Test Flight of our Big CF Dragonfly

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RocketFeller

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This past Saturday we flew our 4.9x upscale of the Binder Design Dragonfly. This rocket was built as an after-school project with five sixth grade girls and myself. It flew at NXRS near Brothers, Oregon on a 98mm K3800 built for us by Mike Fisher of Binder Design/Fisher Research. It reached an altitude of 800' and everything worked as planned. We were very happy with our shakedown flight, next flight will be probably be on a commercial K or L, hopefully with an EX M in its future as well.

I will be doing a detailed build thread when I get time, but here are the basics (dimensions are approximations).

12.75"x60"x1/16" Carbon Fiber Airframe
27"x11"x5/8" Elliptical Fins - .06" CF Plate laminated to 1/2" End-Grain Balsa Sheet
1/8" CF Plate CRs and Thrust Plate
Internal Fin Can Structure made from 1/2" End-Grain Balsa laminated with CF cloth
16' Rocketman Parachute with 55' Harness made by OneBadHawk
5:1 Ogive - 12.75"x63.75" built by Python Rocketry
Weight on the Pad - 46 Pounds

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVsQLCkarhtgc66OW1QIbzQ
 
I'm the one with the goofy grin. On the left of the rocket is Gary and Mike.

Gary is an L3, a retired aircraft engineer, and an all-around nice guy. He offered to come check out our build and ended up being an important part of our team, watching over us and crunching numbers we didn't even know we should be crunching.

Mike is... Mike is Mike. I met Mike about fifteen years ago when I first got into HPR. He is an amazing craftsman and knows more about EX motors than most, to put it mildly. Mike was the one that casually suggested that I "should build a big rocket with the kids" and that he would provide the motor. One thing led to another, and before I knew it I was buying a trailer to haul a rocket.

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That was one hellova flight there Dan. Keep doing what you are doing and those kids will be NASA scientists before you know it.

Kudos on the launch AND the Silver Crest Rocket Club! You are exactly the kind of teacher we need.
 
That was one hellova flight there Dan. Keep doing what you are doing and those kids will be NASA scientists before you know it.

Kudos on the launch AND the Silver Crest Rocket Club! You are exactly the kind of teacher we need.
Thank you very much for your kind words. It is nice to be able to do something a little different. I think these girls will have interesting college applications...

Beautiful Flight!
Congrats!!!:clap:
Thanks, it was a good time!
 
A few good photos by our club president, Gary Goncher. You can see how little smoke Mike's formula puts out.

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NXRS-Feller-17.jpg

The Dragonfly stuck the landing. I think this is probably due to the fact that the airframe was rolled on the mandrel that is normally used to build the landing-leg tips for the Falcon-9. ;)
 

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I bet this would be a great candidate for the CTI N10000 vmax. Any thoughts? :)
 
I bet this would be a great candidate for the CTI N10000 vmax. Any thoughts? :)

We probably won't fly any really big commercial motors simply because of the cost factor. This project has been done on a shoestring budget and lots of donated materials, including the motor donated by Fisher Research. Mike would have done a full L or baby M from the get-go, but he gave me the option to start small and I took it. Who knows what Mike will come up with next year...

That said, that would be a heck of a flight if it all held together! Our huge elliptical fins are built strong, but at high speeds fin-flutter could get out of hand.
 
Wow that is awesome! 6th grade girls scratch build a CF rocket, very cool resume builder.

I bet those girls could fund raise for a few big motors!
 
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