My First Scratch Built flying great!

[Indiana Speed!]

I got into Model Rocketry around December 2005. Over my summer break, I have made a scratch built rocket. My first attempt at the scratch built went great. I drawed out all the designs on a few pages of Computer Paper and then taped them together. I called my rocket, "Black Lighting or Black Thunder". <<My father I believe got them mixed up when he put the decals on it! Its about 28" High, and 10" in Width with you include my Balsa/Card Stock Wings as seen on the attached picture down below. I have done about 3 Flights with it, and the last flight had 1 Main Engine, and 2 Outter Boosters on the wing. I was amazed on how fast the rocket went up with the little mini boosters that Estes has, and of course they were plugged!

From my Rocket Log, my first flight was with a C6-3 as the only engine, the second was again with a C6-3. <<Those 2 both had a slightly early ejection charge, only getting about to 400ft. My last flight was with a C6-5 in the Main Part, and 2 A10-PT's. <<The rocket went flying really fast, surprising me! It got up to about 600ft or so I guess, but the ejection charge was about on time but the shot cord at ejection got tangled up with my Fin, causing one of my fins to float down on the ground very slowly. All in all, my first scratch built has done pretty good, but it could've been better!

My First Flight had the Balsa Wood's lines (what do you call it?) going up and down, and the wings broke off after the first flight on my dads desk.. I quickly got some balsa wood and did the wing design better and added cardstock to them.. Now, I gotta add cardstock to my Fins, because they will suffer the same fate eventually just like my wings and my broken fin from the last flight.

I'm new to these message boards, so I don't know how to post multiple images.. The attached picture has it on the launch pad, on its last flight that I have done. I have some great camera pictures of all the engines lighting! I will post them I guess in a second!

Thanks for reading!

 

[Indiana Speed!]

Forget to mention that my last Flight had 1 C6-5, and 2 A10-PT's.

Here's another picture of all 3 Engines igniting, and flying high into the sky.

See the attachment for the picture!

 

[snede2112]

Welcome to the forum.

That thing looks pretty darned cool!

 

[Bohica]

SWEET!

 

[jflis]

Incredible job! and a beautiful build too

Also, I want to point out an important factoid. You had heard about the grain direction on fins and still had them wrong on your first build. After that launch and a broken fin, you had first-hand experience and corrected it.

I am confident that you will NEVER make that mistake again. There is something to be said for "First-Hand" experience (see various discussions on "school of hard knocks"... LOL)

Congrats on great sucess and congrats on lessons learned

jim

 

[Delta-IV]

Great to see you on the forum.......search things and ask questions.....there is a lot more knowledge here that may save you some of those "lessons learned" before you have to use that term.

In 1969 during my 1st year of rockets, I was 2 for 9...gladly, dad didn't know that those things were reuseable.

-Delta-IV-

 

[Indiana Speed!]

I'm now working on another scratch built rocket, similar to my first scratch built. I don't have any pictures of the design layout yet, but its pretty much the same only with a BT-80 Body Tube, 42inches long, Appogge BT-80 Nose Cone, and the wings are gonna be much better for gliding. Probably gonna have a FOAM Board Wing instead of Balsa Wood, I think that the wings would be lighter on FOAM.

If all goes well, I will be having the tallest rocket in our family, my dad has the Delta 4 Medium/Heavy which would be a few inches smaller than mine.

Now I just need to give my design a name..