Estes Fat Boy Up-Scaled...

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bsexton

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Well, I know I am not the first and I certainly won't be the last, but here is my 1.5X up-scaled Estes Fat Boy. You can see a chronology of the build over in the Scratch Built section of TRF. My plans are to launch this baby on an AT H128W for her first flight this weekend in Culpeper, VA at the Battle Park launch. I built it a little heavy (about 3.5 lbs) but RockSim is predicting about 900' on that motor. If the weather cooperates, the first flight is successful and I get up the nerve I'll put her up on something a little bigger. I'll try to take lots of pictures...
 
Well, I finally got a chance to launch my upscale Fat Boy this past weekend. Things didn't work out at the Culpeper launch. It was a little too windy and I was a little too chicken.

But, we did have our Vikings launch yesterday (Sunday) and the weather was almost perfect. Thin clouds and little to no wind so I loaded up the H128W with short delay, packed in a 48" nylon parachute and took her to the pad.
 
Liftoff! The boost was almost perfectly straight and the short delay was perfect deploying the parachute at apogee. RockSim predicted a little over 900' with the H128 and I think it made every bit of that. The 48" parachute brought her down for a nice landing with no damage. The flame from the motor did scorch the paint on the bottom a little, but all in all I was very pleased with her first launch.

Check out that flame!
 
Congrats bsexton! Is it me or does the igniter seem to still be in the nozzle when the rocket's taking off?
Karl
 
Originally posted by Karl
Is it me or does the igniter seem to still be in the nozzle when the rocket's taking off?
Karl
It's not you...the igniter leads did "hang on" for some strange reason and upon recovery there were two bare copper wires fused to the nozzle. Go figure...
 
:eek: Did you have any melted plastic around the nozzle? Strange that the leads 'hung' on, I thought they would of been spat out or melted off :confused:

Congrats on the flight though, any video? :p
Karl
 
There probably was some melted plastic around the nozzle from the cap...I just didn't look close enough.

No video unfortunatley...
 
heh when i launched my loc onyx at the last NOVAAR launch not only did the ignightor stick in but it also took the aerotech interlock clip with it (a little plastic yellow thing that clips to the copperhead to help it ignight, not the electronic ignition clip;) ) lol.

but thats a nice rocket. too bad i hadnt heard about the Culpeper launch until after it was over:mad:
 
Nice rocket and liftoff shot. You just have to love a flame that's bigger than the rocket!
 
Depending on the weather at the next launch I go to either:

AT H180W to about 1,500'

or

Pro38 H153 to about 2,000'
 
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