7.5" Titan II Missile 2 Versions

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burkefj

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A friend of mine gave me a book about the Titan II missiles to give back to a co-worker and I wound up reading it......I really wanted to model the missile, not the gemini-titan..I really didn't want to bother with twin engine thrust....Plan is to build two versions, a standard highpower version using loc tubing, and a lightweight foam structure version at the same scale. Both with polycarbonate fins.

Highpower version should be about 19 pounds and fly to 1100' on a J-570 38mm motor.

Foam version should be about 5.5 pounds and fly to 1100' on an I-200 29mm motor.

Highpower version is up first.

A quick trip to Home depot and Lowes and I think I found the start of a 7.5" diameter stand-off scale Titan II

2 18" traffic cones
2.5" metal cap for chain link fence posts
Some decorative lighting fixtures for engine bells.......

I just trimmed the cone base to be about 7" diameter, and made a ply ring the OD of the rocket, and trimmed to fit over the base of the cone, then made a styrene sheet shroud and CA/epoxied it to the ply ring, this will slide over the cone and act as the adapter ring on the real titan II.

The metal post cap had a flange and so fit into the trimmed top. I think from a few feet away it will have the right look. I don't think I'll get paint to stick to the traffic cone so I'll use stickershock matt black vinyl to cover it.

I plan on going with the motor tube up the middle in between the dummy engine bells....and will have thetube stick down and painted black and will try to hide it with some dummy motor plumbing.

I want to build a fin box with slots to put the lexan fins into, so I don't have fillets to worry about, and can replace them if damaged or scuffed....I'll retain them from the bottom I think.

I plan on cutting another traffic cone a bit shorter and slipping it over the first one so that it mimicks the thickness and step of the ablative material....


The cone is about 13" long which looks about right and that would leave the body to be about 60" long, which I think will work with two of the loc 7.5" tubing pieces wildman sells.

Frank

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I found a picture of the much smaller Estes Titan II that was launched at Hellfire-17. I liked the look of the model, so I saved it.

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As you might know I did build a 5 inch Gemini Titan with a 2 motor cluster that was launched twice. Once with 2 Aerotech motors and the second time with 2 CTI motors using the Quick Burst Cluster Buster both times. The CTI motors were easier to ignite for the cluster.
 
Yes, I saw your build on the gemini.....very nice, I never saw any launch photos so wasn't sure how the parallel motors turned out.

Made a bit more progress, I got another cone and overlayed it on the first one to give the thickness of the ablative layer.



Frank
I found a picture of the much smaller Estes Titan II that was launched at Hellfire-17. I liked the look of the model, so I saved it.



As you might know I did build a 5 inch Gemini Titan with a 2 motor cluster that was launched twice. Once with 2 Aerotech motors and the second time with 2 CTI motors using the Quick Burst Cluster Buster both times. The CTI motors were easier to ignite for the cluster.
 
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A bit more tonight. I fit the allthread into the nose section and attached it to a bracket that I made to secure the base of the cone to the allthread and to the bulkhead. I also fitted a washer and two nuts at the tip of the allthread to hold the epoxy/shot mix so that any loads from the nose weight are attached to the allthread. The allthread will attach to a U bolt, the rear and forward bulkheads and the nose-cone bracket and up to the tip of the nose. This has worked well in the past for this size rocket for me.

I also cut one rear bulkhead support and mounted the bells and motor tube in the relative positions to see how it looked on the fiberglass. I'll double that plate before I'm done. I think with some wiring/tubing around it it will look ok. I mounted carriage bolts through the nozzles and sticking out slightly to take the landing loads and they also mount the bulkhead/bell stack to the rear centering ring. The 38mm motor will fit right between them.
The engine bells are exactly 7" apart from outside to outside, so I think that will look about right for a 7.5" body tube. I know, you die-hard scale Titan fans are probably cringing.....

I think at this point I've done enough proof of concept I'll start ordering some tubes, and work with upscale cnc to make an interlocking fin box that the clear fins will slide into, and with stickershock on some wraps.

Frank

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Amazing how many rocket parts Home Depot carries.
I'm really impressed with the ingenuity - nice work!
 
I like your nose cone and your bell nozzles. I used sugar shaker caps for nozzles for my GT. They were hard to find and I had to be truncated at the top in order to fit the 29 mm motors. Your bell nozzles have the high expansion ratio look. My 5" diameter GT grew in weight and before I knew if was on the order of 10 pounds and needed a 10' diameter parachute along with two Aerotech 29 mm H268R motors. The Aerotech motors did not both ignite simultaneously as shown

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For the second flight I realized that I did not need so much lifting power and I used two CTI H170 Blue Steaks. As far as I know both motors ignited simultaneously.

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I am wondering what size motor you are planning to use and how much your model will weigh.
 
Got some aluminum rod and tubing and formed some of the piping and struts to add a bit of detail, I also trimmed the perforated section of the bell off, I think it looked too long with them anyway, and mounted it on a board to simulate how it would look at the bottom of the centering ring.

As for motor and weight, it looks like it will be around 18-20 pounds and will probably fly it on J-570 and J-510 motors, I like the long 38's, they help cg, have a nice flame, and get it up around 2000 feet, far enough to look good, but not too far up to have to walk far even using big chutes for soft landings.

Frank
 
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Decided to use some springs for accents on the metal tubing I put for motor detail and painted the carriage bolt landing load pieces and inside of the bells and nose tip flat black. Took a trip down to the Evergreen aviation museum and took some pictures of their excellent titan II, they have the MKVI vehicle on the floor, but the titan is set up as a Titan II SLV I'm going to paint the motor tube that fits between the engine bells flat black and put silver stripe accents on each side to simulate the turbopump exhausts.

Frank

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A bit more work, finished the ply plates to butt against the nose cone and adapt into the body tube.

For nose weight, I used a 54mm tube to cast the nose weight to shape around the 3/8" allthread and mounted that into the nose cone as well. The weight is attached to the allthread, and the cone slips over it, so I can remove and add weight as needed.

Fins are on the way from upscale cnc, they are clear and will mount into an interlocking fin box, and then a screw will go into the bottom cr into the slot on the fin tab to keep them from falling out.

Tubes should be here Friday, Mark at Stickershock is working on the vinyl for it.

Frank

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Really interesting project! Good luck and be sure to post some flight video.

Question about the Titan II itself: As far as I know it's the only big rocket that had the engines, pumps, and plumbing all hanging out exposed like that. Does anyone know why they did that?

I know it used room temperature fuel & oxidizer, so there was no risk of big chunks of ice falling at liftoff. Was the reason for leaving everything exposed as simple as that?
 
That's an interesting question, I know for the titan34D and titan III versions they did have a shroud around the motor components. Maybe it made in-silo maintenance easier to not have an aerodynamic shroud....

Really interesting project! Good luck and be sure to post some flight video.

Question about the Titan II itself: As far as I know it's the only big rocket that had the engines, pumps, and plumbing all hanging out exposed like that. Does anyone know why they did that?

I know it used room temperature fuel & oxidizer, so there was no risk of big chunks of ice falling at liftoff. Was the reason for leaving everything exposed as simple as that?
 
While I was launching rockets this weekend, some parts came in. Body tubes, and the very nice parts I had UpscaleCNC cut for me, clear fins from Makrolon and centering rings/fin boxes to allow the fins to be removed/replaced if needed. I got the fin boxes fit and did a dry assembly. Right now with a loaded J570 it is balancing right at the midpoint which would be 1.5 diameters ahead of the cp. Chutes and altimiter sits right ahead of the CG so that won't move it. It looks like the weight will be right around 17-19 pounds finished and ready to fly with motor.

I did a quick assembly to get a look at it, my son Max as the rocket model......

BTW working with Upscale CNC was very easy, and the parts fit was outstanding, a nice tight drag fit on the tubes and the fin boxes/notches were nice and snug. I had the plastic drop shipped to him since he doesn't stock that and he just charged then for the cutting cost, I highly recommend him.

Need to start doing fillets for the fin box, install the centering rings, etc, then cut the fin slots after the rear is inserted. I think once the motor tube is painted black it won't be visible in flight.

Frank

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Finished building the fin box and rear end, cand trial mounted the fins. You can see the fin box here with forward centering ring, the way the clear fin inserts into the fin box, and the slot for the retaining bolt that goes through the rear centering ring. The clear fin still has the protective covering on it, but I pulled it back from the root edge for fitting.

I then cut and doubled the coupler that will go on the lower half, cut the airframe for the av bay mounting, mounted the u-bolts and T-nut/plywood supports for the rail buttons.

I just need to do epoxy fillets on the fin box, and centering rings and install it into the airframe, then cut the fin slots.

Frank

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The fit on the parts looks terrific! This is going to be a cool looking model. I would be tempted to say that you could make clear plastic fins that extend further aft so that the clear fins act like a display stand when the model is not flying.
 
I thought about doing that, but my main concern is not snapping them off on landing or damaging the fin box.....so I wanted them up high enough to avoid taking any landing force if possible. It would help CP a bit, but estimation shows that won't be a problem with my motors and components anyway. Upscale CNC has the dimensions, so it would be easy to make a new set of fins with a different shape and same tab dimensions later....I wasn't sure how tough the 3/16 Makrolon polycarbonate was going to be.

Frank


The fit on the parts looks terrific! This is going to be a cool looking model. I would be tempted to say that you could make clear plastic fins that extend further aft so that the clear fins act like a display stand when the model is not flying.
 
A lot of progress this evening. Completed the fillets on the fin box, installed the motor mount/fin box, installed the rail buttons, things lined up exactly as I measured. I painted the rear end with high temp black paint. Cut the slots and mounted the clear fins and retention screws, everything fits nice and tight. I installed the av bay and parachutes and motor and did a balance check and it seems to be balancing right at the joint between the two tubes, right where I wanted it. Weight dry with chutes is 17.4 pounds, 19.4 with loaded motor. Waiting for Mark at stickershock to finish the wraps/vinyl and I can finish it up, and waiting for my aeropack retainer from wildman so I can finish painting the motor mount tube black.

For once, I did not have any screw ups, I came close once, but was right on.......sort of weird, no yelling of any kind on this model....that's unusual for me. For example, I mounted the T-nuts for the rail buttons on ply plates that were epoxied onto the front and rear centering rings and one on the upper centering ring, before installation. I measured the distance to the hole from the cr, installed everything, made a line down the model, marked the offsets, pushed in an awl at the marks and it went right into the center of each t-nut.....that never happens....

Added some reinforcing screws in the upper bulkheads and lower cr's. Updated final ork file.

Frank

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Got the vinyl from stickershock, Mark was very nice and he went out of his way to work with me on these. I decided since I was going to vinyl the cone since paint won't stick to the traffic cone, I would try to do full silver/white wraps on the body as well and not do any painting. Some went on easy, some needed a bit slow patience to avoid wrinkles, just my technique or lack there of.....I was short a bit of white so I'm missing a 5.5" strip, but here she is all ready to go. Came out looking pretty nice.

Frank

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This model looks really terrific. So, the silver and white wraps are like model airplane mylar adhesive strips with Mark's vinyl decals on top?

Hi, no the white and silver are vinyl sheet as well, then the markings are applied over, same on the nose.

Frank
 
WOW!That's one of the best scratch builds I've seen on the forum Great job.:wave:
 
Wow, Frank... really nice work. Glad to have been able to assist. It's great to see parts off the table all assembled and ready for flight! Congratulations on a really nice build.

Nat Kinsey
UpscaleCNC
 
Finally got to fly the Titan II. Good and bad. This was my first J-570 RMS EZ with the one piece forward delay/plastic unit. There isn't much to do incorrectly. Since i use redundant electronics i used no ejection charge. It took about 3 seconds to come up to pressure, lifted off and about a second into the flight and about 150 feet it blew the forward end right through/past the new delay unit...huge fireball out the front of the bottom half. Good news was that it blew the front half off completely and both halves deployed their chutes and they landed intact. (it recovers in two parts).

Good news is that the plug in lexan fins were fine and the lower airframe other than the internal charring was ok. I cleaned it up and prepped another J-570, this time stealing the standard forward delay parts from a J-575 motor and the normal forward end and got it ready. This time the flight was perfect, straight up, deployed nicely right at the top and landed safely. So, my construction was solid enough to withstand a forward blow by. I've reinforced the coupler in the rear half after peeling the charred internal section. From a little distance the fins were pretty invisible.

A big thanks to my wife and son who helped drive and prep and recover, I just got the stitches out from my torn bicep tendon repair so I was mostly one handed...

Frank

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Waiting to get the flight shots from Gary Goncher, our club president. The video of the second flight will be up shortly.
 
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