1/3 Scale Nike Tomahawk build

[Jay Dub 4009]

I am sold on trying this technique. Love it.

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

Everything fits together well. Getting the second camera in is a bit tight, but still doable.
Getting it mounted today and try to get some paint on it.

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

Got it mounted. Gonna get a bit on paint on it this afternoon and it’s good to go. Still need to build the rest of the motor tonight too.

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

Painted the dual camera shroud with two coats primer, two coats createx silver sealer and two coats rattle can clear ( didn’t want to mix and deal with 2k clear just for this little piece). Baked a bit in the paint booth and is cured pretty well already.


Finished building the k1000T motor with a 5120 case w/ ras (After doing the grain bonding the other night). Only thing of note was that the liner was a tich long, and aft closure didn’t seat flush to the case. After a bit of forum searching, it quickly told me my gap of .0515 is well acceptable and not to worry.



She is basically as ready for flight as I can be up to the day of flying, where I just need to drop powder and pack chutes and send it.

This pretty much wraps up everything for this portion of the Nike smoke portion of the build. Time to fly. Saturday is first possible launch window, site will be Tripoli mid Ohio. Weather is looking marginal currently, mostly cloudy for most of the window with winds 10-15 and cloud base bouncing from 5K to no clouds. Hoping the refined forecast inside 3 days looks better, but we shall see.

After the launch this weekend, the next two weekends also have windows and coas, so should at least be able to fly this thing soon.

Next portion for the build will be to carbon skin the tomahawk fins, and start avionics bay design/fabrication. It might be a push and a miracle, but I would love it if I could get “Fire” flown at the Dec 3rd TMO launch, which will likely be the last one until march.

Last bits of odds and ends, I ordered a pair of cable cutters for use in the 2 stage pair version in the booster as HED obviously won’t work with an interstage.

 

[waltr]

Great build and Nike looks nice.
Best success with maiden flight and looking forward to the booster build.

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

Launch today at TMO was a scrub for winds....sad face. Next two weekends are also launch windows, hopefully its better,

 

[Rustoleum]

Really liking this build, very inspirational.
I can see myself diving into a project like this.
Good luck on your maiden launch.

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

I guess while I’m on hold for weather, a few other updates. I received the cable cutter set I ordered from tinder rocketry that will be needed for staged configuration, as well as the motor for the second flight ( an L1390G, as well as L850W for my 4” MAC performance radial flyer) for sometime between now and dec 3rd (fingers crossed).



Sim for Nike was updated after everything was painted and pretty much finalized until I get some flight data to tweak the sim. The Nike smoke weighs in at 20.3 pounds dry with all gear minus motor, which is admittedly a bit heavier then I expected, but it is a beefy fiberglass beast, so it is what it is.

Projected stats for first flight:
Motor-- K1000T
Projected apogee -- 4700 ft
68 ft/s off the rail
Max Velocity -- 616 ft/s
Max Accel -- 9 g
1.8 cal of stability

Should be a good shakedown.

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

Weather has struck again. Sat's launch was canx, and today it was cold, and cloudy. Cloud deck never got above 1800ft, and only flew 3 rockets, 1xD, 1xE, and 1xH. Try again next week...

I did however get to check the rail clearance on the nose cone step, the spacers I 3d printed were right on the money.

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

Well the Nike flew today, had no clouds but the winds were still at 15 mph or so. It weather cocked into the wind significantly , but landed 200 ft from the pad so pretty good. Lost some altitude to the weathercock also, but I’ll take it. I’ll get a video up tomorrow with some data.
View attachment IMG_4118.MOV

 

[Imaknow]

Well the Nike flew today, had no clouds but the winds were still at 15 mph or so. It weather cocked into the wind significantly , but landed 200 ft from the pad so pretty good. Lost some altitude to the weathercock also, but I’ll take it. I’ll get a video up tomorrow with some data. View attachment 546841View attachment 546842View attachment 546840View attachment 546850View attachment 546851
View attachment 546852

I really like how the reflection of the ground and horizon are mirrored so well on the body tube and fins.
Beautiful job.

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

I really like how the reflection of the ground and horizon are mirrored so well on the body tube and fins.
Beautiful job.

Yeah I noticed that too, thanks!

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

Video is here....

You tube Video

flight report:
Was a great flight for a maiden in 15mph wind and cold. There are some things that didn't go right....the "UP" Camera I couldn't get to turn on at the pad....as that was the new one and didn't have the settings right and was just beeping at me and wouldn't get a blue light or flashing blue light. Turns out I forgot to set some settings before using it for the first time, Its the second one I have and forgot. Too bad, the up footage would have been cool for deployment shots. The strange thing was that at the table during prep I got both cameras to arm just fine.....wondering if the cold had something to do with it.

The other issue is that the proton did some funny business. After the first time I armed it, right as I was leaving the pad it stopped beeping and power cycled. Found that very strange, so reset it and rearmed it and it stayed on, and I lingered at the pad and seemed fine. Turns out it did it again before flight again. Thankfully the backup quantum was a champ as always. I'm about to open the avionics bay and see if there is anything funky with power wiring. After I got home Saturday, I armed it in the garage and it stayed on just fine for about 20 mins....Makes me wonder if the cold was playing havok there too, although the battery is still at 8.3 and the quantum worked just fine. Troubleshooting INW.... Cant have this happen on a staged flight, ill figure it out.

Any who--

Awesome motor even though it was crappy out, was my first 75mm. Loved it. 3800 ft or so, 617 ft/s max V. Lost about 600-800 ft to the weathercock.

I have an L1390G in the garage for the Nike if the weather allows either Dec 3 or 10th. Here's to hoping!

Now I need to get back to build mode and finish the Tomahawk out. Prob going to cut composites tonight for the tip to tip and do that tomorrow (ill have to fire up the space heater in the garage LOL)

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

Got the materials cut for the tip to tip for the tomahawk but didn’t get to the laminating and bagging. Cut 4 80% templates and 4 102% templates. I’ll bag it on Friday.

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

Got the rocket table inside cleaned out and prepped for skinning. Prepped the rocket fins and tube for mechanical bonding. Got the 80% and 103% skin epoxied on with aeropoxy laminating. Got the bag put on and pulled vac until it was green. Pulled off and the trimmed the edges. The fin scallops collected some epoxy pools and it’s not great looking, but it will be functional as always and will clean up well with some sanding just like the Nike.

 

[Hobie1dog]

s....Makes me wonder if the cold was playing havok there too, although the battery is still at 8.3 and the quantum worked just fine.

look up State Of Charge battery charts. a 9 volt battery is 9.5volts @ 100% but at 8.3v has only 25% of its charge left.

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

look up State Of Charge battery charts. a 9 volt battery is 9.5volts @ 100% but at 8.3v has only 25% of its charge left.

Its a Lipo though, thats full charge...

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

I ran up the proton last night also, and had it armed and it stayed on for an hour. I don't know what happened out in the field, chalking it up to the cold I suppose, and hope that I don't have any wonkiness again. Think I figured out the issue on the up camera too, so that shouldnt be an issue again I dont think.

Hoping for one more good rocketry launch in the season, either on 3 or 10 dec. We shall see.

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

Rocket launch today was canx due to weather, that happened on Thursday. It did look pretty bad overall. It needed up being a beautiful day, no rain no clouds just windy. Thankfully I found out this morning they rescheduled for tomorrow and it looks to be absolutely gorgeous, no clouds light wind at 5-7 mph and 42 degrees.

Therefore I loaded up a L1390G this morning, which came with some drama. The pic below was the entire contents of the accessories bag and grains.



Yes you are correct, no orings, delay grain. I briefly got irritated, then sad, and then remembered I have a L850 kit in the garage. Thankfull that kit had all its parts in the bag, and I cannibalized it to make this motor good. I’ll hit up Karl Monday to get replacements, he was great the last time I was missing a single oring for a K700.

The instructions in the bag, the instructions online and the drawing online has an issue, none of them match. Some show Medusa nozzle, some show normal nozzle, and also the printed instructions showed a forward insulator not a forward seal disk. Two out of the three slices showed standard nozzle, and because of the shenanigans already, was a little Leary about the bigger nozzle, because of missing parts and inconsistencies in the directions, and because The K1000T and the L850W both have the short standard nozzle. I do know that aerotech has converted many Medusa nozzles to standard, but just wanted a warm and fuzzy it was the right one. However the drawing online showed the longer nozzle, and the throat diameter matched so I felt good about it. Took too long to build the motor but it’s done lol.

Charged batteries and prepped charges and avionics. Ran up the proton armed for sbout 30 mins with no issues again. both cameras working as they should again. She’s ready to fly tomorrow to about 7K.

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

Nike flew great on sunday. 7400 ft. Both the up and down cameras worked! Ill hopefully get the video put together this week. Screen grab right before apogee--



Nike is the Blue track.

 

[Hobie1dog]

awesome

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

video


Post flight notes:
1) Not a perfect flight by any means
A) for unknown reasons yet (still troubleshooting with eggtimer cris) -- the proton (primary) sensed apogee, yet did not call nose over and fire primary apogee charge until 2500 ft or so. You can see the primary apogee charge fire in the video during decent. Primary main charge fired nominally. Strange. Proton chart clearly concurs with this information. Hopefully cris helps me get it sorted out. I don’t want to not be able to trust it moving towards two stage flight. Accellerometer data was funky as well, but with this being first actual working flight of this unit, waiting to hear back.

B) Booster harness twisted severely after deployment. This was not apparant after recovery (becuase it cleared itself after main deployment). Leading theories post flight 1) despite a swivel on the y harness and the drogue, harness twisted badly. Posible that the nomex fouled the swivel. There is video evidence of this from the footage. Will work mitigation stratgy for next flight on L2200g.


2) L1390g is an underrated motor-- freaking awesome!

 

[waltr]

Good flight and video.

I recently put a Proton into my 2-stage to do Separation, motor ignition, Drogue & main. Motor igniter didn't fire (Not fired in the status) and can not figure why from the data. Also, Baro Alt data didn't look right. Cris has been looking at this also. At least all deployments went as planned.

You post plots from a Quantum and a Proton. Were they both on this flight? Are they primary and backup?
If so then at least the altitude curves should match.

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

Good flight and video.

I recently put a Proton into my 2-stage to do Separation, motor ignition, Drogue & main. Motor igniter didn't fire (Not fired in the status) and can not figure why from the data. Also, Baro Alt data didn't look right. Cris has been looking at this also. At least all deployments went as planned.

You post plots from a Quantum and a Proton. Were they both on this flight? Are they primary and backup?
If so then at least the altitude curves should match.

Yes the proton was main and quantum was backup. I also noticed that the decent curves were different. Accents are roughly the same, with both units experiencing the transonic bubble, I don’t really think they went over Mach but graph shows it was close. It is def very strange that the graphs are that far off of each other. Usually my dual quantum setups will be almost identical. Openrocket says 900 ft/s, so more inclined to think that. We know how baro alt’s act when they get close. Peculiar for sure. I wondered for a brief time if the vent holes are not big enough, but there are 4 3/16th holes so I don’t think that is the case. If you don’t mind me asking, when did you get your kit from cris? Recently?

 

[waltr]

Yes, Proton directly from Cris in August. Firmware Version 1.04S.

Edited:
originally though I ought the Proton in November but checked the invoice and corrected post.

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

Interesting, got mine in Oct. Thanks for the awareness, hopefully cris will get back to me soon.

 

[Rocketclar]

I, too, got a Proton in Oct. It was my fourth Proton build. When I test it in my trusty vacuum bottle, none of the 6 channels fire correctly....they only fired on landing. All functions appear to work (wifi, communications, programming and even proper apogee detect), but improper channel firing. I, too, have been working with Cris on it. It detects the seemingly correct apogee based on many tests in my vac bottle setup with many different altimeters; however, the channels aren't working until landing (impact). I sent him data from another Proton using the same vac system, and he agreed that that one is working correctly. He noted that the noise level of the baro unit was much higher in the suspect one than the "good" unit. I've successfully used Protons in my 2-stagers for deployment, sep charge, and airstart but I won't use the latest one until we can fix it. When it came, it had a fairly old firmware version, I have reflashed a couple of times to 1.04S with seemingly no problems each time.

 

[Jay Dub 4009]

Interesting. Thanks for the comment, hopefully cris can get back to me soon.

 

[Rocketclar]

Interesting. Thanks for the comment, hopefully cris can get back to me soon.

Cris has been great! He sent me a prelim firmware update for the Proton that uses some logic that he had developed for the Quantum to deal with a noisy baro unit. Reflashed and it works! So I can add this Proton to my "fleet".

 

[waltr]

I'm still waiting for Cris on my Proton issue.
Guess need to send another email as a reminder.

Great news that he came up with a solution to your Proton issue.