Alpha!

Along with the big rockets in my last order came a few Alphas. One of them is for my oldest son, I want him to build a rocket from start to finish without my assistance. Another is for myself.

I am not using the 18mm motor mount since the body tube chambers a 24mm motor without any additional motor mount type parts. I intend to launch this rocket on friction mounted D-F engines and I suppose I will have to do some reinforcing to get the rocket to stay together during flight.

For starters I will treat the entire body tube to a layer of 2 oz. fiberglass. the fins will also get a layer of fiberglass on either side, in fact I intend to make a continuous piece of fiberglass from tip the left facing side of one fin, around the body tube and to the tip of the right facing side of the adjacent fin so that the body tube ends up with two layers of glass around the tube/fin joints.

Honestly, that's overkill. The fins will need a bit of reinforcement to be sure, but the BT will do just fine with no additional strength. The "continuous piece of fiberglass" you mention is a standard technique known as tip to tip, and what I would probably do in this case is a single layer of tip to tip with very light (1-2 oz) glass, and no other reinforcement. That alone should be plenty to survive D-F engines.

A friend of mine launched a well built Alpha on an Aerotech single use E30 with no reinforcement and no problems. As long as you have your fins well attached, you should be fine.

I don't know why you are worried about reinforcing anything on an Alpha.
If you power that thing with a D motor, you're never going to see it again.
If you launch it on an E or F motor I strongly recommend a single-use motor, to save yourself the cost of a lost RMS. (Also, the metal RMS components are not nice to leave orbiting with all the other space junk already up there.)

I agree with the above.

A cheaper method of the classic "teleportation with a rocket experiment" is the tried and true Estes Mosquito on nearly any motor....

3,2,1.... teleport. Where they go afterwards is an ongoing discussion suited for theoretical physics experts.

John

Thanks to all for your advice.

No, I am not investing in a reloadable motor because I feel that the chances of ever seeing this rocket again are quite slim.

I want to build the rocket strong so that the fins stay on and the rocket continues powered flight away from earth.

Some of you recommend no reinforcement in contrast to my overbuilding. I will do something in between and follow cjl's recommendation of single layer tip-to-tip reinforcement.

1974_Trident said:

Some of you recommend no reinforcement in contrast to my overbuilding. I will do something in between and follow cjl's recommendation of single layer tip-to-tip reinforcement.

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Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment. - Bob Packwood

Your trying for experience, right?

Just be sure to keep this thing as light as you can. What goes up must come down as they say. I guess you just have to ask yourself, would you want to be standing where this thing decides to come down if you have a parachute separation?

Why blow it away? The Alpha is lots of fun to launch on B and C motors, and you'll get to do it more than once.

MK

If you really wanna garontee that you will never see the alpha again, you can always stick a E6 in

ScrapDaddy said:

If you really wanna garontee that you will never see the alpha again, you can always stick a E6 in

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Oh, you won't need nearly that much. The Alpha goes almost out of sight on a C6. Many have been lost on that motor, including my prized Alpha III.




Oh, and BTW (from thesaurus.com):


MK

MarkII said:

Oh, you won't need nearly that much. The Alpha goes almost out of sight on a C6. Many have been lost on that motor, including my prized Alpha III.

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Yeah, I've lost two Alphas on C6 motors - why spend the extra money glassing it and wasting a bigger motor.

NjCo said:

Yeah, I've lost two Alphas on C6 motors - why spend the extra money glassing it and wasting a bigger motor.

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I have, so far, lost one on a Quest C6. No D or higher needed.

Of course doubling the weight with fiberglass and such would reduce the performance rather noticeably......

BEC said:

Of course doubling the weight with fiberglass and such would reduce the performance rather noticeably......

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You mean, making it............bulletproof? :y: (No, don't want to go there...Nope, nada, nyet, non, 没有 ...)

MK

Reread the first post. I will say no more

powderburner said:

I don't know why you are worried about reinforcing anything on an Alpha.
If you power that thing with a D motor, you're never going to see it again.

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What he said.

Reminds me of my cousin launching his Loc Aura on a G25, a 5 second burn motor. He didn't even bother going to look for it! RocSim showed it going to 5K.

I usually launch my Alpha on an A8-3 or A10 because I actually like my Alpha!



Mike

1974_Trident said:

I am not using the 18mm motor mount since the body tube chambers a 24mm motor without any additional motor mount type parts. I intend to launch this rocket on friction mounted D-F engines and I suppose I will have to do some reinforcing to get the rocket to stay together during flight.

For starters I will treat the entire body tube to a layer of 2 oz. fiberglass. the fins will also get a layer of fiberglass on either side, in fact I intend to make a continuous piece of fiberglass from tip the left facing side of one fin, around the body tube and to the tip of the right facing side of the adjacent fin so that the body tube ends up with two layers of glass around the tube/fin joints.

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Dude, let's not go overboard...

I used to launch my old Yellow Jacket on "D" motors all the time. It was just normal white glue, paper, and balsa. About 15ish flights, and I never had a problem, until it landed in a corn field...

For "E" power, I might recommend gluing strips of tissue paper at the fin roots.

Guys, what is the typical "out of site" alltitude on a good clear day?

ScrapDaddy said:

Guys, what is the typical "out of site" alltitude on a good clear day?

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Depends on rocket size, amount of tracking smoke, how good of vision you have, etc. I've visually tracked rockets all the way to 12k and back, and I've also lost sight of them at 3k.

cjl said:

Depends on rocket size, amount of tracking smoke, how good of vision you have, etc. I've visually tracked rockets all the way to 12k and back, and I've also lost sight of them at 3k.

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But for a small low power rocket like the Alpha on a C6 that altitude might be 1000 ft. on a good day.

NjCo said:

But for a small low power rocket like the Alpha on a C6 that altitude might be 1000 ft. on a good day.

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Usually I've managed to keep track of them at 1k, but that's absolutely true if you take your eyes off it, even for a second.

You young-uns should have been around for the days of the Astron Streak.



"Flights to 2000 feet!!" :y::y:

And a recovery rate of about 10 percent.

Although at a list price of 50 cents, a lost Streak wasn't exactly the end of the world.

I did get a Streak back from a C6-7 flight, once -- we found it about three hours after launch, about 100 feet away from our launch pad. Somebody almost stepped on it as we were packing up to go home.

Usually on anything bigger than an 1/2A6-4, that thing was history.

I've gotten Alphas back from flights on C's, but you have to keep an absolute hawk eye on it all the way up. Plus, hope it's not a windy day, etc etc. I usually launch Alphas on streamers anyway.

Sounds like the Estes Sizzler - I lost several of those, even on B motors. Claimed to go ~2k on a C6-7.

On an aspire, would you be able to spot the thing at 5500 feet? Also, I assume you can track Rockets powered by skidmarks or blackjack much higher than say blue thunder. Am I mistaken?

You'd have to be pretty lucky to spot an Aspire at that altitude. As for propellant type? I'm pretty sure I've told you this before: yes, you're mistaken. Typically, on a rocket going to 4-5k, the motor will burn out by a thousand feet or so, maybe a bit higher. The majority of the altitude is gained in coast. What matters is the amount of tracking smoke the motor puts out after burnout, not the amount of smoke the propellant puts out during burn.

Sounds like a job for a tracker. A beeline transmitter can fit in a 24mm body tube, and opens up a lot of out-of-sight flying possibilities.

ScrapDaddy said:

On an aspire, would you be able to spot the thing at 5500 feet? Also, I assume you can track Rockets powered by skidmarks or blackjack much higher than say blue thunder. Am I mistaken?

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Absolutely not. 29 inches long, and 1-1/8" in diameter? At a distance of over a mile? Good luck with that.

My No. 2 Estes Sky Writer went OOS as it passed the 1k mark. I used to lose sight of my Alphas at about 800 feet, my Estes Wizard at about 600 feet, and my FlisKits Tumble Weed at 300-400 feet. My Bic Stic Micromaxx rockets disappear from view at 150 feet and my Micro FlisKits Midnight Express was last visible at about 80 feet AGL.

Start going to launches with a pair of binoculars and practice tracking high flying, very fast climbing rockets with them until you get to be good at it.

Sparkies and smokies stop producing their effects when they burn out. That's long before they stop climbing, as I'm sure you know quite well. The black powder motors in the flights that I mentioned above all produced tracking smoke during the coast phase, but it did me no good because the rockets were already so high each time that I couldn't see it.

MK

The way I usually gauge whether I'm going to lose sight of a rocket is to imagine I'm on a high school track. If I set the rocket at one end and stand at the other end how big is it going to appear? That distance is about 500 ft. Now imagine that distance doubled to 1000 ft. How big is that rocket going to look? That is what you will be looking at in the sky until the chute comes out. The other big factor to consider is whether you are launching the rocket on your own or at a club launch. If you are on your own then you will typically be right under the rocket as it ascends. It's hard to see a rocket from that vantage point. It's much easier to see and it from a 50+ ft. or so away which is where you might be standing at a club launch.

It's much easier to see and it from a 50+ ft. or so away which is where you might be standing at a club launch.

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And also at a club launch there are a lot more eyes watching where it went.

I used to launch my Onyx on a G-64 at the club launches and at least one out of three times I lost it. Fortunately for me it always showed up later in the day on the RSO table.

My recommendation is don't get too crazy about reinforcing it. Use some tissue on the fin joints and call it good. Unless you use some form of electronic tracking on it, you'll get very few launches on a D or above before you lose it!



Mike

Ok guys, I have some good news . The Alpha is back! ( But only the fins and the body tube are back). Darn. I wonder where the nose cone went? But I'm so happy that we got a new nose cone, plus, we have some parachutes from when the Alpha first had a damaged parachute.




Ryan