Place egg in nose cone?

Hi Everyone,

I was looking at some other sites for egg lofting rockets and a lot of them places the egg in the nose cone. The body tube I am using is a BT80 and I am wondering if I could cut the nose cone I have and place an egg in it?

The nose cone I am using is one I bought from apogee shown below. It feels like plastic. If I cut it to insert the egg with cotton, how can I keep it closed? Use something like clear packing tape over the cut area?

If I use the nose cone, then I don't have to add another container to hold the egg and will reduce the weight. The contest is to see who can launch a rocket and land without breaking the egg. And they will time it from launch to when it lands. I'm using three C6-3 rockets as a cluster.



Thanks!

Warren

Yes you can do this. One way is to cut the shoulder off where the angled part starts so you are left with a short open shoulder. Then using a piece of body tube and a coupler make a new shoulder. Insert the egg, slip on tube, and tape the cone to the tube.

I looked at the nose cone last night and it is perfect for carrying an egg. I'm going to use a lot of cotton inside the cone!

I don't have a coupler for it - I was thinking of using some wide clear tape to hold the cone together for the flight. Will this hold?

The cone is so big.... just cut it apart an inch or two above the shoulder area.

After the egg is in, you can rejoin it with 3/4" vinyl tape or Electrical tape.

If you want, you could glue in a short coupler to help with the alignment, but it would not really be necessary. You would not need a real coupler, use a short piece of BT-80 tube and cut a gap out of it so it will fit inside. Glue it to the lower part of the cut-apart nose.

Thanks! I don't know why I didn't think to cut the BT80 tube smaller to fit in. I have another tube so I'll do that just to help align the top of the cone on and use electrical tape to hold it.

All I have left to do is glue the 3-motor mount in the bottom, build a parachute, glue on the launch lugs and paint it. I plan to use the thin plastic drop sheets they use for painting as a parachute. I just don't know how big to make it. I figured from one side to another it would be 3 feet? I don't want it to come down too fast though!

Warren

build and paint the rocket first, then weigh it. from there we can give you an idea on how big the chute should be.

I finished everything but the chute last night. I didn't get a chance to weigh it though. I imagine making the chute about 40 inches from one side to the other would work. I looked on Apogee at the size of parachutes they sell based on the motor size and although I'm using three C6-3 motors, I would use the rating for the D+ size since I have a cluster mounted. Hopefully there won't be any wind!

Come back and tell us how you did in the contest. I suspect you may have too much extra weight from your choice of airframe and NC to really be competitive.

But not all hope of winning is lost; if your egg survives and the others do not... tada, winner!

Good luck. op:

I'm definately not expecting to win but I would like to see a successful flight. But there is always a chance! I'll be sure to post it Sunday when we're home from the scout campout.

Warren