Wildman Warrior Jr

[jsargevt]

OK - I finally finished my Secret Santa rocket from Christmas 2011! I want to extend my huge thanks to my secret santa from then for the cool rocket.

This is my first non-mini rocket from Wildman that I have built. It was a lot of fun and I learned a bunch about how to build HP fiberglass rockets. I certainly learned that epoxy can make a HUGE mess!

I did not document the build as this was done in the "standard" CJ build with injected fillets and PVC pulled externals. Rustoleum Purple and Valspar Silver and props to Mark @ stickershock for the kickin' decal!

So with out further adieu - presenting the Warrior:

The upright stack:


On the rack:


Not bad for my first large external fillets with West systems! I need some practice on the rear taper but hey if I was perfect I wouldn't be here. I am also happy with how the paint came out on the fin transition:


A nice shot of that awesome decal. Thanks again mark!


My son loves this rocket and he asked to have his picture with it. "Dad its a SWORD!". Hopefully the weather will cooperate next weekend and he can see it take to the sky!



Some lessons learned:

Future & Simple Green is good, but it does not like the silver paint and leaves the equivalent of "water marks" on it. At this point I don't really care as I don't want to mess with it. I'll live with the imperfections - plus you can't see it unless you are right next to it. On the pad or streaking skyward who cares? I just wanted to get some protection to keep the decal down and to help prevent the paint from chipping.

You don't need much bondo when filling in pinholes and gaps. Luckily it sands quickly.

When injecting make sure that you get a good seal with epoxy on the fins and TAPE UP the bottom fin holes. Be SURE to do it over something that you don't mind dripping epoxy onto!

There were some others but those took the cake. I really liked this build and LOVE how the colors came out. Thanks again to my secret santa for the kit - This one will be around for a while!!

[Pantherjon]

Looks awesome! Interesting 'notches' in the fins.Kinda Darkstarish

[jsargevt]

Looks awesome! Interesting 'notches' in the fins.Kinda Darkstarish

Thanks! It does have a cool semi-split fin look! It is just one big honkin' fin though.

[Windeavor]

Cool looking rocket! Junior looks like he's pretty amped to go fly that thing.

[jsargevt]

Thanks! He is excited to see it take to the air (hopefully!) this Saturday at MMMSC in Maine.

[Disaster_Guy]

Major props on this build, it looks awesome. I have been eyeing this one myself on the Wildman's site. I was planning to send my Gizmo up on a J for my Level-2 but it looks like this thing may be the ticket to be able to take advantage of the CTI cert special to get a free 38mm case (it is only about $40 more than the case). Playing with the sim in Open Rocket, it looks like it should get a little over 6k' on a 38mm 6 grain J. With a 18" drogue and a 36" main at 600' it shouldn't be a long walk to recover either.

[jsargevt]

James,

Thanks! This was a really fun build for sure. I really love the design and I am quite happy with how it turned out! Thanks for the complement!

I was working on the av bay his evening. I was reluctant to send it up without dual deploy on an H since I lost my arreaux earlier in the day. I figured I would wait until I got the altimeter set up to try to ensure that it didn't end up in the woods on the maiden flight. I have had too many "titanic" maiden flights to want to risk it at the last launch.

For sure this thing will take a J. I recommend the kit if you dig the style!

[Disaster_Guy]

Jason- Have any pictures of your AV bay? Mine just arrived today (sans instructions). Most is obviously a straight forward build but I am curious the recommended AV bay setup.

[jsargevt]

Jason- Have any pictures of your AV bay? Mine just arrived today (sans instructions). Most is obviously a straight forward build but I am curious the recommended AV bay setup.

Sure I'll take some tomorrow/this weekend.

Since you bumped this thread up it reminded me I forgot to add on the video from the launch the other weekend. 1650 feet on a CTI H225 White Thunder. Perfect Flite Altimeter. Drogueless. 36" main at 500.

http://youtu.be/IETE3EIeTfs

Thanks!

[Fe Dude]

Great flight, and I dig the purple. That is one sharp looking rocket!

[jsargevt]

Great flight, and I dig the purple. That is one sharp looking rocket!

Thanks! One of the few rockets whose finish I'm proud of. I look forward to the next launch to give it a ride on an I.

[Disaster_Guy]

Nice music selection too!

I started my build this afternoon. Doing it a little out of sequence from what would be expected as I need to wait for some kevlar to come in (forgot to order some from Tim with the kit). So far the coupler/switch band is done, nose/shoulder/bulk plate is done, and av bay lids are done and drilled. I decided to go with #8 threaded rod for the av bay. It looks like real-estate is kind of tight for ejection canisters on the lid.

[jsargevt]

Here is how I did up the AV-bay.

This is the removable end with the wingnut and charge well. I have blue wall sticky over the holes to keep out the BP charge. I use only one hole so you can see that I made an extra hole. The original plan was 2 threaded rods, 1 charge well and 1 terminal block. I am not organized enough to fit all that on here so this is what i have:


This is the fixed end with lock-tite-d nuts on either side of the threaded rod


This is the disassembled bay. As you can see I am doing the "twist and tape":


Here is my super swanky sled on the single rod to show the fit. This sled is an engineering marvel i tell ya. So high tech it hurts:


Finally a shot of the interior. Not a whole lot of room:


I ended up not using the charge well on one end and just used a glued straw with BP in it. Let me know if you have any questions!

[Disaster_Guy]

Jason, hope you don't mind me tagging onto your thread... I just finished the build of my Warrior, JR along with application of vinyl from Mark. When I started building this thing I was torn on how to paint it and what theme to do the vinyl in. I have too many black/yellow, black/orange, and purple/black rockets. It finally struck me and I decided to do something a bit different with it inspired by the Warrior name. The rocket serves both as a tribute/memorial to those Maryland National Guardsmen that have been killed in action since 9/11/01 as well as a fundraising tool. The rocket carries the names of the 11 MDNG personnel that have been lost as well as the logo for Homes for our Troops. The rocket will make its first flight at Red Glare this fall and prior to the flight I will be taking pledges locally, based on altitude, that will be donated to Homes for our Troops. I don't feel like I can trust open rocket's sim on this thing but it is projecting around 6,500' on the planned J381 Skidmark.





...yes, sadly I goofed a little bit applying the top set of names and they are slightly out of level...

[jsargevt]

First, happy to have you join in the thread!

Second, HOLY COW that looks great. I love the paint and the art. I really, really like the tribute you have made out of this rocket. VERY COOL.

Third, I ran the sim on rocksim that I have for the Warrior that I have. I adjusted the weight of the rocket to 75.9oz which gets the sims to +- 250 feet of my flights so it is more or less accurate for my, admittedly heavy, build. I get 5360 feet on the J381SK in 8-14 MPH winds. I can give you the sim data sheet if you want to look at it. That is, if you are into that kind of thing and you trust that the computer isn't lying. Which it might be!

Nice work!!

[Spicer007]

Jason,

Very nice build, cool paint job and flight video...

[jsargevt]

Jason,

Very nice build, cool paint job and flight video...

Thanks! It is a really nice flying rocket as well.

Here is a video on a I-195 Red Lightning: http://youtu.be/FLhPlZ2oCSA


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLhPlZ2oCSA