D12-0 blow out!

[Dr.Zooch]

For the past two years I've been messing with a two stage booster that drops SRBs at staging and then deploys a lifting body glider... and not having a lot of luck. One by one I've solved assorted issues and last winter I thought I had the stack that would finally do the flight. So with a boostervision.com gear cam aboard, I waited for the monthly MDRA launch when the weather conditions would be just right. Finally, the July 2007 launch came and the conditions early Sunday morning seemed to be juuuuust right... calm winds, few witnesses that time of the day, just the right lighting, clear sky... oh yeah- we were GO!

I put the stack on the pad, got the camcorder running gave Neil the thumbs up and he hit the button. The stack went about half way up the rod when the entire nozzle simply blew out of the first stage of the D12-0. The rocket continued up about 20 feet, went into a flame garnished tail-slide, and then turned lawn... or should I say... clay-dart.

At first it looked pretty bad with the only saving grace being the lifting body glider which seperated due to the recoil of the nossle popping out. I figured the cam was a lost cause from the impact as the cam compartment had telescoped and there appeared to be burn damage to the second stage.

The damage, however, was superficial. The cam compartment was the worst, but the cam-mount inside simply folded up and was easily glued back together. Amazingly, the cam's video ability was not damaged, but the sound was knocked out... I can deal with that! I have enough rocket woooosh on file to dub anything. Otherwise, everything else took just a few hours to repair and repaint. What follows are some stills from the event.

 

[Dr.Zooch]

Following liftoff- the nozzle blows (note the bright flame behind the lifting body)

 

[Dr.Zooch]

Then the sequence of the lifting body recoil and drop away...

 

[Dr.Zooch]

The tail slide...

 

[Dr.Zooch]

...and the moment before impact.

 

[TeenRocketNerd]

wow, that's both incredibly sad and amazingly cool dr.




do you have a full video from the onboard camera that you could post?
(no sound is no problem for me...)

 

[shotoneup]

Sad about your rocket - cool pics though. Do you have a write up with pictures of the build and how you worked through the problems you encountered? Sounds like an interesting project.

Harry

 

[Dr.Zooch]

do you have a full video from the onboard camera that you could post?
(no sound is no problem for me...)

I don't think that videos can be posted on this site due to the size, but I may do so on the Dr. Zooch site at some later date.

 

[foose4string]

I was a little sad I missed the flight when I found out what the Dr. was attempting to do, I showed up shortly after. But then he showed me the motor casing, and that's all it was...the casing, no nozzle at all. Then he proceeded to tell me what happened, and it didn't sound good at all. It's neat to view the video stills afterwards. Glad to hear the cam mostly survived. Are you going to try this setup again?(after you get Estes replace your booster motor)

The Dr. is constantly trying out new ideas and cool concepts for new and existing kits. This is only one of MANY ideas I'd like to see make it to kit.

 

[Medaforce649]

That looks like a cross between a shuttle stack and the X-40. In other words Zoocherific.

 

[Dr.Zooch]

Are you going to try this setup again?(after you get Estes replace your booster motor).

The stack is already prepared for the August MDRA launch- probably an early (9 am) Sunday morning (August 26) launch.

I won't bother Estes for a new motor- it's not worth my time. Better off spending that time working on a new kit.

 

[Medaforce649]

How about a Zooch kit of something Asian. Like a Long March or something.

 

[Handeman]

I don't think that videos can be posted on this site due to the size, but I may do so on the Dr. Zooch site at some later date.

You can post videos to Photobucket and then link to them from here. I've gotten around size limits that way before.

 

[Dr.Zooch]

How about a Zooch kit of something Asian. Like a Long March or something.

Have you been lookin' at my drawing board for 2008?

 

[Robert Davidson]

Can you post some details about your Lifting Body. It looks like a Good Design.

 

[Pem Tech]

Great idea Zooch!
And the lifting body design is super groovy.....
Looks a bit like an X-24B but more angular.

Make it work, I want one!

irate:

 

[Robert Davidson]

Actually your design looks alot like the Facet Mobile listed at this site:

https://www.currell.net/models/facet.htm

With a little tinkering it could be made to glide.

 

[Dr.Zooch]

Details on the lifting body... okay...

It's actually a design that I started working on back in 1973. I refined it in 1975 and my first balsa sticks and tissue paper version, called the Stuller lifting body… a name derived from that of a cute brunette I was chasing at the time (who could not have cared less about me by the way) flew that year. It took a long time to get the angles right and get it to fly. Keep in mind that I knew little about aerodynamics at the time- and almost nothing about how lifting bodies worked. I had seen a photo of an M2-F2 and perhaps read a paragraph about it, but that was pretty much all. (The Freeland Michigan high school library was not exactly a rich source of aerospace material.) What I reasoned was that a lifting body would slide along through the air rather than drop through it… hey… for kid like me, that was pretty abstract. Once I made the design sail, I scaled down the tissue paper version and piggy-backed it on a rocket similar to my Titan IIIC kit of today. When I launched it, however, the tissue paper blew out and the stick frame came tumbling back. That same year I submitted the design of the booster, the lifting body and the pad with service tower and... believe it or not... a mobile swinging service structure very much like that built for the actual shuttle by NASA, as a part of a take-home project for my 11th grade drafting class. That was about 4 years before work began on the Space Shuttle service structures- so I’d never seen the swinging service structure! It was just one of those strange coincidences- heck I just thought it was a cool idea. Anyhow, my drafting teacher came up and asked me to tell him about the design, so I did. He asked, pointing at the lifting body, "...and what's this?" I told him it was a wingless glider. He just quietly walked away. I got the project back and it was a “B-“ with the notation "I thought you'd know that gliders can't fly without wings." and a red arrow pointing toward the lifting body. Hey... at least he didn't write "You'll shoot your eye out!"
In the spring of 1977 I started work on the lifting body again- this time I made it out of sheet balsa. Only problem was that no matter how I ballasted it- it wanted to fly upside down! The solution... flip it over and put the fins on the other side and call the bottom the top! I renamed it the CRV for (Crumman Research Vehicle- CRV… another title stolen by NASA years later *doh*!) I painted it red and black to resemble the XRV from “Marooned.” The first one was launched on its designed booster, but the booster was mis-ballasted and it cartwheeled. The lifting body flung clear, but the booster was wrecked. The next one was an up-scaled version and, believe it or not, was launched aboard an Estes 1284 Space Shuttle booster. That one left the rod, pitched over a bit more than 90 degrees and plowed full speed into a plowed field. I salvaged a single SRB nosecone- everything else was trashed. Then on August 15, 1977 my stock Estes Orbital Transport booster successfully lofted the smaller version of the lifting body. In my notes it says that the lifting body glided just as good as the OT’s stock glider- and that says a lot! That was the last rocket I flew 25 years, because just a few days after the flight I packed up and moved away to college to learn how to pilot the real stuff and gave up model rockets.

Following my years spent strapped into the nose of assorted flying machines, I found myself in the model rocket business and have been trying to bring back some of my projects from my weird youth to aid me in being a weird adult. One of the things I want to develop most into a kit is the CRV lifting body, which BTW is the star in my cartoon strip “The Program” found at klydemorris.com. What I’m struggling with is finding the right booster to do it justice and be a good build in a kit. This August at the MDRA launch (25th and 26th) weather permitting, I’m going to be shooting all different sizes of the Crumman lifting body doing all sorts of stuff just to celebrate the anniversary of that first flight back in 1977. If or not it is out in kit form by then depends more on the US Patent office than anything else, however.

A few years ago, a pal of mine who works at NASA Dryden took one of my lifting bodies in and showed it to the late Dale Reed, the father of lifting bodies. He thought it was terrific and said it was also a pretty interesting hypersonic shape. Not bad for something designed by a teenager 3 decades ago.

 

[BWP]

We have also had 2 D engine malfunctions recently, the last one today with a D12-3 ejection charge malfunction, resulting in a destroyed Maxi-Brute Honest John.

We had another D12-3 a couple of months ago, which upon ignition blew a ball of fire up through the body tube of a Maxi-Brute V-2, knocking the nose cone up into the air.

Are there other D engine failures out there? Has anyone ever contacted Estes concerning engine malfunctions? Are they receptive to this type input? Is it worth my time and effort?

BWP

 

[Pantherjon]

Actually your design looks alot like the Facet Mobile listed at this site:

https://www.currell.net/models/facet.htm

With a little tinkering it could be made to glide.

Nice site! I downloaded and printed out the Facet Mobile..And even built it! Then, to my shock and amazement, when I tossed it across the room - it actually GLIDED!:surprised:

 

[Dr.Zooch]

Okay- repairs have been made to the Alti SDLV rocket and the trusty cam from boostervision.com has been reinstalled.
Also flying at this month's MDRA launch will be this lifting body... with a cam looking out the window!

 

[Micromeister]

Now that turely is very Kewl doc.
Should be a very nifty view and video.

 

[Dr.Zooch]

It'll be "can't lose" video... if it flies well... good! If it spirals in and does a horrific crash... good too! No matter what the video- it'll be fun to watch.

This will be an all-weather launch- just to make it more fun. So as long as MDRA is not rained out (which usually takes a tropical storm or worse) it's flyin'.

 

[skippy-2]

Super sweet Doc! Another kit to look forward to. How is the stage 0 booster for the Mark II coming along?

 

[Dr.Zooch]

Actually I plan on testing that at the same launch.

 

[skippy-2]

Actually I plan on testing that at the same launch.

Sweet! The MarkII is such a nice flier.

 

[Dr.Zooch]

Yes- but the question is will an added stage make it a sucky flyer? I'm a firm believer in the- "if it ain't broke don't fix it" motto.

To all readers- I'll be starting a thread dedicated to the lifting bodies and the upcomming launch.

 

[Robert Davidson]

Nice site! I downloaded and printed out the Facet Mobile..And even built it! Then, to my shock and amazement, when I tossed it across the room - it actually GLIDED!:surprised:

The real aircraft flew in europe. The owner had 130 hours logged in it before he had to rebuild it.

https://users.aol.com/slicklynne/facet.htm

Check it out.

 

[foose4string]

Very cool Wes! I'm really hoping to make it early Sunday to join in on the fun.

 

[Peartree]

Also flying at this month's MDRA launch will be this lifting body... with a cam looking out the window!

Doc,

Stupid question but...

If the camera looks out the cockpit window, won't it just look up at the sky?

John