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JAL3

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In Feb, my club is going to have an informal C eggloft duration competition. I have never seen or participated in such an event.

I wanted to order the ASP rocket for this but all of the 18mm variants are out of stock. My next choice is a Custom Elite. I know I have one around here somplace if I can only find it.

I'd like to hear comments and suggestions on anything having to do with lofting eggs but I have another question.

What is standard procedure for cleanup when the egg breaks? Is there some field procedure that tends to work well or do you just pour it out and wipe it down as best you can?

This could get messy!
 
I believe what you are looking for is called a ziplock bag.

If you plan to smack down hard, perhaps double-bagged.

Egg goes in bag, bag goes in padding, padding goes in NC.

Have you checked out the competition eggloft plans posted on the NAR website? You can easily be competitive with a regular MMT, a conical tapered body rolled from almost anything, and half of an old plastic egg on top. (The season is fast approaching for the locating, hunting, and grabbing of the model rocket components known as 'Easter eggs')

You could also use an old FatBoy NC with the base cut away---would give you lots of room for protective padding.
 
I heard that during the Nationals instead of using a nose cone to put the egg in that they were putting the egg in a balloon and tying the shock cord to it and using the egg as the nose cone. If all works well as it should then the egg would not be harmed anyway and if some thing did fail would a NC and wading even protect it. In the failures that I seen not realy.

Even though I made my rocket using the plans from the NAR site and used a large palstic easter egg that I got on sale after easter. A 2 pack for 25 cents, one silver, one gold.
 
i used the same egg for about six months - then had a bad launch:(. i now always use a bag to seal the egg, and i use a fresh egg
 
I always place the egg in a sandwich baggie, twist the excess baggie, wrap the twisted part with quarter-inch tape just above the egg, and cut off the excess baggie.
Go to www.nar.org and select "contest flying" from the left-hand column. Find the highlighted "cometition rocket plans", then "egglofters", and finally George Gassaway's "2 Minute Egg" plans. These utilize the aforementioned Pratt (CMR) eggcapsules available from Pratt or Aerospace Speciality Products. You could also use the egg capsule from the Custon Elite kit if you already have one. I haven't used the Elite capsule, but have used the CMR capsule since they were introduced.

Chas
 
I believe what you are looking for is called a ziplock bag.

If you plan to smack down hard, perhaps double-bagged.

Egg goes in bag, bag goes in padding, padding goes in NC.

Have you checked out the competition eggloft plans posted on the NAR website? You can easily be competitive with a regular MMT, a conical tapered body rolled from almost anything, and half of an old plastic egg on top. (The season is fast approaching for the locating, hunting, and grabbing of the model rocket components known as 'Easter eggs')

You could also use an old FatBoy NC with the base cut away---would give you lots of room for protective padding.


Duh..

That makes sense. For some reason it never occured to me to wrap the egg in anything. I was just thinking in terms of exposing the egg in the capsule.


Thanks for the tips.
 
I heard that during the Nationals instead of using a nose cone to put the egg in that they were putting the egg in a balloon and tying the shock cord to it and using the egg as the nose cone. If all works well as it should then the egg would not be harmed anyway and if some thing did fail would a NC and wading even protect it. In the failures that I seen not realy.

Even though I made my rocket using the plans from the NAR site and used a large palstic easter egg that I got on sale after easter. A 2 pack for 25 cents, one silver, one gold.

I like the sound of that. Its an elegant solution to the problem.
 
i used the same egg for about six months - then had a bad launch:(. i now always use a bag to seal the egg, and i use a fresh egg

:eek::eek::eek:

Are the procedures different over there? I mean, do you need some type of waiver for a biological warhead?
 
I always place the egg in a sandwich baggie, twist the excess baggie, wrap the twisted part with quarter-inch tape just above the egg, and cut off the excess baggie.
Go to www.nar.org and select "contest flying" from the left-hand column. Find the highlighted "cometition rocket plans", then "egglofters", and finally George Gassaway's "2 Minute Egg" plans. These utilize the aforementioned Pratt (CMR) eggcapsules available from Pratt or Aerospace Speciality Products. You could also use the egg capsule from the Custon Elite kit if you already have one. I haven't used the Elite capsule, but have used the CMR capsule since they were introduced.

Chas
 
The 2-minute egg style rocket using a Pratt egg capsule, either purchased as a kit from ASP or scratch built, using a C11 and a 40" square chute or 36" octagon chute will get you a 2 minute flight.

It's easy to build and easy to fly. Simply follow the directions for an 18 mm motor, or modify the body shroud for a 24 mm motor. https://www.nar.org/competition/plans/pdf/twoMinuteEgg.pdf

As many other have stated, put the egg in a baggy.

Bob
 
I always place the egg in a sandwich baggie, twist the excess baggie, wrap the twisted part with quarter-inch tape just above the egg, and cut off the excess baggie.
Go to www.nar.org and select "contest flying" from the left-hand column. Find the highlighted "cometition rocket plans", then "egglofters", and finally George Gassaway's "2 Minute Egg" plans. These utilize the aforementioned Pratt (CMR) eggcapsules available from Pratt or Aerospace Speciality Products. You could also use the egg capsule from the Custon Elite kit if you already have one. I haven't used the Elite capsule, but have used the CMR capsule since they were introduced.

Chas

Thanks for advice and links. I'll look over the site.

I should have done that to begin with but I wanted to hear what people have to say.
 
The Quest Courier is a nice kit, easy to build, cheap, and it's got a solid egg carrier that does the job. We bought two so my son and I could compete against each other.

As for the egg, I wrap it in cling wrap. It doesn't necessarily keep it from breaking, but it does prevent a mess. We usually share an omelet afterward. Loser cooks. :D
 
The Quest Courier is a nice kit, easy to build, cheap, and it's got a solid egg carrier that does the job. We bought two so my son and I could compete against each other.

As for the egg, I wrap it in cling wrap. It doesn't necessarily keep it from breaking, but it does prevent a mess. We usually share an omelet afterward. Loser cooks. :D

I know I've got one of those around someplace too. My nephew cleaned and organized all the hanging rockets and now I can't find anything!
 
Quest courier or V.E.E.P. are great.

Use a sandwich bag (not the 'zipper' type).
 
At my first (and so far only) egg-lofting event, the CD actually gave me a baggie when he gave me the egg. It was just assumed that everyone would use them.

Mark \\.
 
A baggie or the like really tends to get in the way of adding proper padding.

So, I never use a bag or anything like that. If the egg breaks, well, the capsules are plastic, so it’s no big deal to pour our the egg gunk into a trash bag, then use some water to rinse out the capsule. If there is not a lot of water to rinse thoroughly, then do an initial rinse, then put the capsule in a bag and wash more thoroughly at home.

I think the “baggie” stuff came from long ago when there were no plastic egg capsules, where the payload compartment involved a paper body tube and balsa nose cone and balsa nose block or adapter. Or sometimes a plastic tube like the old Estes Scrambler, but even that had the balsa nose and adapter. And yet, with plastic capsules having been around for many years, with no real need to use a baggie for the egg so as not to ruin the capsule, a lot of people do it because a lot of people heard long ago to use a bag, and they advise others to do it, and so forth and so on.

I certainly see the sense of it in trying to contain a "mess" by using a bag. But to me, if the choice is between doing the best padding job possible, or compromising the padding to add a plastic bag in, the bag loses every time. I do not mind cleaning up a plastic capsule that a broken egg leaked inside of.

Now, if we were talking about a TARC rocket or some other rocket that tends to have a lot of room available, a plastic bag would be fine. But to optimize the padding effectiveness, I’d suggest putting plenty of padding around he egg first, then putting the padded egg inside of the plastic bag. And then more padding....

For padding contest egglofters, I like to cut out the “cup” parts of foam egg cartons. The ones at the corners are best, since two of the 4 dies are not joined, the other 8 cups are linked on 3 sides. I wish I could vac-form custom padding from that same kind of egg carton foam, I do not know how they form those. It might be more like a press while heated than vac-forming.

For C eggloft duration, if a person is using something like a 2 Minute Egg, the issues become chute size versus wind and field size. A 36” or larger chute can make the model fly off pretty easily if there is significant wind and/or a small site. If the event was B Eggloft Duration, then unless it was really windy, or a tiny field then a bigger chute would be desirable. I have usually been able to get a 42” chute deploy from a 2 minute Egg, sometimes a 48” but not as reliably. That was using 1/4 mil dropcloth, which is a lot thinner that “Dry Cleaner bag” plastic.

FWIW - some photos by Chris Taylor from Tuesday at NARAM-48, in 2006, when B Eggloft Duration was flown:

https://naramlive.com/naramlive-2006/naramlive/05tuesday/index.html

But back to C power, I suggest this. Have several sizes of chutes available to choose form depending on the wind, and depending on what times the other competitors are putting in. Unless the wind is really low, I’d suggest not using a really big chute. Use something smaller, and get in a “solid” flight that you are pretty sure you can get back. After all ,the scoring for that event is best of two flights, not total of two. Then for the second flight, go with a bigger chute, and try for a better score, hopefully without having it fly off the field.

- George Gassaway
 
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At my first (and so far only) egg-lofting event, the CD actually gave me a baggie when he gave me the egg. It was just assumed that everyone would use them.

Mark \\.

My only experience has been reading about them. I've never actually seen it done except for a TARC flight for which I was an observer.

It makes sense but wasn't metnioned in Stine's or VanMilligan's books.
 
A baggie or the like really tends to get in the way of adding proper padding.

So, I never use a bag or anything like that. If the egg breaks, well, the capsules are plastic, so it’s no big deal to pour our the egg gunk into a trash bag, then use some water to rinse out the capsule. If there is not a lot of water to rinse thoroughly, then do an initial rinse, then put the capsule in a bag and wash more thoroughly at home.

I think the “baggie” stuff came from long ago when there were no plastic egg capsules, where the payload compartment involved a paper body tube and balsa nose cone and balsa nose block or adapter. Or sometimes a plastic tube like the old Estes Scrambler, but even that had the balsa nose and adapter. And yet, with plastic capsules having been around for many years, with no real need to use a baggie for the egg so as not to ruin the capsule, a lot of people do it because a lot of people heard long ago to use a bag, and they advise others to do it, and so forth and so on.

I certainly see the sense of it in trying to contain a "mess" by using a bag. But to me, if the choice is between doing the best padding job possible, or compromising the padding to add a plastic bag in, the bag loses every time. I do not mind cleaning up a plastic capsule that a broken egg leaked inside of.

Now, if we were talking about a TARC rocket or some other rocket that tends to have a lot of room available, a plastic bag would be fine. But to optimize the padding effectiveness, I’d suggest putting plenty of padding around he egg first, then putting the padded egg inside of the plastic bag. And then more padding....

For padding contest egglofters, I like to cut out the “cup” parts of foam egg cartons. The ones at the corners are best, since two of the 4 dies are not joined, the other 8 cups are linked on 3 sides. I wish I could vac-form custom padding from that same kind of egg carton foam, I do not know how they form those. It might be more like a press while heated than vac-forming.

For C eggloft duration, if a person is using something like a 2 Minute Egg, the issues become chute size versus wind and field size. A 36” or larger chute can make the model fly off pretty easily if there is significant wind and/or a small site. If the event was B Eggloft Duration, then unless it was really windy, or a tiny field then a bigger chute would be desirable. I have usually been able to get a 42” chute deploy from a 2 minute Egg, sometimes a 48” but not as reliably. That was using 1/4 mil dropcloth, which is a lot thinner that “Dry Cleaner bag” plastic.

FWIW - some photos by Chris Taylor from Tuesday at NARAM-48, in 2006, when B Eggloft Duration was flown:

https://naramlive.com/naramlive-2006/naramlive/05tuesday/index.html

But back to C power, I suggest this. Have several sizes of chutes available to choose form depending on the wind, and depending on what times the other competitors are putting in. Unless the wind is really low, I’d suggest not using a really big chute. Use something smaller, and get in a “solid” flight that you are pretty sure you can get back. After all ,the scoring for that event is best of two flights, not total of two. Then for the second flight, go with a bigger chute, and try for a better score, hopefully without having it fly off the field.

- George Gassaway

I really appreciate the input and I just made the connection on the name!

I actually started planning earler today on what I think I will do and it is based on the2 minute egg. I like the design and like the room for the chute. The wrinkle I want to try that is a bit different is an idea I got here. That involves using the egg in a balloon itself as the nose cone kind of like the estes Pop Fly. Elastic and a shock cord tied to the open end of the balloon keeps the parts together and I rely on the large chute to bring things down safely.

At least that's the concept I'm working on.
 
>>>>>
I actually started planning earler today on what I think I will do and it is based on the 2 minute egg. I like the design and like the room for the chute. The wrinkle I want to try that is a bit different is an idea I got here. That involves using the egg in a balloon itself as the nose cone kind of like the estes Pop Fly. Elastic and a shock cord tied to the open end of the balloon keeps the parts together and I rely on the large chute to bring things down safely.
<<<<<

That egg in a balloon idea is from the “Flying I Beams Kids” Team, of Steve Foster and Rod Schafer. They did it for Eggloft Altitude. Particularly for B Eggloft altitude. To get the smallest possible frontal area and minimum amount of mass. But if it landed on a rock, pavement, or anything really hard, the egg will probably break. That is a risk they were willing to take, and if it broke on the first flight, they could always switch to a safer model with real capsule for the second flight.

This is C Eggloft Duration, not Altitude. The increase in frontal area of a real capsule is not so bad, and neither is the mass of a real capsule, if it is something reasonable like a Pratt (ex-CMR) capsule or the like (not the Estes Scrambler-II). When our club flew B Eggloft last year, and will do so again this year, most used 2-Minute egg kits I made up, that used some 2” diameter “large” Easter Egg capsules, with plenty of room for padding. Now it would be nice to have used a bit smaller Easter Egg, but the smaller Easter Eggs tend to barely hold an egg even when using two larger halves (some cannot at all), and there is not enough room to add good padding so those can be high-risk. Now if it was an Egg Altitude event, the 2” Easter Eggs would not be a good idea, but again it was for duration. And the 2” Easter Eggs were used rather than commercial capsules because a person can buy many dozens of Easter Eggs at a dollar store or place like Big Lots for the price of one commercial Egg Capsule. Of course, the one bug in that is you cannot buy Easter Eggs most of the time, only for a month or two before Easter and a week or two after during close-out sales.

Anyway, part of the game of getting into competition is learning how to pace yourself. You do want to fly something that is good, and competitive. But if you try to build a world-beater model without having had much experience, something bad may crop up that would not have happened with a simpler approach. Even last year at NARAM-50, with D Eggloft altitude, I do not think that the Flying I Beams Kids Team used the balloon trick, but I might be wrong on that.

For C Eggloft Duration, with a reasonable model, the three keys will be selecting the correct chute for the wind and field, getting the chute to deploy, and getting the model back.

If this was B Eggloft Altitude, OK, you might want to take a shot with the balloon method. But not as your only model, it would be best to have a back-up for that.

- George Gassaway
 
>>>>>
I actually started planning earler today on what I think I will do and it is based on the 2 minute egg. I like the design and like the room for the chute. The wrinkle I want to try that is a bit different is an idea I got here. That involves using the egg in a balloon itself as the nose cone kind of like the estes Pop Fly. Elastic and a shock cord tied to the open end of the balloon keeps the parts together and I rely on the large chute to bring things down safely.
<<<<<

That egg in a balloon idea is from the “Flying I Beams Kids” Team, of Steve Foster and Rod Schafer. They did it for Eggloft Altitude. Particularly for B Eggloft altitude. To get the smallest possible frontal area and minimum amount of mass. But if it landed on a rock, pavement, or anything really hard, the egg will probably break. That is a risk they were willing to take, and if it broke on the first flight, they could always switch to a safer model with real capsule for the second flight.

This is C Eggloft Duration, not Altitude. The increase in frontal area of a real capsule is not so bad, and neither is the mass of a real capsule, if it is something reasonable like a Pratt (ex-CMR) capsule or the like (not the Estes Scrambler-II). When our club flew B Eggloft last year, and will do so again this year, most used 2-Minute egg kits I made up, that used some 2” diameter “large” Easter Egg capsules, with plenty of room for padding. Now it would be nice to have used a bit smaller Easter Egg, but the smaller Easter Eggs tend to barely hold an egg even when using two larger halves (some cannot at all), and there is not enough room to add good padding so those can be high-risk. Now if it was an Egg Altitude event, the 2” Easter Eggs would not be a good idea, but again it was for duration. And the 2” Easter Eggs were used rather than commercial capsules because a person can buy many dozens of Easter Eggs at a dollar store or place like Big Lots for the price of one commercial Egg Capsule. Of course, the one bug in that is you cannot buy Easter Eggs most of the time, only for a month or two before Easter and a week or two after during close-out sales.

Anyway, part of the game of getting into competition is learning how to pace yourself. You do want to fly something that is good, and competitive. But if you try to build a world-beater model without having had much experience, something bad may crop up that would not have happened with a simpler approach. Even last year at NARAM-50, with D Eggloft altitude, I do not think that the Flying I Beams Kids Team used the balloon trick, but I might be wrong on that.

For C Eggloft Duration, with a reasonable model, the three keys will be selecting the correct chute for the wind and field, getting the chute to deploy, and getting the model back.

If this was B Eggloft Altitude, OK, you might want to take a shot with the balloon method. But not as your only model, it would be best to have a back-up for that.

- George Gassaway


Thanks for the useful information.

As it so happens, I spent part of this morning over at my shop starting on the 2 Minute Egg and will be starting a build thread here a little later. I printed the shroud and cut out the smaller version, 1.5" if I remember right, figuring that would be the way to go with my stated plans.

I may have made this sound like a much more impressive contest than it really will be. Of the people who show up, there are 3 or 4 that usually take part in these contests. Its a friendly event until I start laying down the ground rules and hadicapping:

Tim: ostrich egg
Stu : any egg as long as he calls "heads up"
Dave" any egg but with gimbaled thrust
Art: Aerobrake recovery egg
Me: hard boiled robin's egg.

I get booed down and then we fly them. Everyone accuses everyone else of cheating, Tim wins the competition and we start deciding what to do next month.

It's really an informal learning process for all of us.

I liked the ballon idea because it sounded "different" to me. That's one of the things I enjoy about rocketry: seeing how people come up with solutions to the desgn problems.

Thanks again for the advice.
 
Thanks for the useful information.

A That's one of the things I enjoy about rocketry: seeing how people come up with solutions to the desgn problems.

Dang engineers. They can change careers, but they never really change... :D:rolleyes:
 
NARAM-51 is "D" Dual duration. George what are your thoughts on this ? Do you use the Pratt dual capsule ?I have never had much luck with dual events.
 
Jim Filler wrote:

>>>>>
NARAM-51 is "D" Dual duration. George what are your thoughts on this ? Do you use the Pratt dual capsule ?I have never had much luck with dual events.
<<<<<

Are you asking me how to mount a Dual Egg Capsule on top of your Cuda R/C R/G? :)

Nah, D power is just too low for that to be a viable strategy, I think. Maybe worth a shot in Arizona, not too likely for Pennsylvania (though I could be proven wrong)

I do not use the Pratt Dual Capsule. I might use a normal Pratt Capsule, or one of my home-vac-formed capsules which are also single-egg capsules.

What I do for Dual is this. I use an extension tube, say 3” long, maybe a bit more. The extension tube matches the O.D. of the capsule. I have sometimes taken a 2” tube and cut a gap out of it so the gap will result in a tube of the correct diameter. I use the cut out gap piece as an internal splice to join the edges together.

I made up a balsa bulkhead to fit inside the extension tube. Glue that bulkhead in the middle of the extension, so if it is a 3” long tube, the bulkhead is at 1.5” inside. That way, each egg can have its own isolated compartment. Far too often, Dual Egglofters break eggs because one egg’s mass pushes down onto the other egg enough to cause the other egg to break, often at landing sometimes at liftoff. I learned that a long time ago.

Now, for D Dual Egg, D power is enough to be able to justify the mass of using say 18” of BT-60 (or longer) to hold a nice BIG parachute. Add an engine mount tube that sticks out the back a lot so you can add a boat-tail to it, and keep more of the inside of the BT-60 free for the chute and wadding.

Now, even better would be what I've been using the last few years , starting with B single Egg Duration, as has Chad Ring and a few others. To use an FAI type 40mm mandrel to make a fiberglass body.

I will attach to this message some photos of our model from NARAM-48 (from Chris Taylor’s NARAMlive archive). The photos are of the 40mm fiberglass model we flew in B Egg Duration. Ed LaCroix is in two of the photos, and I’m in the first one, packing the “little old chute”.

I do not recall if it used two layers of 1/2 oz. cloth, or two layers of 3/4 oz. cloth. It definitely has to be stronger than for FAI flying, as I discovered while prepping a Kapton tubed model at NARAM in 2002 and it could not even hold the mass of the egg standing upright being held by hand (fortunately I had an old stronger Fiberglass body on hand to use).

When NARAM-47 had D Dual Egg Dur, I used the same thing, just beefed up so the tailcone could hold up to D12 ejection charges.

BTW - for anyone else interested, there are lots of B Eggloft Duration models and B Boost Glide models on the NARAM-48 Tuesday pages:

https://naramlive.com/naramlive-2006/naramlive/05tuesday/index.html

- George Gassaway

SANY0138.jpg

SANY0154.JPG

DSCN0217.JPG

SANY0179.JPG
 
George,

No plans to do the RG trick :D Thanks for the tips. I used to have an old Apogee capsule stretcher tube with a disc divider. I could never get the divider to stay glued in place. Now you mentioned a balsa disc what thickness 1/8 I'm guessing ? Your parachute looks like clear plastic with magic marker. Maybe a thin mil drop cloth or dry cleaner bag ?

Jim
 
>>>>>
Now you mentioned a balsa disc what thickness 1/8 I'm guessing ? Your parachute looks like clear plastic with magic marker. Maybe a thin mil drop cloth or dry cleaner bag ?
<<<<<<

1/8” balsa is good.

For chutes, I like to use 1/4 mil drop cloth (Dry Cleaner bag is significnatly thicker than that, maybe 1 mil or above). The best I ever found is by Primrose Plastics, but I have not found them in a store since the 1990’s. But someone pointed out to me that they sold it on-line, but it was something like $34 for a box of 72 pack, or something like that.

Well, ****, I finally found an old link for those, from Poly-Pak, but it did not work anymore. I went to the home page, navigated to the dropcloth page. But, they apparently do not have anything thinner than 1 mil anymore.

https://www.poly-pak.com/APPAREL/Apprael_Stock.aspx?catid=12

That particular type I use (I do have several packs left) is not only thinner than some of the other 1/4 mil dropcloth I tried long ago, but it is not as clingy like Saran-Wrap that some others I tried. The only downside is being clear, so I use magic marker to color some of the chute.

- George Gassaway
 
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