What did you do rocket wise today?

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It does indeed, the BMS nose cone is slightly longer than the BigDaddy/Leviathan/Scion nose cone, T300 is quickly becoming one of my favorite sizes due to the availability of 3" balsa blocks locally to turn nose cones from, and BMS offers several different 3" nose cones as well. For a visual comparison of the two nose cones I include the following picture, the nose cone on the left is the BMS/Mercury Engineering/and Apogee (iirc) nose cone and the BigDaddy/Scion/Leviathan NC is on the right. The BMS NC is pretty much an upscale of the PNC-80K, and the Big Daddy NC is like an upscale of the Estes PNC-60NA (think Estes #2056 Patriot Missle) I think.

By double tubing using couplers its possible to build a lightweight 3" Binder Thor ( a member of my local club flies a vintage 3" lightweight Thor), then the the motor mount can be upsized to 38mm and many more motor options are available.

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He also has options for the 3" School Rocket including ebay's and larger versions. I wish he would update his web site for these and other new items. The school rocket has a semi-transparent nosecone that is excellent for night flight use.
 
Pulled out and itoned my NAR SLI shirts for Student Launch this weekend.

See y'all at Bragg farm!

You ironed rocket tee shirts? For the love of all that’s sacred, that’s the kind of thing you don’t admit. Tumble dry, inside out and pull out of the dryer early, okay, but iron? Think of the rest of us.


Steve Shannon
 
Finally found myself in the mood after a month or more of blah, so I sat down and cut some 3/32 balsa fins for my BT56 Darkstar down scale.
The only 1/8 I have is basswood. It can be cut with a razor knife if you have enough patience, but after the first one I looked at the balsa and gave in to temptation...
Traced out centering rings and brought them into work tonight since we have drills and hole saws here....
 
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After some very kind folks here on TRF gave me some good advice, I turned and went a different direction....
Ordered fin guides and centering rings from Qualman Rocketry.
 
Just finished prepping for tomorrow’s club launch.

The nuke is my 9yo’s and is called “Kim Jong Fun”... [emoji12]

We’re taking all 4 kids, and I have 22 flight cards pre-filled ready to go:

1x H135
1x G80
8x D12
12 x C6

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There’s a 33mm unicorn missing from the picture. It’s still drying (badly!).

I feel bad for rushing my 7yo step daughters rocket and botching the finish, so I will likely rebuild it in the coming weeks.
 
Got the motor mount and fins glued up on the little Tomach yesterday. Today begins fillet work. Also gotta figure out recovery and tracker placement, since it'll be flying on an I-205. Also got the third external fillet set laid down on the Drago.
 
Drove 4+ hours and waited 6+ hours to see the 3/4 scale Mercury Redstone fly.

Well worth it!

Then another 4+ ride ride home. Long day.....
 
Drove 4+ hours and waited 6+ hours to see the 3/4 scale Mercury Redstone fly.

Well worth it!

Then another 4+ ride ride home. Long day.....

Is there any video footage posted yet?
 
Ordered motors for the Delamar launch over Memorial Day. (Come ooooonnn 50k waiver!) Also 3d printed fin cutting guides.
 
Assembled a few motors for this weekend's launch. Had a really tight cardboard sleeve on the 29/240 H180....
 
Today it was finally warm enough outside to spray some primer. First coat applied to my Momba and modded Big Daddy.
 
Paint completed for a second Ventris for my son. Looks like it'll go up this weekend at Lunar as well... G80 maiden flight. 4" FG kit fin can nearly done. Won't finish though in time for the weekend launch.
 
Finished up the OR for my next attempt at L3. I really have no desire to try again with the V2. I'm just not into low and slow...no matter how complicated, just not my thing, and why fly something you don't want to. My next attempt (hopefully at Airfest this year) will be a conservatively built Falcon 3 flying on an AT M1315. A gentle Mach 2.3 cruise to 30k' (it won't go that high, I'm betting 26k')...what could go wrong. :dark:

I'm going to leave enough motor room to accept the largest CTI and Loki cases, so it can fly all out down the road. My planned flight is practically a leisurely Sunday drive for this kit.

I call it "Let's Try This Again"



Anybody have a 4-fin tower I can borrow at Airfest?

Got word I am cleared to build. Ordered the main recovery chutes (48" Iris ultra compact main, 18" compact elliptical pilot chute and a 6" x 3" deployment bag)...those Fruity Chutes are awesome, but will lighten your wallet. I'm just going to use a small TFR parasheet for the drogue.
 
Sand, sand, sand and sand some more. Now that the weather here has gotten warmer I have started priming several completed except for paint kits I built over the winter.
 
Spent too much time trying to answer the question in this thread

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?145539-Lost-In-Space-2018

Figured out how to compute the length the apothem of a decagon (w/o looking it up).

Had this, probably bad, idea about what to do with a Samsung 360° camera. I was going to upscale an X-ray, but I don't have a BT80 nosecone with the right profile. Now I am thinking, maybe an upscaled Constellation? Be fun to make those fin-pods.

20180414_150105.png
 
Spent too much time trying to answer the question in this thread

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?145539-Lost-In-Space-2018

Figured out how to compute the length the apothem of a decagon (w/o looking it up).

Had this, probably bad, idea about what to do with a Samsung 360° camera. I was going to upscale an X-ray, but I don't have a BT80 nosecone with the right profile. Now I am thinking, maybe an upscaled Constellation? Be fun to make those fin-pods.

View attachment 342750

That seems like a good idea to me... Keep it low so you don't lose it!
 
Launched rockets with my daughter at the RIMRA launch on Saturday. (That's not me in the second photo; it's a friend who dared her to a Momba drag race.)

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I then bought a trailer for the club's launch equipment. It needs a little work, but the price was right. As you can see in the pic, RIMRA clearly needs to buy more stuff.

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