Question for those of you out there with more experience with mid-power than myself. Over a couple of drinks with some rocket buddies from AZ. The discussion of how high can you go cheaply came up. This quickly turned into a challenge. We put some rules to it an what we came up with is this. How high can you go with an out of the box Estes Alpha kit. The rules are that the body tube must remain a factory Estes piece, stock length, factory plastic nose cone and it must have balsa fins and no fiberglass.
It's a given that everyone is going to show up with a 24mm Alpha. Knowing these guys, I'm guessing that they are going to stick to Estes motors and I doubt that anyone will go larger than a D. Looking through my launch box I found an Aerotech E20-7 that came from a collection that I bought a couple of months back. When I ran the SIM on this through OR I came up with 2890ft and a max velocity of 651 mph at 47G's.
Here is my question. Would an Alpha survive the flight with the E20? I tend to over build and I'm thinking of running a length of coupler for added strength and build with epoxy and possibly even coat the fins with epoxy.
I think there is a pretty good chance we'll get the rockets back as I have flow an Alpha on a C11 and D12 at the same location in the past so that's not really a concern.
It's a given that everyone is going to show up with a 24mm Alpha. Knowing these guys, I'm guessing that they are going to stick to Estes motors and I doubt that anyone will go larger than a D. Looking through my launch box I found an Aerotech E20-7 that came from a collection that I bought a couple of months back. When I ran the SIM on this through OR I came up with 2890ft and a max velocity of 651 mph at 47G's.
Here is my question. Would an Alpha survive the flight with the E20? I tend to over build and I'm thinking of running a length of coupler for added strength and build with epoxy and possibly even coat the fins with epoxy.
I think there is a pretty good chance we'll get the rockets back as I have flow an Alpha on a C11 and D12 at the same location in the past so that's not really a concern.