Summer Build Contest 2017 "Little Davey's Launch Pad."

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The damage isn't even as bad as I would have expected considering you only had one good chute and a nose down trajectory. And I'm with Neil, I want to see video!

One out of four chutes was enough to save it from a major kink or break of the launch lug. The heat from the motors also softened up the aluminium tube a bit making it a tad weaker. I would speculate the motor that blew out the back was the first one to eject, the nose cone with the most damage and the cheap Estes chute just stripped. The motor hit the fin and took a chunk of balsa with it, this was reported by a Top Man observer who said he saw it clearly. So that was just some of the fast paced action happening at ejection, little bits flying everywhere, balsa bits, motors, ejection nose cones/shock cords, chutes ripping off and deploying. It landed close to the pad, in the range, so a nice short recovery walk. Straight up, arched over and straight down.

I had packed it up a couple of weeks before and did not repack before launch, so the dog barf might have got a bit compacted. But with the minimum diameter, tight pack, ejection charge pressure on the nose cone and cap, I will take both the nose cone and motor blowing out.
 
If there is no video, it never happened. Tractor motor oddrocs are fake news. Regarding my Mercury Redstoned, I say let it fail and I will replace it later.
 
If there is no video, it never happened. Tractor motor oddrocs are fake news. Regarding my Mercury Redstoned, I say let it fail and I will replace it later.

You are probably right. At the RSO table I was getting a pad assignment but he didn't write the number on the card. I asked should I put it on 13 or 17, he said since it was very odd looking to put it on 17.

It was really hard throwing it that high for the recovery photos and thank goodness for my abundant skill in photo shop smoke simulation for the take off photos.:)

Your Redstoned is going to be cool. Four forward canted tractor motors with rear ejection. . . that must be fake news!

And if that is not loving silly tractor motored oddrocs then "God didn't make little green apples, and it don't rain in Indianapolis in the summer time"

Yes, it might be better just to let my inner safety nerd think it never happened, ignorance is bliss and it was derned funny lookin' :)
 
Congrats on a flight which, although no perfect, did prove the workability of a unique conceptual design.

It is hard to find things which "haven't been done before" (possibly for good reasons!), reason them out, and try to get them to work.

It remains fun to watch you work!

Tom
 
Congrats on a flight which, although no perfect, did prove the workability of a unique conceptual design.

It is hard to find things which "haven't been done before" (possibly for good reasons!), reason them out, and try to get them to work.

It remains fun to watch you work!

Tom

Thanks. That is just what I needed to motivate me to get off the couch and back down to Apogee to get the components for a more massive telescoping rocket of the Dune Sandworm Shai Hulud.

I did float the idea of a more radical "sliding stripper pole" concept using naked Barbie Dolls riding on canted motors, but some thought that might not pass the "PC" test. I guess that is only possible with some Dirty Old Men at a back alley launch.
 
I don't think Daddy even knows there is a box to think in :)

Thanks, but I really do try to reform, to stay on the straight and narrow. Dreaming of sleek, 4FNC fiberglass beauties going up on big motors with electronics, fully simulated, having reverted once again to book learning in order pass the Level Two exam. But then the oddroc disease always seems to relapse and in the dream the motors move forward and the fins disappear or also move forward. Fall off the wagon again do I.

Repeat after me: Rocsim, not Mindsim. Why bother clustering three BP motors when one composite will do. Motors in back, Fins in back. Keep rocket body strong and stiff, not flexible. No streamers, base drag, GDS, asymmetry, canted flame fin action, less nose weight. There, you see, back on track again, no more signs of industrial disease!:)
 
I did float the idea of a more radical "sliding stripper pole" concept using naked Barbie Dolls riding on canted motors, but some thought that might not pass the "PC" test. I guess that is only possible with some Dirty Old Men at a back alley launch.

Interesting. I am currently thinking about a rocket which uses the yellow pill bottles for tube fins with a pair big bertha nose cones one forward one back forming a "pod" nose up front like a giant tablet. I was going to call a "pill pusher" but I think likewise that won't pass the PC test
 
Interesting. I am currently thinking about a rocket which uses the yellow pill bottles for tube fins with a pair big bertha nose cones one forward one back forming a "pod" nose up front like a giant tablet. I was going to call a "pill pusher" but I think likewise that won't pass the PC test

Sounds OK to me. But you might offend pharma reps.
 
I did float the idea of a more radical "sliding stripper pole" concept using naked Barbie Dolls riding on canted motors, but some thought that might not pass the "PC" test. I guess that is only possible with some Dirty Old Men at a back alley launch.

I'd throw a dollar your way to make that one happen. :jaw: Queue "Girls, girls, girls!" by Motley Crue.
 
I could always change it up and go with Barbie as Eve and Ken as Adam. With appropriately placed Victorian Fig Leaves they could ride up on 29mm F-15 "Wrath of God" motors and smash into the technology stop that is an Apple with a bite out of it. The launch lug could be the serpent grasping the apple inits mouth. After ejection they could return to Earth on glimmering Golden Parachutes of self interest. The base would be the garden, and with all the soot it would be paradise lost. It would be so PC I could launch it from any Church, Synagogue or Mosque Parking lot!
 
Interesting. I am currently thinking about a rocket which uses the yellow pill bottles for tube fins with a pair big bertha nose cones one forward one back forming a "pod" nose up front like a giant tablet. I was going to call a "pill pusher" but I think likewise that won't pass the PC test

That would be cool! You could put a long disclaimer list of possible side effects on the body tube.
 
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