Mr Rocket
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2013
- Messages
- 475
- Reaction score
- 29
The Backstory:
Last summer after a 30 year hiatus I got back into the rocketry hobby. My son and I launched some of my 30+ year old rockets, and I was hooked again. I started doing a lot of research online, and came across a design on the JimZ website for a former Estes Design of the Month rocket called the "TAO". It is a 2 stage rocket that has some really cool features. First of all, the sustainer has no fins. It is spin stabilized by rotation introduced by canted dogleg fins in the booster section. Second, the booster has its own parachute recovery via a innovative hatch design. Third, the sustainer has rear ejection via a piston mechanism. And finally, it has a paint scheme that paints half the rocket red, and the other half green; creating the optical illusion as it spins that the rocket is actually yellow. What is not to like about this? I decided this was going to be the first rocket I would build in my return to the hobby.
I gathered all of the components and built the Tao over last winter. I was really happy with the way it turned out. Here is a picture of the completed rocket:
The Problem
While waiting for the weather to get nice so I could launch the Tao, I started reading posts on TRF and other websites all stating that the TAO is an inherently unstable design. One post even went so far as to state that they had contacted the original designer, and even the original designer had never been able to get the rocket to fly, but had submitted the design to the Estes contest anyway. I was crushed. Here I had built a rocket that I was not comfortable was safe to launch.
How did we get here?
Recently I found a post here on TRF titled "Fins? I don't need no stink'n fins!" by Krusty. This is a really cool thread, where he is trying to build a true finless rocket by canting the motors in a 3 motor cluster to rotationally stabilize his design. Krusty is a great guy (even though I have never actually met him) and he let me hijack his thread for far too long. Cookie the Dogs Owner posted that he should look at the Tao. This led to me posting that I had built one, but had not been able to model the fins properly in Open Rocket because of the unusual dogleg shape. Another poster explained to me how to do it, so I decided to start this thread to discuss my findings (... and to give Krusty his build thread back) Thanks Krusty!
So here we go!
Last summer after a 30 year hiatus I got back into the rocketry hobby. My son and I launched some of my 30+ year old rockets, and I was hooked again. I started doing a lot of research online, and came across a design on the JimZ website for a former Estes Design of the Month rocket called the "TAO". It is a 2 stage rocket that has some really cool features. First of all, the sustainer has no fins. It is spin stabilized by rotation introduced by canted dogleg fins in the booster section. Second, the booster has its own parachute recovery via a innovative hatch design. Third, the sustainer has rear ejection via a piston mechanism. And finally, it has a paint scheme that paints half the rocket red, and the other half green; creating the optical illusion as it spins that the rocket is actually yellow. What is not to like about this? I decided this was going to be the first rocket I would build in my return to the hobby.
I gathered all of the components and built the Tao over last winter. I was really happy with the way it turned out. Here is a picture of the completed rocket:
The Problem
While waiting for the weather to get nice so I could launch the Tao, I started reading posts on TRF and other websites all stating that the TAO is an inherently unstable design. One post even went so far as to state that they had contacted the original designer, and even the original designer had never been able to get the rocket to fly, but had submitted the design to the Estes contest anyway. I was crushed. Here I had built a rocket that I was not comfortable was safe to launch.
How did we get here?
Recently I found a post here on TRF titled "Fins? I don't need no stink'n fins!" by Krusty. This is a really cool thread, where he is trying to build a true finless rocket by canting the motors in a 3 motor cluster to rotationally stabilize his design. Krusty is a great guy (even though I have never actually met him) and he let me hijack his thread for far too long. Cookie the Dogs Owner posted that he should look at the Tao. This led to me posting that I had built one, but had not been able to model the fins properly in Open Rocket because of the unusual dogleg shape. Another poster explained to me how to do it, so I decided to start this thread to discuss my findings (... and to give Krusty his build thread back) Thanks Krusty!
So here we go!