Skylark Sounding Rocket

It's too cold to paint here, so I've kept busy with builds. Somehow I learned about the Skylark sounding rocket, and Adrian was kind enough to send me some scale information. Here's the single stage version, but I'm working on a booster:



I papered the fins using a glue stick, and the glue stick was by far the easiest and simplest way to paper. I had no glue runoff, wrinkles, or gluey fingerprints left behind. Still have to fill spirals and finish the recovery gear, but I'm getting to point where I'll have several models ready to paint.

Sexy! What does the paint scheme look like?

Silver nose/payload bay, white body, black tail. At least the earlier ones look that way:


Adrian's:
https://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~adrian/rockets/skylark5.jpg

Later ones seemed to have a reddish/orange payload bay.



Here's the Open Rocket File:

View attachment Skylarkrev5Upper.ork

The payload bay can be replaced with a larger one, and I built it so I could add a booster.

Looking forward to see how this turns out!

The short booster with fins shown in the diagram is the Cuckoo. The longer, finless booster in the photo is the Goldfinch.

There were various colour schemes. The one I built was based on the picture on Astronautix:
https://astronautix.com/fam/skylark.htm

I've also seen a variant with a red main body. The whole system was modular; you could basically tell the makers which payload module, booster and sustainer module you wanted.

Hope to launch it next Saturday. Now to work on a booster...

gna said:

View attachment 288932

Hope to launch it next Saturday. Now to work on a booster...

Click to expand...

Too windy back in April, had to wait until this Saturday. I have three small holes in the payload bay, so I placed an Altimeter 1 in the bay and launched on a B6-4. OR projected about 250 feet. It was...underwhelming. 184 feet and a nice smile on the nosecone. Not sure how that happened, as the shock cord is long, but it was on its way down when it deployed.

Fly it again on a C6-5--much better, 600 feet. Still a bit under what OR projects.

gna said:

Too windy back in April, had to wait until this Saturday. I have three small holes in the payload bay, so I placed an Altimeter 1 in the bay and launched on a B6-4. OR projected about 250 feet. It was...underwhelming. 184 feet and a nice smile on the nosecone. Not sure how that happened, as the shock cord is long, but it was on its way down when it deployed.

Fly it again on a C6-5--much better, 600 feet. Still a bit under what OR projects.

Click to expand...

The picture looks good!

There can be several reasons why the altitude doesn't match what the simulation said. The materials you used might be heavier than those predicted by OR so the rocket is heavier (check its empty mass against what OR shows). The motor might not have been quite as efficient as OR's data. Or, if there was any wind, the rocket will have weathercocked to at least some extent whereas OR probably assumes a vertical flight. I'd regard the altitude given by the sim as a theoretical maximum, e.g. if you're restricted to flying below a certain altitude and OR says it won't go that high then you're safe.

Here's a quick video:
[video=youtube;cj7QXlUE_t8]https://youtu.be/cj7QXlUE_t8[/video]


It was a bit heavier than I thought, but I tried to account for that in OR:
View attachment Skylarkrev6Upper.ork

Still, I'm pleased with the model and I'm working on a booster.