Min Diameter Recomendations

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roytyson

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So I overpaid the government in a gracious interest-free loan. So the wife has agreed that we get to take some of the money and treat ourselves. I desperately want a 54mm min. dia. rocket.
I have been looking at a Blackhawk 54, by Wildman. Any thoughts on this, or any others you would recommend ....go big or go home, right?
 
Another popular 54MD is the Mongoose by Madcow.

I think they only have 29mm, 38mm, and 4" Mongoose. But they do have a Go Devil 54 which is nice. All pretty much the same kit, except Go Devil is fiberglass and Mongoose is carbon. I've not built a Blackhawk but they appear to be quite similar as well. Any or all would be a fine choice!
 
I think they only have 29mm, 38mm, and 4" Mongoose. But they do have a Go Devil 54 which is nice. All pretty much the same kit, except Go Devil is fiberglass and Mongoose is carbon. I've not built a Blackhawk but they appear to be quite similar as well. Any or all would be a fine choice!
2.2" Carbon FIber Tomach XL
 
I had a Tomach 54 that did Mach 1.8, 21500', on a CTI L640DT motor. Nice rocket. Currently sitting in a field somewhere when someone launched it before I had my GSE booted up :(

The CF version must really go like a cut cat...
 
I had a Tomach 54 that did Mach 1.8, 21500', on a CTI L640DT motor. Nice rocket. Currently sitting in a field somewhere when someone launched it before I had my GSE booted up :(

The CF version must really go like a cut cat...

Oh man I’d be so pissed.


Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum
 
Wildman Mach 2 is a 54mm MD kit. No carbon, but lightweight FG tubes and beveled fins. $90 for the parts, plus some Proline 4500 epoxy and fin alignment guides.
 
I had a Tomach 54 that did Mach 1.8, 21500', on a CTI L640DT motor. Nice rocket. Currently sitting in a field somewhere when someone launched it before I had my GSE booted up :(

The CF version must really go like a cut cat...

My best on this rocket is just over 22,000AGL @ Mach 2.13. This was on a Loki L1040 Red, which is an awesome motor. The motor in the pic is a Loki K830 Spitfire which for a sparky motor has a pretty good kick, that flight hit 15,800 @ Mach 1.87 and a tonne of sparks and obnoxiously loud for a 54mm sparky...love it.

It is a great kit, but it is not optimized for performance. If you wanted to keep the overall Tomach design but wanted to squeeze a bit more performance you could cut down the payload tube a few inches and profile the leading edge of the fins to a finer edge and you would easily squeeze a bit more performance out. Of course if you really wanted to squeeze more out then you could lose the payload tube and go with HED, but if you are going to do that then I would just build scratch.

I would say the 54mm Tomach its a great sport MD rocket and a good choice for someone just getting into MD. I also like the Blackhawk 54 and Wildman Mach 2 recommendations, all nice rockets and very comparable, you couldn't go wrong with any of them.
 
Tomach is a nice little kit. I need to fly this thing some day.

25538367410_243a8e9b61_z.jpg
 
Did you guys have reasonable success with OpenRocket or RASAero in predicting this performance?

RockSim underestimated the height by about 1500' IIRC. Our launch altitude was significantly above sea level (sim) and the paint job was a nice automotive two-pack that was better than I normally use. I suspect both of those corrections would get the sims closer.

FWIW, the automotive two-pack didn't even get Mach rash :(
 
Got Mach 2.1 and 18.4 k on a Loki L1400 in a Mongoose 54...melted the decals off. Love that rocket.
 
Did you guys have reasonable success with OpenRocket or RASAero in predicting this performance?

I only simmed the 1040 in RS and OR, although I have simmed this rocket in RASAero but that was for the Loki K350 Moon burner and I don't recall the sim numbers but they were comparable to OR. We were having discussions the night before the launch about which motor to burn, the L1040 or L1400, and I ended up launching the 1040 just because I wanted to see which sim was closer. OR was pretty accurate for the L1040 which was +4% on the prediction vs. realized, which is great but RS was -20% off.

Got Mach 2.1 and 18.4 k on a Loki L1400 in a Mongoose 54...melted the decals off. Love that rocket.

For comparison to Cl(VII) Mongoose. I have also launched this rocket on the Loki L1400 White. My predicted numbers were 18000 @ M1.78 and she realized 17,000 @ M1.75. However the rocket was launched on a relatively windy day @ roughly 5° into the wind and when you follow the GPS track and straighten out the arc of the flight path it would have made 18,000 easily...so that sim was very accurate, +-2%

If you're a Loki fan I have flown this rocket on all 4 reloads for the Loki 54-2800 hardware. Those being the K350 Moon burner once, K830 Spitfire twice, L1040 Red once and the L1400 White once. I would have to say the most interesting is the Moon burner but it needs a dead calm day. My favourite overall is the L1040 Red because it looks like a SAM. However the crowd pleaser seems to be the K830 Spitfire, which tends to get everyone's attention on the flight-line, whether they were planning on paying attention or not.
 
Set surface as polished or check with open rocket. Maybe you borked units, dimensions, or masses.
 
So I overpaid the government in a gracious interest-free loan. So the wife has agreed that we get to take some of the money and treat ourselves. I desperately want a 54mm min. dia. rocket.
I have been looking at a Blackhawk 54, by Wildman. Any thoughts on this, or any others you would recommend ....go big or go home, right?

If you can find the dimensions of a 3Dogs Kestrel, that right there is a big dog ready to eat.

Edward
 
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