My epoxy finally showed up. Sure took long enough. lol I have decided not to slot the airframe. I want everyone to
know that any thing I do to this rocket(PePe), I do not claim that it is right or wrong. It is simply what I choose
to do to survive high mach(M3+)down low. Some of you like to call it "stupid fast". Well being stupid is something
that I have been good at in the past, so this flight is right up my ally. lol I will tell you what i did, why I
did it, and of course what happened during the flight. I'll leave it up to you all to determine whether it is
something you might try someday. Just remember that extreme speeds can be very expensive and your rocket can have a
very short life span! And of course I very much want any feedback that anybody has whether its good or bad.
According to the sims, if I can keep the weight down to 14 pounds or less minus the motor, PePe will touch mach 3.
PePe is all carbon fiber except for the nosecone. The airframe is a PML extreme carbon tube around .070 wall
thickness. The coupling/AV bay also came from PML about 12 inches long all CF. It is really 2 couplings one slid
inside the other. I cut a slot about .250 wide the length of the coupling and epoxyed it into the other one to make
a double wall around .100 thick. The AV bay lids are made from my home made Hyperplate, just like the fins. All
threaded rod will be grade 2 titanium to save on weight. The nosecone is a madcow VG fiberglass with an aluminum
tip. All the trackers(3 seperate systems,2 GPS and one RDF)will be housed in the nose along with a gopro. I DO NOT
want to lose PePe! I have a technicians licence and will try to seperate the frequencies into the 2 meter band for
one GPS, and the 70 cm band for the other. Not sure yet on the exact numbers. The RDF runs on 220.something MHz (I
forget). This will be a DD recovery with everything coming out the top. Right now my plan is to use the rattworks
ARRD for the main, but this might change because of its weight. A 24 inch drouge with a 72 inch main in a
deployment bag is the plan right now. Everything is likely to change as my imagination grows and suggestions from
all of you come in. I cannot change what I have allready done up to this point, but I can change things from this
point forward, so please talk to me. Just dont tell me to slow down. PePe will fly some low and slow flights at
first to tweek in the electronics and recovery system. After that its time to chase some mach numbers! Maybe a
M2245 to start with, and then what PePe was built for, to take on the N5800! Below are some pics of the fins being
tacked on with 4525. The L brackets were made from some IM 12K 4.3oz aerospace grade uni fabric I got from
Fibreglast.com. Item #2596-A. The epoxy used to lay up the L brackets is 4461SS. All epoxy used on this bird will
be high temp. The fillets will be done with 4525 on top of the L brackets. These 2 epoxys do not need to be baked
in the oven to cure, but they will get about 150F for 6 hours or so to get a little closer to those optimum
properties. The airframe will be around 85 inches long. That might change as I will use the length as a variable to
a certain extent when its time to fly the 5800, as I want a stability margin of at least 3. You will lose 1 cal
very quickly upon acceleration and that leaves me with a comfortable cal of 2. Because PePe is so light, he can fly
on anything from an I to an O.(will hold the CTI 98 6xl case) I will make a thrust plate/adapter out of hyperplate
(my homemade CF plate like the fins) to adapt down to whatever motor I choose to fly. RASAero 2 puts a 48 pound
(fully loaded)PePe with a 5800 at around 42K. Same rocket with RS or OR puts me at around 60K, so something is not
right somewhere. I tend to trust RASAero 2 in a flight like this, but I will have to look a little deeper into
this. When I am sure that all the numbers are correct in all the sims, I will post the files for you guys to look
at. I am a product of this forum, as alot of my ideas came from all of you. I think that there is very little, if
anything you can do to a rocket that somebody else has'nt already tried many times in the past. I also plan on 2
layers of tip to tip with some TeXtreme Spread Tow from Composite Envisions. Beautiful stuff!