If the white glue gets questionable you could try putting clear decal paper on top of the windows, I've done it with decals that refused to stay attached with pretty good result. Also 3M spray adhesive (77 I believe) It works like rubber cement on steroids in an aerosol can. messy as all get out but it sticks to every thing
Nice work they look real good, but now you have to do a third LB the Soviet one that was built from stolen plans.
Won't work- already tried it. The drag is way too high and it's so stubby it tends to flat spin every time.
Remember, they may be easy to crank out... but you haven't flown one yet.
Won't work- already tried it. The drag is way too high and it's so stubby it tends to flat spin every time.
Remember, they may be easy to crank out... but you haven't flown one yet.
Looks great, Jeff! I hope to see it at the May Challenger club launch.This is REALLY fun kit to build and I'm looking forward to flying it! More when she takes to the skies... Til then, Enjoy! OL JR
What won't work?? Not sure I follow...
Later! OL JR
I thought he was talking about building another one of your lifting bodies, but with Soviet paint and markings.Doing the Soviet lifting body
Doing the Soviet lifting body
Hey- that commie design could go over real well here in DC these days. Keep you off of that threats list of DHS's.
Luke- every time I see your photos, in the background I see this huge open field... yet you're not flying the stack at home? What's up with that? What is that in the background... a mine field? A NORAD base? Or is it just a large painted Hollywood backdrop?
Arrrrrrg!
Shoot the stack! Yer' makin' me nuts here!
WOW!!!! That looks TERRIFIC!!!! Smash-up job!
How did you do the roll pattern on the booster tank?? It looks amazing!
Hmmm... day glo orbiter hmmm... Interesting choice... If you're going "old school" (which looks SUPER snazzy so far!) why not go back to say, Dyna-Soar... black is rather classic, but maybe a bit more "subdued" than what you're looking for... The other alternative is perhaps going with an orange "test glider" type vehicle, maybe ala "Glamourous Glennis" like the X-1 that Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier with... Just tossing out ideas, and I might be all wet... what you're doing so far looks INCREDIBLE!
I'm looking forward to seeing how you do this one up... VERY VERY cool so far!
How did you do the decals?? KUTGW!!!
Later! OL JR
PS. I'm glad you posted it here... VERY cool stuff! Thanks for posting it!
oint::lol::rofl::rofl:....I sent him an email that when I was 16 I was simply hoping my Dad would let me have the keys to the 74 Mustang II (the modified Pinto version...not the ultra cool muscle car).
....
the roll pattern is black decal....I bought it at Squadron Hobby shop...they are online and based down in Texas...just an awesome shop..have been buying from them for over 30 years....I think the decal sheet was $2.95...its just a complete sheet with nothing but black on it..you cut out what you need...I measured the circumference of the tube and divided it by 8 to get the approximate size of the band..I made a template of the band size so I could apply them with roughly the right spacing...I had to kind of move the positioning of the Titan engines to allow clearance for the motor, the engine mount hook and for the SRB's....they should all fit!....from pictures I looked at the engines would have been exactly where the engine hook is located...I found a great schematic posted online by Peter Alway...thank you Peter!!! but his diagram gave me something to try to follow. I still have to put those little blow out panels or gaps that the Titan had between the stages to allow the rocket exhaust to escape...I have a ton of decal left up here so I was going to cut small strips and place it around the body...I have to check, but I think there are 4 of those around the interstage!
....
I was thinking about either a white orbiter with a dayglo or orange band back by the rudders, wingtips and by the nose....or something like the Bell X-1 like you indicated....both of those would look pretty cool against the booster...right now I am leaning towards the X-1...but I have time to figure that out...I haven't had the ants cut any sheet metal yet up here...
....
Luke your build threads are always appreciated!!! they are always a lot of help to newbies like me!! Wes...this is another AWESOME kit!
oint::lol::rofl::rofl:
Oh man, THAT'S funny... I needed a good laugh... '74 "Mustang" II... what a COMPLETE POS... LOL (Unless of course you ripped out the limp 4 banger and dropped in a 302, then you MIGHT have something... but of course it was STILL a BUTT FUGLY car... hehehe... a guy nearby had like three of them for sale in the yard, and they've been sitting there for YEARS... I think he might have finally hauled them to the crusher, because NOBODY wants a car that ugly... Ford should be ashamed for sullying the name "Mustang" with those fugly POS's... I had a '73 myself... now THAT is what a Mustang is SUPPOSED to look like, not like a pimped out Pinto... LOL Those Ford engineers must've been smoking too much funny herbage back when they thought THOSE cars were a good idea...
Sorry, not trouncing on your memory, but seriously those cars were just WRONG... EPIC FAIL...
I'm sure you have good memories though, which is cool... besides, nobody knew better back then... LOL
Funny in hindsight! :wink:
Wish you'd have taken pics of all that and added it to the thread... that sounds like a REALLY COOL way of doing it... I'd like to see more of your technique... it looks fabulous...
As for the Titan engines, well, yeah, having a model rocket motor having to be between them sorta complicates the works... Just throwing this out there, but have you ever heard of the BARBARIAN proposal?? This was a FOUR-ENGINE version of the Titan, with the core increased to 15 feet in diameter versus the 10 feet diameter of the standard Titan... I have some pics of it originally being proposed to loft the Apollo CSM as a possible alternative replacement for Saturn IB... the design was also dusted off and proposed for a heavy launch vehicle for heavy satellites as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative, the SDI "Star Wars" program. You might add another pair of engine bells and call it a "Barbarian Heavy" orbiter booster or something...
Hmmm... blow out panels, eh... you know what those were for, right?? They were for the "fire in the hole" staging technique the Titans used... basically, when the first stage was JUST ABOUT to burn out, the started the second stage engine up... this solved a lot of problems... for instance, when staging a liquid fuelled vehicle, when the first stage shuts down, you go from say 3-4 gees of force pushing everything backward in the stage (say, propellants against the bottom of the tanks and down the propellant lines to the engine valving and turbopump inlets) to about 1-2 NEGATIVE GEES as the engines on the first stage shut down, and the stack rapidly begins to decelerate due to gravity and/or aerodynamic drag... This of course slings the propellants to the TOPS of the tanks, which forces the ullage (gases at the top of the tank above the liquid) to the bottom of the tanks, and into the propellant lines, which can cause all sorts of havoc starting your upper stage engines, from cavitation in the turbopumps or overspeeding the turbopumps from them not being immersed in liquid, to complete second stage engine start failure, to combustion instability at startup from erratic propellant delivery into the combustion chamber at startup, to pogo effects from all this instability and any gas bubbles in the propellant lines... all sorts of bad things... ANYWAY, you can solve this delimma in two ways... you can put small solid "ullage rockets" on the back of your stage or interstage coupler, which fire off and push the second stage forward with a slight acceleration, which is enough to cause the propellants to be slung back against the bottom of the tanks and force any bubbles forward out of the lines and back to the top of the tank, which then gives you all-liquid in the lines and tank bottom for engine start of the second stage... BUT, this complicates staging, because these events have to be VERY CAREFULLY TIMED and occur with ABSOLUTE RELIABILITY or you'll have a staging failure... in the old days, adding more events to already primitive staging sequencers was NOT a good way to increase reliability! SO, for designs that needed ultimate reliability in staging, but were less concerned with potential damage to the vehicle, they used FIRE-IN-THE-HOLE staging, which ignited the upperstage engine just BEFORE the first stage engines shut down, while the entire stack was under POSITIVE acceleration gees... This then ensured the propellants were 'seated' against the bottom of the tanks and in the lines all the way to the turbopump impeller intakes... the staging explosive bolts would fire at about the same time, and as the engine came up to pressure, it pushed the stages apart, leaving the first stage behind...
SO, how exactly does your "Titan" lifting body launcher have an upper stage, and how would that work with a REAR MOUNTED SIDEMOUNT "orbiter"?? Realistically, such a hypothetical vehicle as this would NOT use an upper stage, but would use the SRM's for initial liftoff thrust, then airstart the core engines at altitude, just as was done on some of the Titan III's/IV's... The "core" stage would then propel the vehicle on to a "disposal orbit" for the core, just short of orbital velocity (with a perigee in the atmosphere so it burned up in the atmosphere and fell in the ocean on the other side of the world, as the shuttle ET's were done) and then let the "orbiter" do the final "insertion burn" using a fairly-low-thrust engine to do a couple minute burn about 30 minutes after liftoff, at the apogee of the disposal orbit... this would then accelerate the vehicle enough to "circularize" the disposal orbit that the core remained on (for the orbiter doing the burn anyway, the core continued on the disposal orbit) and raise the orbiter's perigee out of the atmosphere to the final desired orbital altitude... (Yeah, I love orbital mechanics... did you know that ORIGINALLY the shuttle was going to burn the SSME's all the way to the final orbit... BUT, they didn't want the ET in orbit, because the foam insulation slowly "popcorns" off the tank and creates orbital debris, so they were going to have to mount a DE-ORBIT solid rocket motor package, with a stabilizer system (control thrusters and quidance system with an events sequencer) to keep the ET pointed nose-first after separation of the orbiter, which would then do a small thruster "trim burn" to put some distance between it and the ET, at which time the ET would fire the deorbit motor, to put it back into the atmosphere... this whole system was going to be VERY expensive to develop and weigh a couple thousand pounds (IIRC) and of course that DIRECTLY cut into payload-to-orbit... a smart engineer figured out "hey, let's shut the SSME's off JUST BEFORE achieving orbital velocity... the orbiter can then jettison the tank while it's still on this sub-orbital hyperbolic trajectory, (which puts the apogee of the orbit at the desired orbital altitude and velocity, but still isn't fast enough to make it a CIRCULAR orbit... it's basically an elliptical orbit with the perigee down in the atmosphere... they orbit might be say a 250 km by 60 km disposal orbit... the orbiter and tank coast "uphill" to 250 km, then the ORBITER burns its OMS engines for a bit, to accelerate and "circularize" the orbit... increasing the orbital speed to raise the perigee from 60 KM to 250 KM, making the orbit circular... the ET DOES NOT get accelerated and ends up coasting around to the other side of the world, falling back toward the 60 KM altitude, which is in the upper atmosphere... air drag does the rest, burning up the tank and ripping it into small pieces that drop into the ocean... this actually INCREASES the payload capability since you can use basically ALL your usable propellants (less residuals) to get to the DISPOSAL ORBIT and then burn the OMS to circularize... Plus, it eliminates the need to develop an expensive and heavy tank deorbit system... win/win/win).
From an operational standpoint, your vehicle would have to use a very similar system... if you had an upper-stage, your orbiter would have to be TOP MOUNTED... or else it'd have to be mounted on the side of the UPPER STAGE, most of the way up the vehicle near the top... (IE NOT like in the kit). SO, I'd forego the blow out panels and go with a "single stage" airstart-core version of Titan using the SRM's for initial boost and using the single-stage liquid core airstarted acting as the 'upper stage'. (There were in fact proposals for just such vehicles, such as the "Saturn II" and some other similar types of vehicles using up to 6 SRM's surrounding the core to boost it off the pad and to altitude, firing up the liquid core engines and then dropping the spent SRM casings... check the Scale section for one of my NASA Study Summaries where I covered this, IIRC). If you're going for "realism" anyway...
Hey that sounds really cool... Here's another idea that jumped out at me, though... how about a variation of the black like the Dyna-Soar with the yellow stripe and NASA meatball emblem on the rudders?? That would look AWESOME! Might do a variation of it in white, like NASA has done on some of their lifting bodies... but since you're going for the Air Force motif, maybe the white "orbiter" with the orange strip and USAF emblem would be more appropriate... maybe in black?? I'm sure you'll come up with something extremely cool looking...
hehehe... Thanks... But I have to say, seeing your work, is making me feel a lot like Obi-Wan in the original Star Wars, when Darth Vader tells him, "When I left you I was but the learner, now *I* am the master!!"
Later! OL JR
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