What did you do rocket wise today?

dave carver said:

Awww, man, that sucks As you Aussies say, she's a beauty or, she WAS a beauty. I've launched a rocket that found a 4 foot wide irrigation ditch. Same results, soggy rocket. If you can, launch further from the dam and try to get an angle where winds can't blow a recovery over the water. That rocket was too pretty to suffer that fate

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I was almost 1,000' from the dam Should have been far enough!! Got a descent altitude - and just drifted and drifted!! Argh!! That said, I've got a 4" upscale version ready to go, so all's not lost!! That will fly in the next month or two!! There's a build thread somewhere here.

JERRYR708 said:

The Patrol Cruiser Excalibur is one of the nicest looking rockets. Would love to display that in my office for the vintage great looks. Sorry to hear about your rocket getting water logged.

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The plans are available if you google (or PM me and I'll send you the link!) parts are mostly available - silver tubes around the motor mount are recycled igniter tubes from larger Aerotech reloads!!

And hey, an excuse to build something new

Krusty

Have spent the last 3 hours moving rocket stuff and using a shop vac to try to stay ahead of water coming in from some heavy rains.
My road is underwater.....

les said:

Have spent the last 3 hours moving rocket stuff and using a shop vac to try to stay ahead of water coming in from some heavy rains.
My road is underwater.....

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Dude! I hope it gets better for you. I know how that feels. Every year around The week of Thanksgiving my basement becomes a lake.

les said:

Have spent the last 3 hours moving rocket stuff and using a shop vac to try to stay ahead of water coming in from some heavy rains.
My road is underwater.....

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That's not good Hope you stay dry!!

Krusty

Yesterday, I got the fins glued onto my 4" Der V-3. Shown with the "standard" version:


I then spent better than an hour masking my NASA Pegasus to paint a Space Shuttle-like heat shield on the belly, then resprayed the white paint to seal the tape. Pictures to come later at some point...

These showed up at my doorstep today. Tears of joy, sleeping next to these tonight, etc etc.

Last night, I finished epoxying up my 4" Der V-3 motor mount and attached the rail guides. I painted the "heat shield" on the the BT60 NASA Pegasus after previous extensive masking. And I put the decals on my Estes Teros clone:

Did some filler work on an Estes M-104 Patriot and an upscale (T-30) Astron Midget clone. I tried to upload a picture, but for some reason the "ok" button is missing when I try to upload from "From Computer"... Is there a minimum # of posts before I can upload images/edit profile, etc?

whiskeyBear326 said:

Is there a minimum # of posts before I can upload images/edit profile, etc?

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No, that function hasn't worked for a couple months now. What you have to do is click the "Go Advanced" button below the quick reply window, then use the "Manage Attachments" function down below. That will allow you to upload multiple pictures into your post, but it is a bit cumbersome to use.

I just fondled my new Estes V-2 kit that arrived half an hour ago.

I removed the masking tape from my BT60 NASA Pegasus. Painting of this one is now complete, just decals to go...

EXPjawa said:

No, that function hasn't worked for a couple months now. What you have to do is click the "Go Advanced" button below the quick reply window, then use the "Manage Attachments" function down below. That will allow you to upload multiple pictures into your post, but it is a bit cumbersome to use.

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Thanks for the tip, Rick!

EXPjawa said:

I removed the masking tape from my BT60 NASA Pegasus. Painting of this one is now complete, just decals to go...

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I REALLY like the look of this one. Might be my next Scratch Build.

EXPjawa said:

I removed the masking tape from my BT60 NASA Pegasus. Painting of this one is now complete, just decals to go...

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Woah. Different paint on the dorsal/ventral sides of that bird looks stunning. Suggestive of heat shielding. Awesome.

Zeroignite said:

Woah. Different paint on the dorsal/ventral sides of that bird looks stunning. Suggestive of heat shielding. Awesome.

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Thanks, that was the intent. That's also why, as noted in an earlier post, it took over an hour to mask off.

As you might guess, the entire underbelly is gold. My thinking there was based on the blurb in the Estes Catalog: "Medium range research craft for NASA missions after the Space Shuttle". I take that to mean this was/is/would be that which supersedes the Shuttle after the STS was retired. Putting aside that we now know that the Shuttle will eventually be replaced by another stupid capsule-based craft, maybe in the future, the vehicle wouldn't be dependent on the ablative black tiles that were so costly on the Space Shuttle. The next generation heat shield is maybe descended from the gold foil solar shielding from the lunar modules (putting the physics aside).

In truth, I was going to paint it gold over black, the black being the heat shield. But the black and dark blue decals wouldn't work well over that color combination. I'd previously painted my Binary Star white & gold and liked the color combination, so I applied it here. Then I came up with the above to explain it... I also used an aged copper color on the pod "nozzles". The decals have black wedges that overlay to give a thrust nozzle effect, I thought that this base color would accentuate that.

swatkat said:

I REALLY like the look of this one. Might be my next Scratch Build.

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If you use Rocksim, I can help you out with this one. I've made models of both the standard Estes kit and this upscale. The angles of the fins are quirky. The rudder are not square to the wings, the tube joint, or are really defined by anything other than what was depicted in the assembly instructions.

Studied some more for the L2 exam, cut the shroud lines for my new 60" parachute the wife just sewed up for me. She will attach the lines tomorrow morning for me and then I can finish rigging it, weigh it, and then fly it Saturday.

Deezil said:

Completed my Fletcher, went with a little different scheme to try to keep it from warping in the sun. The yellow is much richer than the cell phone pic lets on.

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Visited TRF for the first time in about a month. Getting caught up on subscribed threads... Seeing this thumbnail gave me an idea for a paint scheme if I ever get around to buying / building a fletcher style rocket: My son's arrow of light award arrow:



The stripes tell the story of rank advancement from tiger through webelos. I customized the stripe pattern 6 of these back in February. I ended up using slices of trim monocote to get them done in the week before leading up to the ceremony.

Prepped rockets and started packing for Mudroc. Going to leave mid-day tomorrow, hoping that traffic in the bay area and sacramento isn't too nasty

Cut and prepped the new Stainless Steel Launch Rods for the club, rigged the main chute for my L2 project.

Painted my Mega Max - but not red...

I did a 2nd fg layup on WeFly2 saucer this morning.

Also tried to fix nose cone of garage sale rocket that got burnt from motor cato last weekend

Kenny

Minor Saturn V work - shock cords and parachutes.

I whipped up this clone of an Estes Black Brant III from the early '80s. It uses the same PNC-50BB nose/tail cone as the Crossfire.


I say "whipped up", but actually had a surprising bugger of a time with the motor mount. I wound up making two mounts and three body tubes before getting it right. The first mount I slid too far into the body tube, and when I tried to pull it back out, the glue had bound. I actually yanked the retainer hook right out. So, I set that aside for some sort of future project that will rely on friction fitting. The second tube, second mount, I actually got the insertion depth right, but was apparently a little too anxious about it, because I crushed the body tube in my hand just above the mount. So, I got out the tube cutter, trimmed off everything above the damaged spot and stuck the good section back into the tube box for future use. Then slit the damaged tube lengthwise and peeled it off of the motor mount, as the glue wasn't dry yet. A little sanding, and I fit it into the third body tube. This time, everything was OK. I think...

The NASA Pegasus looks awesome.

Finished the assembly and decoration of one of Frank Burkes profile Depron foam RC rocket glider X-15 kits just now. Needs a little bit more work on the RC installation.



it will be shortly ready to fly on E6 power.


A little paint, vinyl and panel lining does a lot to enhance a profile model!

Flew my 3" FrenzyXL clone on a successful L2 certification, and then helped my 4 and 6 year olds launch a couple of rockets each a Semroc/Centuri Snipe Hunter, Estes No.2 Skywriter, Estes Gaurdian, and Estes Bullpup 12D.

rharshberger,

Congratulations on your L2 cert.

rharshberger said:

Flew my 3" FrenzyXL clone on a successful L2 certification, and then helped my 4 and 6 year olds launch a couple of rockets each a Semroc/Centuri Snipe Hunter, Estes No.2 Skywriter, Estes Gaurdian, and Estes Bullpup 12D.

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I've launched my Bullpup more than any other rocket I have. Tough little bugger and fast turnaround with great flights. I don't keep records but it has to be close to 50 or more flights.