Hi all,
What a glorious midsummers day we had! Rooney, Lampard, Scholes and Rutan all put it over the line.
The first three did their work in Lisbon and the last above the Mojave Desert in California. Welcome Mike Melville, the first pilot of a non-government space craft to tiptoe across the 100Km line and into space. Problems kept SpaceShip One from going even higher and Scaled Composites have yet to get two passengers aboard for their Ansari X Prize attempt but, way hey, cool or what?
In honor of the hybrid motor-powered SpaceShip One, Deepsky will give a free reload to any hybrid motor buyer until the X Prize is won! We have just landed the exclusive UK dealership for 38mm West Coast Hybrids (WCH) that span G through J impulse! Arriving shortly! The offer applies to the trusty 29mm RATT H and I hybrid motors in stock as well.
Hybrids are cheap to fly on a per flight basis. Fuel grains for pennies are possible with a small lathe. Ground Support Equipment is dear, though, but Deepsky will be offering plumbing components very soon at attractive prices.
Initiating hybrids has been a problem... until recently. Last month we offered the first legal means to initiate a hybrid in the UK that did not require gaseous oxygen (GOX). New Hybrid Initiator Experimenters Kit will be offered with a mould for the 38mm WCH motors.
In addition to the aforementioned Hesperis Hybrid Initiator Experimenter Kits that allow fliers to legally make their own initiator buttons at the pad for WCH, RATT and microhybrids, Deepsky has been working with one of the UK's most experienced hybrid flyers to create an economical, pyro-free means to fly RATT and WCH motors using GOX and a high amperage ignition. No special high voltage equipment required as with Hypertek.
Also on the motor front: Afterburner isn't moving along as fast as hoped due to lack of that most precious resource in the middle of the flying season: time. Just a few weeks more and production units will go on sale.
As noted in the last issue, D motors are here at last and there is a copious supply. Deepsky's rationing-level prices have been adjusted downwards in most cases. Misinformation regarding the status of D12-7s has been cleared up. They are fully legal in the UK and are now on sale in the Deepsky shop.
The Estes E motor imbroglio is reaching a conclusion. The paperwork has been filed and a quick decision is sought. Disregarding the misinformed UKRA RSO that said that otherwise illegal motors are OK to sell if the paperwork is filed, Deepsky will wait until the Estes Es are fully Classified and Authorised by the Health and Safety Executive before offering them for sale on its web site. It is still unclear if they can be shipped by courier or if an explosives license is required. More news as soon as it breaks.
Congreve has yet to get their CE mark and has no update on the likely time frame for availability of their USR-based solids. And the Cesaroni ProXX paperwork seems stalled, too. Aerotech isn't even to the start line, as far as we know. This is not a great summer for HPR solid motor rocket flyers.
For model flyers that want to get as high as most Level 1 HPR rockets (and considerably higher than HPR rockets get without motors!) Deepsky has declared that July is multi-stage month. We will be offering special reductions on Estes C6-0, C11-0, D12-0 motors used in booster stages when they are bought with a featured multi-stage rocket kit.
Our featured serial staging kits include the fantastic performing (and easy to build) Fliskits Nomad (three stages) and Cheetah (two stages). We also offer Estes Echostar, CC Express and the new futuristic Renegade in two stage form. The Estes Comanche is for three stage fans.
But there's more to staging than just stacking them up! Parallel staging is fun, challenging and always a crowd pleaser as the boosters peel off and the sustainer roars upward. We now have the UK exclusive on the Advanced Rocketry 18-plus-24 and 13-plus-18 kits and they will be part of our feature multi-stage deal. We also offer the HPR Thunderbird II parallel stager if you like semi-scale military hardware. If you are a scratch builder, we have the HAKO Ballistics strap-on booster hardware for two, three (or a dozen!) boosters in 24, 29 and 38mm diameters.
Summer is a great time for rocket gliders as thermals are not a rarity. The Orbital Engineering VMX-2 Gold Medal prize for a two minute flight is still going begging. The VMX-2 and 12D are not demanding to build but they must be trimmed carefully before flight. For a fun (and cheap) introduction to rocket gliders, try the Fun Rockets Swinger ;-)
I don't know the full details but Dave Beeton mentioned some kind of contest for the first upscale Fliskits Acme Spitfire. The Acme Spitfire is not your usual rocket... but that is the trademark of Fliskits. Take a look at the kit in the Deepsky shop for some inspiration.
Summer events are the time when the egg lofting brigade comes out of the woodwork. Deepsky offers the medal and trophy winning Hesperis Gold Medal competition kits. These are not your fly-until-you-lose-it-rockets but no-holds-barred competiton models that will get you in the running for the prize. Good for two flights or three if you are lucky! These kits are collated to order so extra time is required to fill your order (i.e. Don't wait until the last minute!)
Schools are an important part of our business - and a challenge. There has been a raft of panic buying by schools that have depleted our rocket stocks, motor inventory and shipping bandwidth. In the last week we have shipped over 200 rocket kits with motors. Next week looks even more fierce. As a consequence, some regular customer's orders are taking longer than they usually do so please be patient.
To help minimise this logjam we will offer a price break for schools that give us at least a month's notice (a week to a fortnight seems to be the extent of forward planning for Activity Week 2004!)
We are looking forward to Black Knights BK Flamer (or whatever they will call it once the Burger King copyright department gets ahold of them) at their Milson site in mid-July. We are tentatively set for the early July EARS event but that can be cancelled due to harvesting at short notice. Deepsky may pop up unexpectedly as other southern England venues... and of course the International Rocket Week in Scotland in August.
Team Deepsky
PS Deepsky is a supporter (the only rocketry vendor supporter) of the British Space Modelling team that are going to the World Championships in Poland this September.
Blast Off for Britain (www.blastoff4britain.org.uk) is coordinating that effort.
We are working on a way that Deepsky's customers can join in supporting the team and their efforts to build a medal-winning rockets now and in the future. Supporting young rocketeers in Britain ensures the growth of sport rocketry and kindles an interest in science and engineering vocations that state secondary education is not providing. Please stay tuned!
What a glorious midsummers day we had! Rooney, Lampard, Scholes and Rutan all put it over the line.
The first three did their work in Lisbon and the last above the Mojave Desert in California. Welcome Mike Melville, the first pilot of a non-government space craft to tiptoe across the 100Km line and into space. Problems kept SpaceShip One from going even higher and Scaled Composites have yet to get two passengers aboard for their Ansari X Prize attempt but, way hey, cool or what?
In honor of the hybrid motor-powered SpaceShip One, Deepsky will give a free reload to any hybrid motor buyer until the X Prize is won! We have just landed the exclusive UK dealership for 38mm West Coast Hybrids (WCH) that span G through J impulse! Arriving shortly! The offer applies to the trusty 29mm RATT H and I hybrid motors in stock as well.
Hybrids are cheap to fly on a per flight basis. Fuel grains for pennies are possible with a small lathe. Ground Support Equipment is dear, though, but Deepsky will be offering plumbing components very soon at attractive prices.
Initiating hybrids has been a problem... until recently. Last month we offered the first legal means to initiate a hybrid in the UK that did not require gaseous oxygen (GOX). New Hybrid Initiator Experimenters Kit will be offered with a mould for the 38mm WCH motors.
In addition to the aforementioned Hesperis Hybrid Initiator Experimenter Kits that allow fliers to legally make their own initiator buttons at the pad for WCH, RATT and microhybrids, Deepsky has been working with one of the UK's most experienced hybrid flyers to create an economical, pyro-free means to fly RATT and WCH motors using GOX and a high amperage ignition. No special high voltage equipment required as with Hypertek.
Also on the motor front: Afterburner isn't moving along as fast as hoped due to lack of that most precious resource in the middle of the flying season: time. Just a few weeks more and production units will go on sale.
As noted in the last issue, D motors are here at last and there is a copious supply. Deepsky's rationing-level prices have been adjusted downwards in most cases. Misinformation regarding the status of D12-7s has been cleared up. They are fully legal in the UK and are now on sale in the Deepsky shop.
The Estes E motor imbroglio is reaching a conclusion. The paperwork has been filed and a quick decision is sought. Disregarding the misinformed UKRA RSO that said that otherwise illegal motors are OK to sell if the paperwork is filed, Deepsky will wait until the Estes Es are fully Classified and Authorised by the Health and Safety Executive before offering them for sale on its web site. It is still unclear if they can be shipped by courier or if an explosives license is required. More news as soon as it breaks.
Congreve has yet to get their CE mark and has no update on the likely time frame for availability of their USR-based solids. And the Cesaroni ProXX paperwork seems stalled, too. Aerotech isn't even to the start line, as far as we know. This is not a great summer for HPR solid motor rocket flyers.
For model flyers that want to get as high as most Level 1 HPR rockets (and considerably higher than HPR rockets get without motors!) Deepsky has declared that July is multi-stage month. We will be offering special reductions on Estes C6-0, C11-0, D12-0 motors used in booster stages when they are bought with a featured multi-stage rocket kit.
Our featured serial staging kits include the fantastic performing (and easy to build) Fliskits Nomad (three stages) and Cheetah (two stages). We also offer Estes Echostar, CC Express and the new futuristic Renegade in two stage form. The Estes Comanche is for three stage fans.
But there's more to staging than just stacking them up! Parallel staging is fun, challenging and always a crowd pleaser as the boosters peel off and the sustainer roars upward. We now have the UK exclusive on the Advanced Rocketry 18-plus-24 and 13-plus-18 kits and they will be part of our feature multi-stage deal. We also offer the HPR Thunderbird II parallel stager if you like semi-scale military hardware. If you are a scratch builder, we have the HAKO Ballistics strap-on booster hardware for two, three (or a dozen!) boosters in 24, 29 and 38mm diameters.
Summer is a great time for rocket gliders as thermals are not a rarity. The Orbital Engineering VMX-2 Gold Medal prize for a two minute flight is still going begging. The VMX-2 and 12D are not demanding to build but they must be trimmed carefully before flight. For a fun (and cheap) introduction to rocket gliders, try the Fun Rockets Swinger ;-)
I don't know the full details but Dave Beeton mentioned some kind of contest for the first upscale Fliskits Acme Spitfire. The Acme Spitfire is not your usual rocket... but that is the trademark of Fliskits. Take a look at the kit in the Deepsky shop for some inspiration.
Summer events are the time when the egg lofting brigade comes out of the woodwork. Deepsky offers the medal and trophy winning Hesperis Gold Medal competition kits. These are not your fly-until-you-lose-it-rockets but no-holds-barred competiton models that will get you in the running for the prize. Good for two flights or three if you are lucky! These kits are collated to order so extra time is required to fill your order (i.e. Don't wait until the last minute!)
Schools are an important part of our business - and a challenge. There has been a raft of panic buying by schools that have depleted our rocket stocks, motor inventory and shipping bandwidth. In the last week we have shipped over 200 rocket kits with motors. Next week looks even more fierce. As a consequence, some regular customer's orders are taking longer than they usually do so please be patient.
To help minimise this logjam we will offer a price break for schools that give us at least a month's notice (a week to a fortnight seems to be the extent of forward planning for Activity Week 2004!)
We are looking forward to Black Knights BK Flamer (or whatever they will call it once the Burger King copyright department gets ahold of them) at their Milson site in mid-July. We are tentatively set for the early July EARS event but that can be cancelled due to harvesting at short notice. Deepsky may pop up unexpectedly as other southern England venues... and of course the International Rocket Week in Scotland in August.
Team Deepsky
PS Deepsky is a supporter (the only rocketry vendor supporter) of the British Space Modelling team that are going to the World Championships in Poland this September.
Blast Off for Britain (www.blastoff4britain.org.uk) is coordinating that effort.
We are working on a way that Deepsky's customers can join in supporting the team and their efforts to build a medal-winning rockets now and in the future. Supporting young rocketeers in Britain ensures the growth of sport rocketry and kindles an interest in science and engineering vocations that state secondary education is not providing. Please stay tuned!
