Fast and Easy

[EMRR]

Yesterday morning I took an Apogee 18" 13mm Tube and balsa nose cone, then cut 3 triagles out of some left-over balsa from other kits, used Quick-Grab and glued them onto the tube. Added a launch lug and glued some kevlar to the inside and tied to the nose cone. I then hit it with two coats of paint. This took no more than 10 minutes.

Within 1/2 hour we flew it in our front yard. My 4 year old named it the Rocket Rollie (because when he swung the body tube around the nose cone swung in circles).

So all-in-all the was a 40 minute from concept to flight rocket and it works VERY well on 1/4 and 1/2 A's.

What is the fastest others have produced flight vehicles?

- Nick

 

[Milo]

Wow! Impressive. No design tools, no number crunching, no worries about CP and CG and all that technical stuff. Now why do I need RockSim again?

 

[EMRR]

Don't throw out RockSim yet. Very basic rules, > 10:1 length to diameter ratio, larger fins and weight from eye-screw in nose cone made this very safe right out of the box.

 

[Klint]

Lets see I belive it was the este mesqito It took me about 15 min to build and loose it. that things so small on an A10 i dont evean try to follow it

 

[PGerringer]

hehehehe... I shot one of those Mosquitos off. I even painted mine bright red so I could see it easier. It shot straight up very fast. All I could see was the smoke trail but no rocket - just like it vaporized. There was no wind, it was a clear field, it should have "floated back to ground" and been found. Do you think I found it? No way. I seriously think it vaporized. At $3 it was no loss but Estes should warn of the risk of vaporization.

 

[EMRR]

At $3 a pop, you should go get the $0.99 Gnat from Rogue Aerospace, then for fun get their Tseste (sp?) and do it again on a D12!

- Nick

 

[Klint]

Have seen those befor has antbody used one befor?

 

[EMRR]

Yep...GNAT REVIEW

 

[willgwal]

Originally posted by PGerringer
hehehehe... I shot one of those Mosquitos off. I even painted mine bright red so I could see it easier. It shot straight up very fast. All I could see was the smoke trail but no rocket - just like it vaporized. There was no wind, it was a clear field, it should have "floated back to ground" and been found. Do you think I found it? No way. I seriously think it vaporized. At $3 it was no loss but Estes should warn of the risk of vaporization.

Gee, this sounds real familiar. I did the same thing, but used a C6-7. My theory is that the shock wave caused a space-time rip and flung the rocket into a parallel universe (which, given how long the kit's been available, probably has a LOT of Mosquitos in it by now!)

 

[Klint]

HUm sound about rite

 

[EMRR]

Well, I should have known, but I went ahead and did it any way. My little minimum diameter (13mm), slapped together in very little time, son-named Rocket Rollie is gone!

How could this go from a perfect backyard rocket on 1/4 and 1/2 A's to being out of sight and never to be seen again?

One way and one way only.........an Apogee B7!

Flight Logs

Farewell Rocket Rollie. I will now concentrate in Terrible Tumbler.

-Nick

 

[rstaff3]

I found the same thing with my Super Centrix knock-off, the Non-Centrix. B2-0 to B2-9, never to be seen again. No quite a G55 in a Machbuster, but just as lost.

 

[EMRR]

It's amazing how they just disappear "out of sight". I mean I had a great line on it, even heard the ejection, but nothing.

Had another one like that with my Little Meanie. Several of us saw it go up with the delay smoke then nothing.....

Little Meanie

This one is on my list to rebuild. I have a destroyed Rocket Vision Six-Pack that I will use to build a "recycled" rocket into a second Little Meanie.

Happy flying.

Nick

 

[rstaff3]

That was one fine looking rocket. However, the fact that you could damage a RocketVision craft does not bode well for having any better luck with the rebuild ;-)

 

[rstaff3]

This is diverging off the original topic, but here is a list of my high fliers that I never saw again (not even a puff)

Rocketvision Machbuster (G55)
scratch One Shot (G80)
scratch Purple AP Eater (G80)
scratch Non-Centrix (B2/B2)
Estes Comanche (D12/C6/C6)
Estes name unknown (A10/A10)
Pratt Tomahawk (F10) this was previously recovered after a G35 flight

Anyone else have a list?

 

[Klint]

no just about 5 mesqutos all on A10 and all never saw agine o yeah those and a mity mite out law

 

[EMRR]

If the originator chooses to take it off-topic, is that wrong?

BTW, I (ME) didn't damage the Six Pack. Current analysis says that an off-center thrust port on a D21 did. After a perfect D10 flight at NARAM I went for a D21 flight and THIS is what happened. Aerotech is examining the motor casing now.

 

[rstaff3]

All I can say is OUCH!

 

[Oliver Arend]

> Estes Comanche (D12/C6/C6)

Recently I was able to track it all the way up (except for that split-second in the clouds) and down again, but it drifted into the woods and was not to be recovered. The _second_ stage was found on the field later that day.

I'm planning on building a 'glass Comanche-4 to be powered by D12->D12->D12->C6-7 or even E7->E7->E7->C6-7. The E7 is a German motor with about 3.5 seconds of burntime (not a full E, but merely about 24 Ns). Should hit about 1500 m, and probably be tracked (black is a good color).

Oliver

 

[PGerringer]

Hmmm, I wonder how many stages you can link together before you reach the point of diminishing returns. Does anyone know the rules? I mean could you do F->E->E->D->D->C? You should reach 6K feet (1875m) easy.

1500m is 4800ft.

 

[rstaff3]

I pulled out G. Harry's book to see what he had to say on the subject. He references WRASP studies (data not presented) that shows that when you get over three stages, performance decreases, relative to a rocket with fewer stages and the same total impulse , due to weight and higher aerodynamic drag associated with a higher velocity. In fact a three stager may not go as high as a two stager. In addition, the reliability of the rocket decreases rapidly as the number of stages goes up.

 

[marclee]

Dick:

You're right about the G Stine reference- and I can tell you that anything at and above 3 stages is incredibly difficult to recover. The booster sometimes lands close by, but that 2nd & 3rd stage is so high up when it seperates that I have found that it, and the subsequent stages are gonnnnnnnne. If you try 4 stages, forget it- it's tough to keep track of all those small pieces floating down from 1500 ft. At least that's my experience. But then again our fields are all pretty small.

Now if it were a 7' rocket...hmmmm.

Marc

 

[PGerringer]

Well, what I was picturing was a small sustainer with an altimeter and tracking device. Then many, many, many engines. I wouldn't really care to recover the stages, knowing how impossible it would be. But it would be interesting to see how high it would go.

 

[marclee]

Hey, THAT sounds like fun...

 

[rstaff3]

Check out Jeff Taylor's Commanche upscale:

https://home.nc.rr.com/jstaylor/

 

[marclee]

Originally posted by rstaff3
Check out Jeff Taylor's Commanche upscale:

https://home.nc.rr.com/jstaylor/

Whooaaaaaa- That is amazing. never seen a 3-stage that big. Quite awesome.

Marc

 

[Milo]

Here is what happened to my Commanche project. One flight, one flight only.

It died because of my inexperience and stupidity.

 

[PGerringer]

OH Man!!!!! Did you look at some of the other pictures on that larger scale site? ( https://home.nc.rr.com/jstaylor/ ) My favorite is the N motor that appeared to Cato but still left the pad. The commanche he built is beautiful. Thanks for the link.

I was there for Milo's, it was a good day, it was a bad day. The rocket left the pad like a champ but it went bad from there.

And BTW: That red car behind Milo is my Buick POS. You have to be a certain age to own that car. But I'm 30 years younger than that.

 

[doylex]

The best way to recover a Mosquito or a Gnat is to be very, very quiet after the launch and listen for it to hit the ground. If you're at a club launch, eventually someone will walk up on it and hopefully return it to the LCO table.

 

[PGerringer]

Yeah, hopefully they don't walk ON it first...