2004 Fleet Near Completion

[n3tjm]

For a while now, I have been going over to Jakes house to work on bulding some new rockets for the 2004 flying season. It is about three weeks till the next launch, and four weeks till the TRF meet. I want to be ready to fly in full force.

My Mini-Ranger, Preator, Richter Recker, Hydra VII, Hyper-X, Sky Hook, Super Tube, Titan, and DNA-SAUR are ready for priming and painting. Unfortunatly, the rest of this week looks like rain. That leaves two weeks to prime and paint all of these rockets.. my arms will be sore from all the sanding...

Bigger Picture
Another Cool Shot

 

[n3tjm]

The Laser-X has a very cool tail section. It was tricky aligning all of those tail fins with my large fingers

Laser-X Detail

 

[n3tjm]

Probabily the most difficult part of the Hydra VII is the nose-cone transition between seven tubes to one BT-60. I found this part to be fun . The trick is not to rush it.

Nose Cones Cut
Cones Glued In Place
Another View

 

[edwardw]

Wow! That Hydra VII is one sweet looking bird - what is she going to fly on?

Edward

 

[n3tjm]

I am thinking of a D13 on its maiden flight... then seven B4-4's

 

[edwardw]

Going to have to have a nice ignition system And a nice clip whip. So when the charges go off where does the gas go?

Edward

 

[Micromeister]

Very Nice work Doug:
Laser-X is one of my favorite all time models, guess that's why I have 4, Micro-Maxx 10.6gram, a Standard (1968 model), 1.41 Upscale to a single D12, and a 3X upscale BT-101 body, 3 D12 clustered with active upper stage, usually an A8-5, as I lost the original upper stage on a B6-6, completely GONE Here's a group pic of the quatet.

I really like your 7 motor cluster. Reminds me of Crazy Ivan. dating myself again, Relay Ignition is my only suggestion, I've had spectacular success clusteing 2 to 10 BP motors with relays.
Can't wait to see them painted.

 

[n3tjm]

The outside tubes are plugged... well, you can leave them open, but then you will have to put a plug in all the tubes you are not using on the feild... and that is a pain if you are using a small number of motors.

I am thinking about using B4-4's, removing the ejection, and caping them with epoxy. Or I could use B6-0's and cap them... but I kinda like the idea of tracking smoke coming from seven motors ...

I use nothing BUT relay launch systems . My relay launcher has been tested to ignite seven igniters!

Semroc has rocksim files for their rockets, but I can not seem to download them. Can someone please send me the Rocksim file for the Hydra?

 

[flying_silverad]

Could you vent the tubes?
..Very cool rockets!!

 

[n3tjm]

I guess you can vent the tubes if you want to... you will need six more thrust rings to do so though... because the bulkheads also serve as thrust rings in the outboard tubes.

 

[Micromeister]

Doug:
I've had great success with 1/4" vent hole for the outboard boosters. If your motor block is capped with basswood and a layer of epoxy covered Stainless tape they seem to last very nicely. I small piece of scotch magic tape over the holes smooths out the openings. Heres a close up of the vent area on my 6-C6 cluster Alt. Tracked to 666m the system works well

 

[Micromeister]

picked the wrong photo
heres the close-up

 

[n3tjm]

Wow... I love the "nose cones" on those motor pods.

I honestly did not think about making vent holes in the tubes... but I agree, that is a good idea if you decide to close off all the outboards