Level Three Build...

[mannyskid]

Well, now that I have proven this airframe in flight, I will document the build here. As many of you may know, I built "Carbon Nightmare Mk.I" last year and it was flown at LDRS and MWP. In the MWP flight, the booster was lost. In December, I decided to do a re-build of this rocket in order to attempt a level three certification after my eighteenth birthday at AIRfest in September. For the cert flight, I will use an original AMW M-2200 skidmark. Okay, so let's get started. So I started with a 60" carbon tube and cut it to size in order to have the ease of accesibility of the motor retainage plate.

[mannyskid]

Now that the insides of the booster were done, now onto the fins. After some discusion with my TAPs, it was decided that my original fin shape was too small, so I made them much larger to accomodate the LONG airframe. The next couple of pictures show me cutting out the 1/8" thick G-10 fins.

[mannyskid]

After the fins were cut out, I laminated them with two layers of carbon on each side. The fins were then beveled by Justin Farand.

[mannyskid]

Then I attatched them and did three layers of carbon Tip-to-Tip. I won't bore you with the details of how I do this, so here are some pictures.

[mannyskid]

After a LOT of sanding and filling, I got this. Yeah it isn't that pretty, and yeah it's realy heavy, but hey, it gets the job done.

[mannyskid]

So came along Thunderstruck 3. After much BSing out at our little forum and on here, I entered it in the mach madness contest. Darin Raymond stepped up to the plate to mix me up a 6500Ns M-2580 Brass Blue. The rocket flew under his name. All in all, the rocket only flew to 14,000' and a measly top speed of only mach 1.4. A far cry from the simmed mach 2.5 with a loki M-2550. I hope to fly this rocket again soon, and then for the real flight at AIRfest. In-flight picture courtesy of David Reese.


Manny

[Fonzi]

Beautiful build Manny! we'll be looking for your flights at AIRFest.