certainly a nice design as is.
couple options.
run your motor mount dimension tube all the way as far as you can into the nose cone. You can even add a BT-5 at the front to get further into the cone. If you need nose weight, put it on the POD as far forward into the cone as you can (I am assuming as pictured you are cutting the bulkhead base of the cone.)
you only need two centering rings, one at the back, and the second at the forward End of the motor mount just BEHIND the shoulder of the cone. Both of these are sliding rings, fixed only to the mount. The forward ring butts against the cone shoulder, this effectively is your “pod block.”
why?
1. doing this let’s you put any nose weight on the pod, which gets ejected and, if you rig the shock cord right, will land BEFORE the rocket body. Doing this, the rocket body when it comes down will definitely have less inertia/kinetic energy, and maybe if you rig it right will slow down a bit more than the motor mount. Again the rigging may be tricky.
2. Should give you plenty of space for your recovery gear. You already have plenty of experiencing “spooling” these, so you will be fine, but Always nice to have more space.
second item. This is basically a simple 3FNC with rear eject and an awesome paint scheme. Take a walk on the wild side. Keep the dorsal rudder, make the two other fins a bit longer, place them flat on the work table and glue them together flat, and glue this as a planar “wing-fin” on the ventral side opposite the rudder.
will get you more of a “wing effect.” May corkscrew in flight, but net trajectory will be straight, altitude will be lower, and flight and smoke trail a bit more, what’s it that
@kuririn says, “avant-garde”? Flight will look more like a dogfight than a cargo run (although you may need more than 12 parsecs to do the Kessel run……oooops, I am mixing metaphors.)
What was I thinking? You are a craftsman. You aren’t the type to stoop to using a plastic nose cone.
