Dr. Zooch Lifting Body build thread

That is one very cool looking rocket period. This is a quality build thread luke all the way
Cheers
fred

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

mjennings said:

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

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Thanks fred!

Thanks mjenn; got basically the same advice when I asked about 'gluing down mylar' in another thread. I've been wanting to try the 3M stuff but haven't got around to it yet... been thinking of trying it on wraps or something...

I had a bit of time on my hands after lunch today so I hit the LHS and bought a strip of trim monokote, bout 4-5 inches by about 36 inches, for $2.97. It's gold and VERY reflective... not quite as 'translucent' as the mylar, but acceptable, and the price is right. It already has the sticky glue on the back, so it's ready to install once cut to size/shape and the backing paper peeled off. Sorta peel-n-stick decals...

More on the NASA-ish Lifting body later...

OL JR

Well, been working on and off on the NASA Lifting Body for the past week or so. Finished putting it together, hardened with CA, sanded, coated with Elmers Wood Filler, sanded 98% of it off, primed, sanded then damp sanded, got her all slick and smooth, and then painted her flat white, masked off the nose top and around the leading edges, and then painted them and the bottom flat black. Did a little wet sanding to blend the paint lines and smooth everything up real nice, and then brush painted some details on the lifting body, like black tiles around the nose area, RCS jets, OMS nozzle 'ports' on the rear, tiled leading edges on the fins, and payload bay doors... (TOTAL pain to paint by hand but I managed!)

While in Houston the other day, I dropped by the LHS and picked up a sheet of Trim Monokote in reflective metallic gold; looks like gold chrome, for about $2.50 for a 4 inch by 36 inch sheet. I trimmed about 1/2 inch strip off one end and proceeded to cut out the triangular windows for the crew cabin, and docking windows, and a TEENY TINY hatch window. I tried cutting the hexagonal hatch outline from black paper to glue on the side like the Air Force lifting body has, and because of it's EXTREMELY thin dimensions, that didn't work too well; it nearly dissolved when I gingerly put a bit of white glue on it to transfer it to the side of the LB. So, I broke out the fineliner pinstriping brush again and just CAREFULLY painted on the hexagonal hatch outline, with the hatch white (much like a shuttle) and then applied the tiny hexagonal window to the center of the hatch.

I printed off a copy of the shuttle wraps Craig Zicafoose was kind enough to send me, and carefully trimmed out the NASA meatball and US flag from the wrap printed on printer paper, and then using a light coat of white glue, applied them to the top of the lifting body in typical 'shuttle' positions.

Once she was all dry, I took her outside and set her up for pics. Enjoy!

BTW, NONE of these decorations come with the kit-- how you paint/decorate the lifting body is ENTIRELY up to you!

Here's a few more shots... the last one is the NASA lifting body and the Air Force lifting body side by side...

I test glided the AF one the other day, with varied results... there was a slight wind so I'm not sure I was doing it right. I'm going to have to do some more experimenting but we got 9.5 inches of rain Saturday in about 8 hours, so it's going to be awhile before it's dry enough to do more testing...

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

Nice work they look real good, but now you have to do a third LB the Soviet one that was built from stolen plans.

mjennings said:

Nice work they look real good, but now you have to do a third LB the Soviet one that was built from stolen plans.

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LOL Too funny...

Actually that's not a bad idea... those little LB's aren't that hard to crank out...

It's the sealing, sanding, painting, and detailing that's the mama bear...

Hmmmm... Superior Soviestski Liftingski Body... could work...

Later! OL JR

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.

Dr.Zooch said:

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.

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I have.

Dang Estes blast blew a chunk out of the nosecone when I flew it this weekend. The LB flew fine, however. Not a duration setter by any stretch, but it does "fall with style".

Dr.Zooch said:

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.

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What won't work?? Not sure I follow...

Later! OL JR

luke strawwalker said:

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

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Looks great, Jeff! I hope to see it at the May Challenger club launch.

I happy that Foose does not hold me responsible for Estes ejection charges. While we were standing there with him watching the flight he commented that that was a high-powered ejection... he was WAY right.

luke strawwalker said:

What won't work?? Not sure I follow...

Later! OL JR

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Doing the Soviet lifting body

Dr.Zooch said:

Doing the Soviet lifting body

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I thought he was talking about building another one of your lifting bodies, but with Soviet paint and markings.

Dr.Zooch said:

Doing the Soviet lifting body

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You dare impugn the industriousness and capabilities of the superior Soviet workers, industry, and people's designers ability to improve upon an inferior Western warcraft design for peaceful purposes?? WE WILL BURY YOU!!!

Don't make me take my shoe off!!!!

Aw heck, what was I thinking... I'd just make another copy and paint the darn thing red with a big red and yellow star on it with the hammer and sickle... Who are we kidding here?? LOL

Actually I'm working on orbiters right now... two lifting bodies is enough for now... OL JR

Hey- that commie design could go over real well here in DC these days. Keep you off of that threats list of DHS's.

Dr.Zooch said:

Hey- that commie design could go over real well here in DC these days. Keep you off of that threats list of DHS's.

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Too late.

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!

Dr.Zooch said:

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!

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What you see in the background is our 87 acre cattle ranch here at Needville, TX. https://www.artapplewhite.com/fields/robertsranch/farmphoto001.jpg https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&so...++95+51'55"W&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=16&iwloc=addrWe're the main launch site for the Challenger 498 NAR section out of Katy (SW Houston) TX. https://www.artapplewhite.com/launches.html I plan to get her in the air real soon, soon as the weather cooperates. It's been INSANE here so far this year... cold, BONE dry, WINDY AS ALL GETOUT (it's whistling in the kitchen window right now, probably gusting above 20 outside right now) and then last Saturday we got 9.5 inches of rain within 10 hours. About 3/4 of the farm had between several inches to well over a foot of water standing on it, and the drainage creek that flows through our place came up so high water was pouring OUT the drains and onto the farm, exacerbating the flooding! Everything's gone down now, though the creekbottom still has about a half foot of water in it, but it's pretty muddy, still some puddles in places, and the grass is SO short because we've only had maybe 6 inches of rain in the past 6months (until Saturday) that the cows have eaten the place down like a putting green... first time I test glided my shuttle it inverted in the slight wind and snapped off the rudder, so I've waited until nearly wind-free weather to glide test and trim. Still not 100% sure on the AF LB if I have it trimmed right... it never did the inside loop, just coasted up about 20 feet and then heeled over and *sorta* glided, and having re-read the instructions, I'm going to try a bit of noseweight and try it again. I'll probably use a bit of clay under the nose until I confirm it needs it, or confirm it doesn't and call it good. It's been SO windy the past few days I haven't even had a chance to test the NASA LB so that's still to be done. Between driving the bus and some shop work here and there, and checking cows, I haven't had much time either... Darn work getting in the way...

Soon, my friend, soon... So, when I HAVE had a bit of free time during the day, I've been working on a subsequent project... check the Space Shuttle thread...

Later! OL JR

sorry for the bump....Luke...this is a great build thread ...I liked your "Thor" engine on the external tank...it gave me the idea to try to turn the tank into a Titan II ICBM....

couple more:

I start work on the lifting body next!! another neat kit by Dr. Zooch!! I am going for the 60's retro look ....I am thinking day glo for the orbiter...

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!

thanks Luke!! I appreciate the feedback! I am happy with how it has turned out so far. This is a really cool kit and I have been taking my time with it...work has been busy and I have been playing around with what I was trying to do before I really started anything....the instructions and Wes's posts indicate that he designed this lifting body as a teenager....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!

luke strawwalker said:

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!

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NJRick said:

....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).

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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:

NJRick said:

....
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!

Click to expand...

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... https://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/lvfam/titan.htm
https://www.friends-partners.org/partners/mwade/lvs/barianmm.htm


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 SIDE MOUNTED "orbiter"?? If it had a true upperstage, it would have to have a TOPMOUNTED 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...

NJRick said:

....
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...

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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...

NJRick said:

....
Luke your build threads are always appreciated!!! they are always a lot of help to newbies like me!! Wes...this is another AWESOME kit!

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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

Luke,
I agree 100% with your memory of the "Mustang II"....to call the car a dog would be an insult to our canine friends....the car was a dog with fleas! My "Stang"... LOL..had a V6 in it....but it didn't matter...the car was all sound and fury...tachometer would be jumping around, the car would scream, and still go 30 mph .... The only thing good about the car was the windshield wiper jets...if you hit the button to clean your windshield..not a drop of fluid would hit the windshield..it would fly over the roof of the car and hit the car behind you on their windshield....of course...I thought I was James Bond with the windshield wiper fluid...would watch a car with good looking girls pull up behind me...they would be talking away, not paying attention of course, and I would hit the button and in an instant their windshield was soaked...they would look at the sky for the rain cloud....never got tired of that...the car was lime green with a white vinyl landau roof..remember the vinyl roofs?? Oh..I was a happening guy on a Saturday night all right...NOT!!!....my girlfriend, now wife, would try to hide in her seat when this thing pulled up...now..too add insult to injury, I bought that car off of my dad who at the time worked for Philco, Ford's electronic division for $700. Nothing was for free with my parents... I never questioned it...but the car had 96,000 miles when I bought it...within a year and half the transmission and timing belt blew...learned the hard way about owning a car...by the time I got rid of it, it had 148,000 miles on it and was leaking every fluid in the vehicle...transmission, radiator, oil, brakes..you name it...and I put an ad in the paper and wouldn't you know a Mustang collector comes over...looks at the car and offers my dad $1600...he said the V6 version was rare for that car...I was working and not home at this time because I would have jumped at that offer...this is 1985 dollars...my father replies immediately "not a dime less than $1800"...at which point the guy leaves...never to be seen again and I end up having to pay $35 to have it towed to the dump... to this day I have never gotten a straight answer from my engineer dad as to what he was thinking with his counter offer....LOL. I am glad to hear you had a real car and I am hopeful that Wes had a better car than mine....still good memories with that thing though...the kind where you just shake your head...here is another..I pull up in the green beast and my future father in law tells me that I have some rust in the rear quarter panel...and promptly kicks it with his foot and sticks his foot through the panel...whereupon it got stuck and I had to get out of the car and help him pull his foot out of the hole that is now in the side of my car..LOL...I mean, what do you say to the that??

I never knew what the blow out panels were for on the Titan actually...and I admit I never really thought the idea through to be honest...I just wanted to try something different that would look cool...and I thought a Titan would be a neat booster...but you are correct...my orbiter would have to be on the top because it wasn't going to last too long on the side if the second stage ignited!! my test pilots would NOT be asking to light the candle because they would be the candle in about a minute and 30 seconds or so after liftoff! of course, my booster is based upon the ICBM version with the warhead (I liked the black warhead with the copper or bronze color on the tip...)(talk about a death trap..lol...if the booster doesn't cook you the thermonuclear warhead will..make SURE you separate from the launch vehicle at burnout ....I will have to stress that in the flight manuals....) all in all though...it still looks cool to me!!

you know I never thought about the black with the yellow Nasa stripe for the orbiter...are you thinking about something like the X-15 markings?? that is a pretty good idea there!! that would also have the airforce markings on it...I will think about that one Luke...but that is a great suggestion! I just may have to build two of these!!! hmmmm.....I am going to look into that....the X-15 rocks.

as for my builds vs your quality...I am not even close. I try to improve on each build...try different things and stuff....but I still make mistakes...on occasion I struggle with the wraps...there seemed to be a lot of grain in these nose cones...does that make sense??....but I just kept at them so as silly as this sounds..I am proud of a nose cone. Luke, your work and some of the builds that some others post on here,...just incredible work. professional quality. just some really, really good builders here...gives a guy like me something to shoot for.

luke strawwalker said:

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

Click to expand...

Thanks again...

I posted a few pics in the last thread... been fiddling about with stuff all evening, so I didn't get it done earlier... Might help explain things a bit...

I agree the test versions of the Titan just looked SO COOL with that regular ogive cone up there... it just makes it look "faster" or cooler... much like the simple straight ogive cone on the Minuteman III covering the three RV's looks "cooler" and sleeker than the old stepped transitions down to the Avco single RV/warhead on Minuteman I and II... Same reason the Peacekeeper looks so much sleeker than Minuteman 1 I guess... although with its constant diameter, it's not as "visually interesting" as Minuteman III with it's step-up transition between stages I and II.

Yeah, I was kinda thinking about some of the Dyna-Soar paint patterns... I fiddled about on the net and grabbed some pics... ended up getting sidetracked on a Russian website about Buran and got a TON of pics off there... part of what's taken me so long to get this stuff posted...

Here's some ideas you might take a look at and accept/reject/modify as you see fit...


That last pattern might look particularly cool in day-glo...

Later! OL JR

Here's a few more...



Later! OL JR

And a few more...



I DO love the day-glo orange and silver in the first pic... VERY cool! Might work well with day-glo red and white as well...
Later! OL JR

And two more, just for kicks... the first one should appeal to your love of the Saturn IB... maybe a kitbash in your future??

The second one is a slightly more modern take on the whole theme...

Later! OL JR