Mini clone Colonial Viper

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GlenP

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I recently got the 24mm Super Viper from More Rockets, and decided to try building a min dia 13mm clone from cardstock, (see thread in the mid power forum) The first trial was just from some spare paper and roughly scaled 32% from the geometry of the Super Viper. When I started to make a decal sheet for that one, I decided to make a printable template with the artwork already on the body and turbo tubes and the fins. Went together fairly easily, might need to make some minor tweaks. Here are the two mini clones, the first one has a first coat of white, needs the decal sheet, the second one was ink jet printed with the decal artwork on the paper. Fins are just 5 ply laminated cardstock. I plan to add a launch lug and engine hook. The nose cone is modified from the 13 mm template in the Project Paper thread here.

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Great work Glen!
I'd love to get a PDF of your mini Colonial Viper.
Be sure to put your name and the name of the model on your PDF.

If you are looking for a place to host your carded PDF (and make it available to many others),
email Wayne Hill at The Rocketry Blog. Check out his "Ultimate Paper rocket Guide".
https://rocketry.wordpress.com/about/
He has got a huge collection of carded models and will list it giving you name credit.
All my carded models are there.
 
Great work Glen!
I'd love to get a PDF of your mini Colonial Viper.
Be sure to put your name and the name of the model on your PDF.

If you are looking for a place to host your carded PDF (and make it available to many others),
email Wayne Hill at The Rocketry Blog. Check out his "Ultimate Paper rocket Guide".
https://rocketry.wordpress.com/about/
He has got a huge collection of carded models and will list it giving you name credit.
All my carded models are there.

Many thanks! I would be happy to pass the PDF along to share. I have a couple of updates pending, I am making a B-side template that will color the inside of the turbos in red, just run the paper through the printer flipped over. I did this trick on my Groove Tube template.

The Bob Harrington Satellite Interceptor was my gateway into the cardstock models. My first test mini Viper's laser cannon was just a toothpick, on the next iteration I added a little cardstock wrap around the toothpick, similar to the Dr. Zooch trick of a using cardstock-wrapped dowel on the Soyuz.
 
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I attached the shock cord to a chute line to the top turbo tube, this is just aft of the balance point with a spent engine, so the streamer recovery will be in more of a horizontal landing approach orientation like the model is suspended in the picture. The nose cone has a slightly extended shoulder that is full of clay, since the front part of the chamfered cone portion is hollow.

Also, I found some empty tissue and paper towel rolls in the recycle bin that have the makings of a Colonial Wiper. :). Sorry, it just had to be done.
 
Also, I found some empty tissue and paper towel rolls in the recycle bin that have the makings of a Colonial Wiper. :). Sorry, it just had to be done.

Haven't been here in a while...just saw your "Colonial Wiper" and you have my (belated) vote for winning the internet last January 31st!
 
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I attached the shock cord to a chute line to the top turbo tube, this is just aft of the balance point with a spent engine, so the streamer recovery will be in more of a horizontal landing approach orientation like the model is suspended in the picture. The nose cone has a slightly extended shoulder that is full of clay, since the front part of the chamfered cone portion is hollow.

Also, I found some empty tissue and paper towel rolls in the recycle bin that have the makings of a Colonial Wiper. :). Sorry, it just had to be done.

Haven't been here in a while...just saw your "Colonial Wiper" and you have my (belated) vote for winning the internet last January 31st!

Anyone who makes a crack about Klingons will have to answer to ME!
 
Anyone who makes a crack about Klingons will have to answer to ME!

The Klingons would now be on Uranus. Sorry, just couldn't resist!

Actually, that Colonial Wiper might actually fly if we put a motor mount in it (and a nose cone, although it might fly without one).
 
Glen sent me the PDF a few weeks ago. It took me about a weeks to build it. I used body tubes and a cut down nose cone. I put as much clay (square clay from estes) in the nose as would fit. I don't know how much clay was added as what was left wouldn't register on my scale (in grams). The viper flew great. Straight up and was stable.
 

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Wow, that looks great. Did you clear coat it? I like to use the semi-gloss or satin clear over my cardstock builds. The nose cone looks really good. Congrats on the build and the stable flight. Did you use a an A10, A3, or 1/2A3 engine?

(the new TRF did not give me any Alert that this old thread had been updated, I just noticed it today.)
 
I can't remember if I used a Matt or Gloss clear coat. I used an A10 engine. I'm going to build another one after Labor Day weekend as I'll have more time. I'll post pics. The guys I shoot with loved it.
 
Wow, that looks great. Did you clear coat it? I like to use the semi-gloss or satin clear over my cardstock builds. The nose cone looks really good. Congrats on the build and the stable flight. Did you use a an A10, A3, or 1/2A3 engine?

(the new TRF did not give me any Alert that this old thread had been updated, I just noticed it today.)

Did you ever post the PDFs for this? I have spare body tubes and would love to make one of these nostalgic old Vipers! :)
 
The file is too large to post here. I can email it if you send me a PM.
 
Interesting.
My understanding of why it never was released was because Universal didn't like the aesthetics of the flight tube that it needed to be stable.
Don't know how anyone could expect a true scale Cylon Raider to fly stable.
What, TVC?
For under $20?
Pah.
Where did you find the plans, Glen?
Or did you draw them up yourself?
 
Interesting.
My understanding of why it never was released was because Universal didn't like the aesthetics of the flight tube that it needed to be stable.
Don't know how anyone could expect a true scale Cylon Raider to fly stable.
What, TVC?
For under $20?
Pah.
Where did you find the plans, Glen?
Or did you draw them up yourself?

I had downloaded this one a while back, but did not save a bookmark of where I found it. It is just a display model, but to make a rocket out of it, will have to add a through tube, or attach it to one like a parasite. I may have to add some vertical fins at the tips, almost like a TIE fighter model rocket style. This may be a throw away build as I figure out how to rocket-ify it. I printed it on metallic silver cardstock, and then realized that my color ink cartridge is nearly empty, so it came out kind of pink, and some parts were out of my printable area. I may have some fixing and resizing to do with the template.

One aerodynamic challenge is the Cylon Raider body section is like a cambered airfoil, so I will have to defeat that lift or counter balance it somehow by adjusting the incidence angle to match the zero-lift angle of attack, or add a canard, or a trimming elevator. I hate to cut a hole in the thing, so I might fit it like a parasite to a rocket tube with some additional fins. Not sure yet. The canard could even be another smaller sized raider closer to the nose cone, a similar lifting body to balance the torque about the cg of the main body fin.

The template does not have a lot of glue tabs, so I have to make some of my own, for example on the internal ribs here:

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Another configuration option is like the Buck Rogers style, a rear eject motor pod, with two forward tubes coming out of the laser cannons with nose weight in each...
 
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The instructions are kind of sparse, more like an assembly sequence, and for the laser cannons I am a little stumped as to how to assemble these. I think maybe you fold them and make a square tube, any ideas for those parts # 50 and 51 in the template, on page 1?

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I think I get it now. You roll it around a dowel from the top down, they will make a cannon tube with varied diameter along the length. I will roll it like a launch lug. I usually put patterns like this 90_deg from what they have to roll with the grain instead of against it. I used a bamboo bbq skewer to roll the laser cannon tube:


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Starting to look a little bit mean ... some parts just laid out in dry fit.

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The instructions and markings on the template don’t quite give you enough info on where to fold and how to shape some of these parts. Then you may have to add some additional glue tabs. Not a very straightforward model. But it has the essentials. I just needed to take a break from this and study the remaining detailed parts to better understand how they fit together. I am kind of leaning towards a parasite configuration for this when the raider model is done.
 
About another page and a half of details left to do for the bottom...


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The colors here are all wrong, my printer was nearly out of color ink when I printed this, and the metallic sheen paper makes the colors look a little off anyway. But, this was sort of a test build to learn how the pattern works, and I might decide to copy it and scale it down, just not sure yet if I will convert this test build into a model rocket, or if I will have to modify it in some way. I wish I could have seen the prototype Estes model, but I don’t know if any pictures of it were ever made public.
 
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Another possible configuration idea, since this thing is almost like a lifting body, it could be the wing in a monocopter rocket. Just not sure if it would be strong enough to survive the rotational forces. Would be kind of funny, it would look like the raider just got hit by a viper and spins out.
 
Maybe mount the raider inline with a viper on the same core body tube, like a 13 mm. It would look like the viper was chasing down the raider in a dogfight. Probably not the best CP arrangement, but the viper has a lot of base drag. Might be workable.
 
I like the idea of the two parasite gliders. What I meant by that earlier was not necessarily having it glide back, but just attach it to the base of a larger rocket with enough stability margin to hang it on the side near the fin can. Kind of an easy method for converting to a rocket with out really modifying the cardstock model. But making some kind of gliders from them would be cool.
 
Maybe mount the raider inline with a viper on the same core body tube, like a 13 mm. It would look like the viper was chasing down the raider in a dogfight. Probably not the best CP arrangement, but the viper has a lot of base drag. Might be workable.
Or,
Maybe two mini vipers behind the raider?
 
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