using a larger motor for extra altitude would mean more nose weight and higher glide weight. I think it's pretty optimal for a bomarc that doesn't eject anything, it's got a pretty small wing.

If you did some sort of pop pod, you would reduce glide weight by about 1.5 ounces(dump the .75 nose weight and motor weight), but then you'd increase boost weight by a parachute and stuffer tube and centering rings(no centering rings or stuffer tube in this model) so add maybe 1.5-2 ounces to the boost weight. With the same E-12 motor you'd get lower boost but longer glide, probably a wash. Of course you could use a larger motor and nose weight now since you will eject it.

That thing is so inspirational to me!
I barely have time for rocketry without the challenges of RC, but this build makes me want to begin the research phase and see if I can learn it.
I was recently gifted an NCR Bomarc, that was begun, but I did'nt have the time to start it. I did have time however to research the Bomarc, and even did a few small scale mock-ups to understand it's characteristics.
I think that using foam and carbon fiber, I could at least build an airframe, and since I would not dare fly it until I had some real RC experience, I would not worry about it as much as I do when I build a rocket.
It's time to take that sheet with the parts templates to Staples and get my foam lathe finished.
Those parts can be made so much lighter with CF!!!! The body tube will not be cardboard for the most part, and anything that does have a glassine layer will loose it's glassine layer before it even gets near the build. Have you ever weighed that stuff? It's the heaviest part of the tube!
I don't dare build anything that might be even remotely unstable, as I have very high standards when it comes to safety and the necessity to keep my rockets close at landing.
 
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That thing is so inspirational to me!
I barely have time for rocketry without the challenges of RC, but this build makes me want to begin the research phase and see if I can learn it.
I was recently gifted an NCR Bomarc, that was begun, but I did'nt have the time to start it. I did have time however to research the Bomarc, and even did a few small scale mock-ups to understand it's characteristics.
I think that using foam and carbon fiber, I could at least build an airframe, and since I would not dare fly it until I had some real RC experience, I would not worry about it as much as I do when I build a rocket.
It's time to take that sheet with the parts templates to Staples and get my foam lathe finished.
Those parts can be made so much lighter with CF!!!! The body tube will not be cardboard for the most part, and anything that does have a glassine layer will loose it's glassine layer before it even gets near the build. Have you ever weighed that stuff? It's the heaviest part of the tube!
I don't dare build anything that might be even remotely unstable, as I have very high standards when it comes to safety and the necessity to keep my rockets close at landing.

Worth noting that the Bomarc makes an excellent and fun free flight boost glider. Way back, I had two of the Estes Citation Series Bomarcs, the ones with a pop pod and glide recovery. Literally wore them out with many dozens of flights. I also down scaled it to a BT50 airframe tube with a BT20 pop pod inside. The downscale had a higher boost, but the glide was not quite as good as the larger one, but great fun to fly. Reliability and stability (properly balanced) on both sizes was very good.

Always wanted to do a slight upscale of the Citation series Bomarc and use a 24mm pop pod, but never got around to it.

Will have to do a RC Bomarc the size of Franks one of these days.
 
Frank,

Another really nice project!

Some comments / ideas.

I notice at the end of some of the burns, sounded like there is thrust spike, with extra smoke too. If you are not already doing so, you could smear the front end of the grain with petroleum jelly to inhibit the burn along the front face of the grain as it nears burnout.

For other fliers who are new to using endburning reloads, if you do not inhibit the front end of the grain with petroleum jelly or similar, as the concave-curved flame front nears the front end it will first burn thru the center of the front of the grain, then instantly the flame will spread across the entire front end of what is left of the grain, causing a spike in thrust. So the petroleum jelly prevents that from happening.

The ramjet pods are holding up well with your protective methods, so maybe this idea is not worth doing. Rig up a sort of reverse pop-pod mount on each ramjet pod pylon, where the friction is tight enough not to slide off on boost, but can slide off backwards on landing. But that would add some weight so unless you start to get damage and need a fix perhaps not worth it.

You are more bold for first trim flights than I am! For E6 models, I do first flights on a D7, or for G12 models, first flights on an F13. So if things get bad, I don't have another 4-5 seconds of boost to try to hang onto. Well, same deal for pretty much any R/C RBG I fly, making lower power boost trim flights first.

BTW - a generic tip for anyone who does reloads,my favorite container for petroleum jelly is to use the little squeeze tubes of Vaseline lip therapy as seen below. Not as cheap per ounce as a jar, but VERY convenient to use and much easier to put into a range box.
- George Gassaway[/img]

Thanks George, very good tip.
I believe I experienced exactly what you described on my first G motor flight of my Aerotech Phoenix rocket glider last fall....
It was going along fine when all of the suddenly it accelerated massively...my slight control movements of holding some pitch down - as recommended in the flight manual - put it in a wild loop before I regained control...or maybe it was as much the motor burning out completely rather than any piloting skill.
 
Alas, no, its a lot of work to kit, I'd have to charge near $100 and it has a pretty short glide, not as forgiving on landing, wasn't sure of interest and probability of people being able to fly it well enough to not kill it.

Frank

Frank:
If you ever wanted to "short kit " this.....I'd be in in a heartbeat.
Even if it was just a builders plan with the CG locations, control surface with two views (plan and elevation) with parts call out.
 
Thanks George, very good tip.
I believe I experienced exactly what you described on my first G motor flight of my Aerotech Phoenix rocket glider last fall....
It was going along fine when all of the suddenly it accelerated massively...my slight control movements of holding some pitch down - as recommended in the flight manual - put it in a wild loop before I regained control...or maybe it was as much the motor burning out completely rather than any piloting skill.

Several people have reported increased thrust more in the middle of a 32mm burn that appeared to be more due to casting voids in the grain, as opposed to reaching the actual end of the burn and burning the far end of the grain before burnout.

I have to admit that I have burned a few dozen E6 24mm reloads without inhibiting the far end of the grain, with no evidence of increased thrust at the end of the burn, so far.
 
Let me see what i can come up with, probably wing, nose cone, tail surfaces, conduit, standoffs and ramjet ply disks, pushrods, you add inlet cones, ramjet tubes and body tube/coupler.

Frank

Frank:
If you ever wanted to "short kit " this.....I'd be in in a heartbeat.
Even if it was just a builders plan with the CG locations, control surface with two views (plan and elevation) with parts call out.
 
Let me see what i can come up with, probably wing, nose cone, tail surfaces, conduit, standoffs and ramjet ply disks, pushrods, you add inlet cones, ramjet tubes and body tube/coupler.

Frank

If anyone can do it it's you, and you've got teeth in the game seeing as how you actually sell stuff.
Best of luck, and look forward to seeing what you come up with. I've learned a lot of great things from your threads as they relate to my work with things of composite aspect.
 
Frank was kind enough to offer me a Bomarc kit for purchase, since he was doing one for MaxQ. I snapped it up.

I think offering me the kit was slightly evil of him, as it went straight to the core of my RC rocket glider addiction.....:)

Just like shooting fish in a barrel!
 
I'm hoping for feedback really for others to build/fly this and let me know what they think, it's not hard to fly, but it is not for the novice, you may have to steer it on the way up, it boosts much faster than my other kits, and wing loading is twice my other kits, and you have to be a bit careful on landing or at least the surface you are landing on....I picked two volunteers that were willing:)

Frank was kind enough to offer me a Bomarc kit for purchase, since he was doing one for MaxQ. I snapped it up.

I think offering me the kit was slightly evil of him, as it went straight to the core of my RC rocket glider addiction.....:)

Just like shooting fish in a barrel!
 
Frank was kind enough to offer me a Bomarc kit for purchase, since he was doing one for MaxQ. I snapped it up.
I think offering me the kit was slightly evil of him, as it went straight to the core of my RC rocket glider addiction.....:)
Just like shooting fish in a barrel!

Heheh...we're "test pilots".

We're not pud knockers......

Franks says we got "The Right Stuff"
 
I just wanted to be sure if i did a kit the people had a good chance of success building and flying it. There is a little of my soul in each kit I do and it kills me to make one and think it may be destroyed on the first flight..even if you are paying me for my time..

If you guys tell me it worked great and was was easy to build/fly for you I may make some more.

Frank
 
I just wanted to be sure if i did a kit the people had a good chance of success building and flying it. There is a little of my soul in each kit I do and it kills me to make one and think it may be destroyed on the first flight..even if you are paying me for my time..

If you guys tell me it worked great and was was easy to build/fly for you I may make some more.

Frank

Thanks for the opportunity Frank...I'll move this to the front of my build list.
 
I will make an attempt to get it done in time for the NARAM sport launch, if possible. It will depend on when the kit arrives and how much attention work is going to demand from me over the next 4 weeks.
 
My Bomarc was waiting for me when I got back from my trip Friday evening.

Frank did his usual outstanding job. Everything was precisely cut and fit perfectly. I did some dry assembly and then decided to go get the Foamtac glue off the workbench and glue up some of the subassemblies.

One-two more evenings of work and it will be ready to launch. Will crank up the vinyl cutter this week and cut the Stars and Bars and USAF markings.
 
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Tom, looking forward to a flight report/pictures. btw, I covered the bottom 2/3 of the ramjet tubes with white/silver vinyl which protects them nicely when landing on grass/runway.

Frank





My Bomarc was waiting for me when I got back from my trip Friday evening.

Frank did his usual outstanding job. Everything was precisely cut and fit perfectly. I did some dry assembly and then decided to go get the Foamtac glue off the workbench and glue up some of the subassemblies.

One-two more evenings of work and it will be ready to launch. Will crank up the vinyl cutter this week and cut the Stars and Bars and USAF markings.
 
Tom, looking forward to a flight report/pictures. btw, I covered the bottom 2/3 of the ramjet tubes with white/silver vinyl which protects them nicely when landing on grass/runway.

Frank

Bomarc is complete except for sanding the top of upper wire tunnel/fairing to a rounded shape, final gluing in place of the ramjet pods after they get decorated, adding RX and battery, adding the vinyl markings and balancing. Pictures coming soon.

Frank, where is the boost CG on your Bomarc and how much up trim do you start with in the glide mode?
 
It should all be listed on the bomarc instruction link
https://www.dynasoarrocketry.com/bomarc-instructions.html

Bomarc is complete except for sanding the top of upper wire tunnel/fairing to a rounded shape, final gluing in place of the ramjet pods after they get decorated, adding RX and battery, adding the vinyl markings and balancing. Pictures coming soon.

Frank, where is the boost CG on your Bomarc and how much up trim do you start with in the glide mode?
 
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OK- I may be 7 years behind the power curve of this thread, but this video hit the "Bo-mark". My Dad worked with Boeing and was assigned to the team developing launch facilities/systems at Eglin AFB, 1958/59. My Mother and i would have picnic lunches on the beach just East of Ft. Walton (directly across the bay from the launch facility only 1.5 miles away). We saw these things go off realtime as they would launch over the Gulf of Mexico. I would say we saw scrubbed launches more frequently than a liftoff. But, those were the early test versions and it was a great excuse to miss a day of 3rd grade.
 
image.jpgimage.jpg

The Bomarc is almost ready to go! Still have to decorate and attach the nacelles and hook up the radio gear. Would have completely finished it last night and flown it at the DARS launch today, but the launch was cancelled due to the heat advisory and wind forecast.

I have to say again that building one of Frank's well executed and highly prefab kits is always a pleasure. In the interest of full disclosure, I paid for this beta kit. Not a freebie...:)

Frank's models qualify as ARFs in my book. The Bomarc's pre-assembled full flying stabilator, the pre-installed wing spar, the unfold and glue wing assembly, most of the needed holes pre drilled in the body tube and the pre-assembled nacelle struts make construction fast and simple.

It was almost done and ready for markings in two evenings. There was one very minor issue with the nacelle mounting struts that needed a small tweak to fit a touch better and be more perfectly aligned. I have certainly seen full production kits from other places with more issues that this.

The only paint on the model is the gray portion of the nose cone.

I then cranked up the Silhoutte Cameo cutter and did a set of custom vinyl for the Bomarc. I have access to a ton of military art work at work and it was easy to resize the art I had for the Stars and Bars and the USAF markings. I have a good supply of "almost" insignia blue vinyl and cut everything in that. I added the red stripes by hand, after installing the stars and bars on the model. I did a serial number in the Amarillo USAF font. I did not have a cut file for the Boeing logo, but found one on line in the .svg format and had it sized and cut and on the vertical tail in a few minutes.

While I do love the black prototype scheme on the Bomarc, I decided to avoid the weight of the paint of the black or gray versions and do it in the "fantasy" white scheme. Keeps thing simple and light and still looks very realistic.

Current plan is to do the maiden launch at NARAM.

An excellent kit of one of my favorite missiles of all time. Thanks, Frank!
 
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That's great tom, looking forward to the flight report.
You'll be first in the air since MaxQ's model is taking the long journey due to a mistake in the address label, sigh...I've got enough parts for one more beta model...

Frank
 
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I am a Bomarc nut, and would love to get an RC kit of one, sadly I do not have the RC skills to make it work. I have, from my childhood an well worn, Citation Bomarc Glider, and one of the Original NCR kits, with glide option, but no Bomarc RC's. I have dabbled in Rocket RC, but have not fared too well yet, maybe someday. With that said, which of your kits would you recommend to a green horn?
 
Well, you really need to have some rc skills before you fly an rc rocket glider, since you can't shut it off once it starts:) But all of my deltas, The Pegasus, Arc-Light, SST fly pretty much the same once trimmed and are pretty easy to fly once you have some basic skills.

Frank


I am a Bomarc nut, and would love to get an RC kit of one, sadly I do not have the RC skills to make it work. I have, from my childhood an well worn, Citation Bomarc Glider, and one of the Original NCR kits, with glide option, but no Bomarc RC's. I have dabbled in Rocket RC, but have not fared too well yet, maybe someday. With that said, which of your kits would you recommend to a green horn?
 
View attachment 296419View attachment 296420

The Bomarc is almost ready to go! Still have to decorate and attach the nacelles and hook up the radio gear. Would have completely finished it last night and flown it at the DARS launch today, but the launch was cancelled due to the heat advisory and wind forecast.

I have to say again that building one of Frank's well executed and highly prefab kits is always a pleasure. In the interest of full disclosure, I paid for this beta kit. Not a freebie...:)

Frank's models qualify as ARFs in my book. The Bomarc's pre-assembled full flying stabilator, the pre-installed wing spar, the unfold and glue wing assembly, most of the needed holes pre drilled in the body tube and the pre-assembled nacelle struts make construction fast and simple.

It was almost done and ready for markings in two evenings. There was one very minor issue with the nacelle mounting struts that needed a small tweak to fit a touch better and be more perfectly aligned. I have certainly seen full production kits from other places with more issues that this.

The only paint on the model is the gray portion of the nose cone.

I then cranked up the Silhoutte Cameo cutter and did a set of custom vinyl for the Bomarc. I have access to a ton of military art work at work and it was easy to resize the art I had for the Stars and Bars and the USAF markings. I have a good supply of "almost" insignia blue vinyl and cut everything in that. I added the red stripes by hand, after installing the stars and bars on the model. I did a serial number in the Amarillo USAF font. I did not have a cut file for the Boeing logo, but found one on line in the .svg format and had it sized and cut and on the vertical tail in a few minutes.

While I do love the black prototype scheme on the Bomarc, I decided to avoid the weight of the paint of the black or gray versions and do it in the "fantasy" white scheme. Keeps thing simple and light and still looks very realistic.

Current plan is to do the maiden launch at NARAM.

An excellent kit of one of my favorite missiles of all time. Thanks, Frank!

Looking good.
Looking forward to your flight reports.
 
That's great tom, looking forward to the flight report.
You'll be first in the air since MaxQ's model is taking the long journey due to a mistake in the address label, sigh...I've got enough parts for one more beta model...

Frank

No problem...I was busy this week anyway, had to pick up one of these:
An upscale w/ RC on this would be neato...waiting for Tom to tell us about that exercise...
ss1.jpg ss2.jpg[

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showt...stes-Shuttle-and-Stack)&p=1602264#post1602264
 
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