Had a very big B-Day on Saturday and since it happened to fall on our club Sport Launch Day decided to design and build something a little special for the occasion.
My Little 39-1/4" beasty is based on a BT-80 with a 4- D12 Cluster motor mount and heavy BT-50 Stuffer tube leaving a 14" ejection piston Hopper & Chute compartment.
Body and Party hat Nosecone shoulder are covered with Birthday wrapping paper with 6 whistles epoxied in place. Fins are .063 Airfoil covered Sytrene epoxy rivet mounted. Fins are tipped with Party siren's in the hopes they and the whistles would make some noise on the way up. Inside my ejection piston was extended 3.5" and fitted with 3 different color Party Poppers with the pull strings fastened to the 130lb Kevlar shockline. On top of the poppers we loaded Metalized party confetti and the 1/4" x 24" crepe streamers from 4 other party poppers. Recovery by 30" Homemade Nylon Hemi. Since I've been a member of the Grumpy Old Man NAR team for years several Grumpy custom printed stickers just had to be added. Gold Artfoil covered the Party hat NC to add some jaz to the thing.
Each of the three fins was also fitted with custom cut 1/8" foamcore 6's and 5's Painted and coated with Black & Blue Glitter. smaller 65's added to the body also 1/8" foamcore glittered in Red & blue. Fin epoxy fillets were filled with Gold glitter. the body wrapping needed some multi color ribbons and bows so Red white and blue 1/4" curing ribbon was used and mounted to the 6 whistle eyes as well.
Loaded with 4 closely matched D12-3 motors we tipped the scales a 2lb-1.34ozs (946g).
On Saturday we had partly cloudy conditions but warm for November with very light winds.
Because I was just a little concerned that a single D12-3 ejection charge might not be enough to ejected all that stuff I added .4g of pyrodex to the forward end of each motor before adding a 1/4sheet of FP wad and full tape cover to prevent back burn should one of them not ignite. I'm pretty sure that little extra gave the ejection piston such a strong push it Snapped that 130lb Kevlar at the butterfly knot where the popper strings were tied.
Everything flew just great! Absolutely Arrow Straight to about 570 feet. Couldn't hear the sirens or whistle over the roar of the 4 D12 but it was a Beautiful flight and everything ejected. Did hear the Poppers and could see some of the confetti glinting in the overcast. a Very KEWL flight. The body came down mostly horizontally landing hard on one of the fins and crimping the body just above the motor mount rings. Got the body, Nose & chute back. Everything inside the tube is Black a coal the Popper bodies were also ejected from the piston hopper (must have been a heck of a jolt) LOL! everything stayed attached and intact except on of the fin tip sirens which I'm sure was snapped of on landing.
With a little reinforcing she could fly again but was only intended for this once in a lifetime event.
A Super Fun Way to Spend my 65th Birthday!
My Little 39-1/4" beasty is based on a BT-80 with a 4- D12 Cluster motor mount and heavy BT-50 Stuffer tube leaving a 14" ejection piston Hopper & Chute compartment.
Body and Party hat Nosecone shoulder are covered with Birthday wrapping paper with 6 whistles epoxied in place. Fins are .063 Airfoil covered Sytrene epoxy rivet mounted. Fins are tipped with Party siren's in the hopes they and the whistles would make some noise on the way up. Inside my ejection piston was extended 3.5" and fitted with 3 different color Party Poppers with the pull strings fastened to the 130lb Kevlar shockline. On top of the poppers we loaded Metalized party confetti and the 1/4" x 24" crepe streamers from 4 other party poppers. Recovery by 30" Homemade Nylon Hemi. Since I've been a member of the Grumpy Old Man NAR team for years several Grumpy custom printed stickers just had to be added. Gold Artfoil covered the Party hat NC to add some jaz to the thing.
Each of the three fins was also fitted with custom cut 1/8" foamcore 6's and 5's Painted and coated with Black & Blue Glitter. smaller 65's added to the body also 1/8" foamcore glittered in Red & blue. Fin epoxy fillets were filled with Gold glitter. the body wrapping needed some multi color ribbons and bows so Red white and blue 1/4" curing ribbon was used and mounted to the 6 whistle eyes as well.
Loaded with 4 closely matched D12-3 motors we tipped the scales a 2lb-1.34ozs (946g).
On Saturday we had partly cloudy conditions but warm for November with very light winds.
Because I was just a little concerned that a single D12-3 ejection charge might not be enough to ejected all that stuff I added .4g of pyrodex to the forward end of each motor before adding a 1/4sheet of FP wad and full tape cover to prevent back burn should one of them not ignite. I'm pretty sure that little extra gave the ejection piston such a strong push it Snapped that 130lb Kevlar at the butterfly knot where the popper strings were tied.
Everything flew just great! Absolutely Arrow Straight to about 570 feet. Couldn't hear the sirens or whistle over the roar of the 4 D12 but it was a Beautiful flight and everything ejected. Did hear the Poppers and could see some of the confetti glinting in the overcast. a Very KEWL flight. The body came down mostly horizontally landing hard on one of the fins and crimping the body just above the motor mount rings. Got the body, Nose & chute back. Everything inside the tube is Black a coal the Popper bodies were also ejected from the piston hopper (must have been a heck of a jolt) LOL! everything stayed attached and intact except on of the fin tip sirens which I'm sure was snapped of on landing.
With a little reinforcing she could fly again but was only intended for this once in a lifetime event.
A Super Fun Way to Spend my 65th Birthday!
