I'm sure it's been on everyone's minds... Lot's to report on this, guess I'll start with the kids. They're slackin'. It's ok, they have a lot going on this week - I don't. Saturday night we all came to the conclusion that these would be AWESOME night rockets, so the gears started grinding. It was at that time I realized my blue airframe was not going to make the cut, but that's not a bad thing - it will save me some work. I have a couple night-roc's already, so I'll be ok. This idea came up while talking about MWP plans, since my son will be coming this year for the first time. So as we were enjoying the beautiful night outside, I grabbed the hobby knife on the table and a nose cone. The kits come with LOC ABS nose cones, not ideal bat not too bad. I enlarged the hole in the bottom of it and stuck one of the gf's new tea-lite sized multi-color blinky LED things in the hole. I was stunned at how much light still came through!
Rewind about a month - I saw a commercial for dog leashes one morning, dog leashes with LED's in them! Found some on flea-bay and ordered them up. Got three colors, and they have a solid "on" and two blink patterns. These will be great additions to night flight shock cords, and will be incorporated into the night flight configuration. They are a rather heavy woven nylon strap with the lights, wires, and batteries well protected inside. Batteries are replaceable as well - bonus.
Fast forward to today, got the ambition to get it done. The stable half's rocket is done, minus fin fillets - she's trying to pawn that off on me, I'll give in... To the business, I've rambled long enough.
First order was to cut the bottom off of the cone. We now need a place to put lights, nose weight, and shock cord mount. As good luck would have it, 1 1/2" PVC pipe is a perfect fit inside the irregularly shaped cavity, leaving just enough space to sandwich some kevlar strap in for the shock cord mount.
The wires you see are finish nails, through the PVC, ground flush to the OD. This is the forward end of the light compartment, the nails hold it all in.