They said it wouldn't fly!

Last summer, after getting RockSim, my now 12 year old 'nephew' and I were playing around with it and this is what he came up with. After some tweaking (originally much more pointy and seven fins) it evolved into the the "SweptCat III".
I built it for him as a birthday present in August only to find it was much heavier than predicted. Five full length epoxy fin joints add a lot of mass.
Any motor big enough to lift it moved the CG very close to (or behind) the CP.
We decided to wait for a perfect day and fly it with no one nearby on an E28-4T (margin approximately .8).
We never got the perfect day at the local fields but took it to Battle Park in December. Winds were terrible, it blew off the table and chipped a fin tip. No flight that day.
About three weeks ago a cat decided the six foot high shelf would be a perfect place for a nap, jumped up knocked it off rounding the NC tip. Then in her embarrassment jumped on my desk breaking my new Fliskits coffee mug.
Yesterday was a beautiful day here (60 degrees, no wind) so after school we took it to the local field - now or never.
Here's the rocket when new.

Gordon gave a funky countdown, pushing the button early, causing his dad with the camera to miss the rocket itself.
It took off like a bat out of hell. Sceamed straight up and fast. Ejection just past apogee and a nice slow descent and landed close with no additional damage.
Beautiful flight.
Anyway here's the smoke.

We used a 24" parachute which was probably more than needed but since there was no wind we wanted a soft landing. There was a lot of gyration.
Next time either a 20" or a spill hole.
I've already loaded another motor, tommorow looks like a nice day.
Here it is at about 500 feet.

Awesome! Great shots - I love the smoke...(don't worry - we all have those). Keep up the good work!

Now that's a rocket, worthy of cloning!!!

I forgot to ask, what are the details on the rocket?

NC?
BT?
Fin material?

It has an 18" T-60.
A 24mm motor tube.
3.75"conical balsa cone, bored, filledwith BBs and plugged with dowel for a total NC mass of 70g.
Five fins 5/32 balsa finstock. I think the leading edge to tube angle is 9.21 degrees. Anyway it is 4.365" tube line to tip parallel (semi-span?) with a 2" overhang.
Kevlar cord attached to forward CR extending out of tube and connected to a 3/8" elastic shock cord.
1/4"launch lug.
Total length 23.75"
Gordon picked the color - 'American Tradition' (LOWES) "Dove Gray".

Originally posted by akpilot
Now that's a rocket, worthy of cloning!!!

Click to expand...

I'm cloning your post, and I'd like to clone that rocket too! Very awesome design; It's always nice to prove a computer wrong

Rocsim is a really cool program, but I've built a bunch of scratch stuff with out any computer help at all. Just fly 'em. If they croak, fix 'em. What's Jim Flis say "Just push the @#*& button". That may be a paraphrase..
Congrats on the flight. I agree it is cool to prove a computer wrong.

Very nice, although I have to disagree that you proved the comp wrong. I've flown many rockets with stability of .5 to .8 with no trouble at all. Still a unique and original design, and glad to hear it flew well.

I don't feel that we proved the computer wrong, it's just that the figures had me worried. It just 'looked' like it would fly. If I hadn't seen the figures we'd have flown it months ago.
Tim