EeebeeE
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2011
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Many of you followed the thread of my Rocketry Warehouse Terminator as I went through the build and then successfully flew it to achieve my Level 3 certification. For many, this is a goal that allows them to fly big and glorious rockets with fantastic displays of airpower and recovery systems.
I wanted my L3 for a different reason. I wanted to fly a rocket to 100,000' at least once during my lifetime. But here's the thing...I don't have a huge budget, so I need to do it on M power. It's possible. The math works. But I will have one shot at this... so I need to get it right the first time.
So this will be a very long-term thread. There will be gaps as I work on other projects, and then there will be flurries of activity. This will not be a single rocket build, but rather a series of builds to test designs, materials, build techniques, staging ideas, and more. Along the way, I hope to set some records. It would be kind of cool to be in the record book at least once in a while.
Ideas and insight are very welcome as I work through this challenge. I will need thought into electronics that can handle 100,000'+ altitudes, advanced recovery techniques with small transmitters, fitting in redundant electronics, transmitters, and a video cameras inside minimum diameter airframes, high-temp epoxy, and a whole bunch of stuff I probably haven't thought about.
But for now, I should start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. When you read you begin with "A B C." When you sing you begin with "Do Re Mi."
So my first design will be Do. The first note of the scale. The purpose of this design is to test two minimum diameter stages and determine these critical elements:
1. Can the motor serve as a coupler to hold stages together?
2. Can very thin telephone wire, epoxied to the outside of the airframe, be enough to ignite the sustainer motor?
Do will be first tested as a single stage to ensure that the sustainer is stable. It will fly on 6-grain 24mm G motors. Because it will ultimately push Mach 2, it will be too heavy to break the TRA single altitude G record. BUT, It will then attempt the H staged record. Then later the I staged record. Then possibly the J staged records. This will challenge the build techniques because with a full 640 NS, Do will go well past Mach 1.5, and with a full 1,280 NS, it will punch past Mach 2.
So this is Do set up with a CTI H123 booster and a G65 sustainer. Combined it is just under 320 NS, so it should qualify as an H-powered altitude record setter.
What do you think?
I wanted my L3 for a different reason. I wanted to fly a rocket to 100,000' at least once during my lifetime. But here's the thing...I don't have a huge budget, so I need to do it on M power. It's possible. The math works. But I will have one shot at this... so I need to get it right the first time.
So this will be a very long-term thread. There will be gaps as I work on other projects, and then there will be flurries of activity. This will not be a single rocket build, but rather a series of builds to test designs, materials, build techniques, staging ideas, and more. Along the way, I hope to set some records. It would be kind of cool to be in the record book at least once in a while.
Ideas and insight are very welcome as I work through this challenge. I will need thought into electronics that can handle 100,000'+ altitudes, advanced recovery techniques with small transmitters, fitting in redundant electronics, transmitters, and a video cameras inside minimum diameter airframes, high-temp epoxy, and a whole bunch of stuff I probably haven't thought about.
But for now, I should start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. When you read you begin with "A B C." When you sing you begin with "Do Re Mi."
So my first design will be Do. The first note of the scale. The purpose of this design is to test two minimum diameter stages and determine these critical elements:
1. Can the motor serve as a coupler to hold stages together?
2. Can very thin telephone wire, epoxied to the outside of the airframe, be enough to ignite the sustainer motor?
Do will be first tested as a single stage to ensure that the sustainer is stable. It will fly on 6-grain 24mm G motors. Because it will ultimately push Mach 2, it will be too heavy to break the TRA single altitude G record. BUT, It will then attempt the H staged record. Then later the I staged record. Then possibly the J staged records. This will challenge the build techniques because with a full 640 NS, Do will go well past Mach 1.5, and with a full 1,280 NS, it will punch past Mach 2.
So this is Do set up with a CTI H123 booster and a G65 sustainer. Combined it is just under 320 NS, so it should qualify as an H-powered altitude record setter.
What do you think?
