My next project

[UPscaler]

Tony,
Will you be flying this bad boy at BALLS?


Braden

[tfish]

Yes I will be..if I've not "misplaced" it by then.

Tony

[tfish]

What are the fin dimensions and what size [thick] plate did you start with?

Jim, The fins are .125 G10 and they measure

Root 12
Tip 2.313
Span 4.5
Sweep Length 9.176

Tony

[UPscaler]

Yes I will be..if I've not "misplaced" it by then.

Tony

any chance you'll be there on one of the EX days before XPRS?



Braden

[blackjack2564]

Jim, The fins are .125 G10 and they measure

Root 12
Tip 2.313
Span 4.5
Sweep Length 9.176

Tony

Thanks, my curiosity is based on the 98 minimum I'm working on.
Fins are very close.

Root 12
Tip 2.4
Span 5
Sweep 9.7

3/16 plate G-10 Maybe a bit stout, but it's my first one & after the initial first flight with a long burn N-800 [17 sec & if I find it] I plan to abuse the heck out of it with high thrust motors.

Now if we can just get reliable charges that fire near 40,000! LOL

I found the video on T-T very helpful. I was going to use lines for aligning the Kevlar [in my case] then glass, but decided to try the tape. Will give me something to butt up to & cut against near the bevels. Thanks!

[tfish]

Jim. Your fins are close. I've used .125" G10 on my last 98 min dia that had a
Dr Rockets 98/25600 case with 60" of propellant in it.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqiqZPfVSJ0

The motor worked and we did not have fins rain down on us. It did get "misplaced" do to cold dead batteries.

I also did a 5" min dia with a 85" motor with 72" or propellant in it that used .125 G10 fins. No raining down of fins with that one either. It was "misplaced"
do to a Tx in camp being turned on the same frequency.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ2v48CoLqY

I'm not saying that .125 G10 will hold up to an N10000..But it is amazing what it will stand up to..and how thing G10 can be on 54mm min dia rockets.

I'm also the guy that invented to surgical tubing ejection charge. I've been following Jim Jarvis other thread. Maybe I pack my recovery bays full enough for the surgical tubing to work. I'm going to stick with it.

Tony

[blackjack2564]

I'm also the guy that invented to surgical tubing ejection charge. I've been following Jim Jarvis other thread. Maybe I pack my recovery bays full enough for the surgical tubing to work. I'm going to stick with it.

Tony

How high have you gone with these & are you adding any extra bp to compensate for how they function ground testing vs at altitude?

Are you wrapping the surgical hose with tape to contain it better?

Thanks in advance .

I'm having some aluminum tubes machined. [similar to the old Robbies Rockets ones] They will be threaded on one end [solid with hex head machined on ] so they can hold my BP's on instead of nuts. With the ejection charge in the hollow end & a tiny vent to = the pressure. I may send one to JJ to test to see how they work,
the T he's been working on is too large for my 54mm, but with some thought I may come up with something small enough I could also have made.

Once I get them they can be found here with my 2 builds [54 & 98]

http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?t=22533


Jim

[tfish]

How high..me personally 36K in a 75 min dia..we tracked my 5" min dia for about 10 minutes..until another Tx back in camp was turned on. It became 'misplaced' after that..it simmed to just under 55K. I feel I had a good event at apogee. The highest that I've heard of using surgical tubing is 43K. for your 54 min dia I'm guessing right around 1 gram. That would be for a short..2-3" drogue bay. I ground test all my rockets and am looking for a good stout separation. I use the 1/4" ID by 7/16 OD stuff found at most hardware stores

http://www.wimpyrockets.com/page16.html

It will be interesting in what altitude you get with your 54 min dia. A few years back I sent mine up with a 32" Ex motor. I got a tad over 29 with it. It is much shorter then what you're building.

Tony

[tfish]

Here's the finshed rocket. 72" long and just under 8 pounds ready to fly less motor. It has an ARTS2, G-Wiz LCX, Beeline GPS and a Walston. It is dual deployment with 30 feet of 3000# Kevlar and a small 12 inch drogue.The motor is an N1610 Ex motor in the AT 98/15360 case. I hope to fly it on Aug 5th at Aeronaut.
The point of building this rocket was to prove that you could do 'extreme' flights with a "roll your own" fiberglass and basic epoxy rocket. I'm not saying this would hold up to the N10,000..but still extreme. So, I've named this rocket "tuff enough". The decals are cut from carbon fiber looking decal material.



Tony

[redsox15]

that is an awesome looking rocket and great build thread to boot! Nicely done good luck with the flight!

Matt

[UPscaler]

Tony,
that thing is beautiful! Wish I was going to XPRS to see it still...




Braden

[jms]

Just spent half the evening reading through this thread and looking at all your YouTube videos. Just amazing work Tony, can't wait to see the launch video, keep us all posted and thanks for all the great info.

[tfish]

Just got home..video and full flight report in a couple of days..
went well 34,850'

Tony

[UPscaler]

Just got home..video and full flight report in a couple of days..
went well 34,850'

Tony

AWESOME!


Can't wait to see the footage, congrats Tony!



Braden

[tfish]

Here's the story...and I'm sticking to it!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi624glWhmw

Things that I learned on this flight
The motor may have broken the nozzle about 4.5 seconds into the burn.
My Beeline GPS PVC holder attached to the shock cord may have fouled up my main deployment. I will be putting it into a compartment in the nose cone.
The GPS unit, has an up and down orientation..I got lucky in that it was placed right side up in the rocket. This was only my second GPS flight. I learned a lot on this flight..like the Kenwood D7 saves all old 'packets' We went to recover the rocket via GPS and ended up at the Balls launch site..where I last used a GPS with my call sign. I have not downloaded the GPS info yet. I was able to track this flight all the way with the Walston. And ended up finding the rocket where the Walston said it was. I suck and don't like video tapping my own rockets. That's why there is only the stationary 'flight' video. There was no damage to the rocket. I did damage the paint when it fell over in my shop. There was only some slight blistering of the Rustoleum paint. It's good to mach 2. I now need to figure out what I want to fly it on at Balls. I could do a N975 Wimpy Black with an 11 second burn or a N2264 NotSoWimpy that has 1500 N/s more then the motor I just flew it on.

On a side note..I had two other flights. One was my old L3 rocket that I flew on a M1430 to 20027' for it's 28th flight. I also flew my Kestrel on an Ex load in the CTI 54 6gxl case. The motor worked..but the rocket was unstable and playa darted 2.3 miles out..it took me about 5 hours of searching to find it. Not much of the rocket survived...One thing I'm not clear on, is why it was unstable. I've flown it twice with no problems. This motor was an inch plus longer..which would make the rocket morte stable. And it had a boat tail on it this time..which would also make it more stable. The rail I used did have an alignment issue that I fixedd prior to my flight. I don't think it hung a rail guide leaving the rail.

All in all, a good launch..plenty of butterfly moments!

Tony

[nh4clo4]

Tony,

Congratulations on a great flight.

I also flew my Kestrel on an Ex load in the CTI 54 6gxl case. The motor worked..but the rocket was unstable and playa darted 2.3 miles out..it took me about 5 hours of searching to find it. Not much of the rocket survived...One thing I'm not clear on, is why it was unstable. I've flown it twice with no problems. This motor was an inch plus longer..which would make the rocket morte stable. And it had a boat tail on it this time..which would also make it more stable. The rail I used did have an alignment issue that I fixedd prior to my flight. I don't think it hung a rail guide leaving the rail.

The boat tail actually makes it less stable. At least according to Rocksim.

[jms]

Congrats on the flights, and for sharing with all of us. Can't wait to see the BALLS launch!

[Burner]

Very to cool to be able to follow along from start to finish, made watching the launch more exciting. Hope to make it out to Balls again this year and see it fly.

[tfish]

Here is the video..I was a one man show this year. More mountains and more rocket hunting.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-rLgPCc0rU

Tony

[lmt56]

Nice video Tony.
The sound in the back ground at lift off sounds like a Kenwood doing its job.
What did you use for an antenna setup?

[tfish]

yep that's the sound of the Kenwood picking up the Beeline GPS. I just use a short whip antenna on the Kenwood. I also had a Beeline TX and use a radio shack hand held scanner with an arrow antenna on it. This was only my second GPS flight. I'm still learning how to use it. I did take both radios with me on the hunt. I never got a beep or chirp out of them. The rocket landed in bit of a gully and then I'm guessing the batteries died. The radios did get me close enough to find it in the end.

Just a note on the Tx. I followed it 'down' until I lost the Tx signal. I had it narrowed down to a pretty small sweep pattern when I lost the signal. The problem is, that far out it's a 3-4 mile wide area.

Tony

[Sully]

Here's a video on how to fiberglass a cardboard body tube.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjZNyXsd8gw

Tony

"The hardest part is thinking of things to say while you're doing it." I disagree, this is an area where i excel. Some things just roll off the tongue, like "Oh, S$%&!! Get the denatured alcohol over here before your mother comes downstairs!"

It's actually doing the work efficiently and smoothly that's hard. Thanks so much for posting these videos. I have minimal experience and natural skill with these techniques, and having this type of clear, detailed, specific guidance makes it much easier to jump in and start doing it, and has saved me a lot of wasted energy and needless discouragement. (as opposed to the *necessary* mistakes and frustration that are an inevitable part of developing a new skill)

[tfish]

Sully, I'm glad you like the video. I hope there other video help you as much too!

Tony

[Glasspack]

Cool .... Thank you Tony

[A5tr0 An0n]

Wow thats a beautiful job you did! Gave me butterflies! One day I will get to that level... Anyways just wanted to say thanks for sharing the very interesting and detailed thread. Found it very useful.

[Kehoes23]

I was able to get some more work done on the rocket. I layed up a new nose cone, cut the fin slots in the body tube and got the fins cut out.


I think it looks pretty good so far. I borrowed a buddies jig to bevel the leading and trailing fin edges.

Tony

Do you have video or photos of you doing the beveling of the fins, and did you use a jig?

[tfish]

yep...the entire rockets construction is on video..



Tony

[Kehoes23]

Would you recommend tip to tip glassing on through the wall fin attachment? I have the Madcow fiberglass super DX3 and the biggest motor I plan on flying with is the K550. Thanks for your advice and the videos you post on this thread.

[bandman444]

Would you recommend tip to tip glassing on through the wall fin attachment? I have the Madcow fiberglass super DX3 and the biggest motor I plan on flying with is the K550. Thanks for your advice and the videos you post on this thread.

No. I have seen an unmodified DX3 fly just fine on a K550. Super cool flight too.

I signed off a level 1-2 cert a couple months ago and he actually was comfortable standing on the fin can with no extra reinforcements. If you can do that it will be fine on any 54mm motor out there.