Lifting Bodies at MDRA

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No- rocket marketing 101... never combine all of your cool stuff in one kit.
 
Actually you can eject anytime ... as John Young said... You just pull the little handle. The results there of can differ, however. ;)
 
One more question, can you please post a picture of the rocket being designed for the kit?
 
Medaforce649 said:
One more question, can you please post a picture of the rocket being designed for the kit?
Click to expand...

I had photos- but the security people here at Dr. Zooch Rockets classified them.

The front runner at the moment is very similar to a shuttle booster stack (ET and SRBs) with FlameFins- the differance between this stack and the Dr. Zooch Space Shuttle is that the lifting body booster will be based on the same T-55 tube as the Juno II, rather than a T-60 that is in the shuttle kit. There are, however, two other config.s that are in the running. All of these have been flown at MDRA launches... you should've been there ;)
 
How about a booster similar to the Ares V or a Titan rocket? Sorry, one more question was not enough.
 
Shooting video for the next Dr. Zooch ants-on-rockets spoof movie and lifting bodies were needed. I duplicated my early lifting bodies which were made of balsa sticks and tissue paper- here's still of one of the shots. Notice that it is the SDW shape- only upside down. As told in the first posting of this thread, that shape flew fine when tossed, but when the same shape was made of balsa sheet, no matter how I waited it, it flew upside down.

PLEASE, don't ask when the video will be out- it's a spare time project, of which I have very little these days.

4trf001b.jpg
 
foose4string said:
I was pondering the same thing. The cockpit idea sure does sound like a cool way to go. The far reaching horizon view and feeling of actually being in the glider would be a neat perspective. Although, the downward angle might be a better perspective during liftoff. Maybe somewhere in between would be good.

Hmmm, besides obtaining the nosecones, I wonder how hard it would be to upscale the Zooch Shuttle and put a camera in it?!?;):D
Click to expand...

I don't think you could put the cam in the nosecone-- unless you moved the 9V battery to the rear to offset the camera's weight and get the weight distribution right for the glider trim. It would be an interesting experiment...

Is the Zooch shuttle glider big enough to handle the extra weight of a gearcam and battery?? How about piggybacking the camera on top of the payload bay doors of the shuttle model filming forward (assuming it could handle the extra weight/drag without SNAFUing... THAT would make some interesting footage as the glider flew back to the ground...

Course if the gearcam/battery IS too heavy, a simplistic upscale camera carrier shouldn't be TOO hard to build, even if it didn't look much like a 'real' shuttle from the outside... :) OL JR :)
 
Ok for some reason it's not working-- don't know if it's my computer or the server or some other obscure reason or problem...

But there is a TERRIFIC video on the boostervision video page entitled "George Gassaway's R/C RG Cuda with a boostervision cam" which I can't seem to get to work right now for some reason-- I was going to link it directly or try to find it on YouTube but no luck... Yall will have to do it the hard way and google it.

Anyway, what's neat about this video, is that the camera is mounted on top of the glider, looking aft during ascent, and a short time after transition, it is remotely 'flipped' to a forward view. How this was accomplished I'm not quite sure-- don't know if the camera was mounted on a spring loaded swiveling mount that was released by a servo or something, mounted on a servo itself, or if a mirror or something was used that was flipped remotely to switch views. In the video you can see a quick blur as the picture flips, but it's not enough to really tell how it was accomplished.

That's a great setup though, as it allows you to have an interesting standard 'rocket view' of the ground and smoke trail during ascent, and then switch to the standard 'airplane view' forward during descent, which makes for some really interesting video, especially on an R/C glider-- almost 'cruise missile' view... :)

Take a look at it-- neat stuff! OL JR :)
 
Race58 said:
Here you go Luke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byNWmHn8Pq0
Click to expand...

YEAH that's the one!!! Thanks! I couldn't find it but didn't look a long time either... I tried the search on YouTube but all I got was RC cars... :)

Any idea how the camera transition from rearward to forward views was accomplished?? Looks like a spring loaded camera mount released by a triggering servo or relay to me... OL JR :)
 
That video and more can be found on George's site.

Gassaway Homepage


He started out using a mirror on some of the early flights to switch views, but switched to a rotating cam mount later on.
 
First off folks- don't try to do what George does- he's BRILLIANT, and one heck of a cool guy too. He does amazing R/C, Rocket and Cam stuff that I only wish I could do. That was a 4 minute video... I've wrecked 5 cams just getting 4 seconds of in-flight video on the lifting bodies. George also mod.s the cams which voids the warranties- but he KNOWS WHAT HE'S DOING and he has the skill. I'd love to get a cam to work in the lifting bodies- but cannot get the weight/configuration issue properly resolved.

As to the Zooch Shuttle- keep in mind that yes you can fit the gear cam into one, and, with a bit of skill, you can get it to glide. BUT- the stack is designed around thrusting through the center of mass to make it fly with stability. When you add the 9volt battery to the orbiter's mass you'll drastically shift the center of mass and you'll be out of the stability envelope when attempting powered flight. A way that may just get around that would be to tape another 9 volt battery on the opposite side of the ET from the orbiter. Although I've never tried that- it may work. If it were me- I'd build the nose of the orbiter around the cam and have it looking through the nose rather than off of a mirror- just keep the CG where it normally is and use thicker balsa for the wings, cambering the leading edges (Not like I've already thought this one out... is it?)
 
I had a moment to poke my head above the work and decided to do some lifting body work. Soon they were all laid out and drying when I discovered that my work bench looked a bit like a hangar at Dryden! So I took a picture just for fun...

4trf001lb3.jpg
 
Very cool doc :) Kind of look like Steve Austins ride at the beginning of each show :) Seriously they look great and I look forward to the kits:)
Cheers
fred
 
I've been working on a number of shapes to see which flies the best. They sometimes make Steve Austin's landing (well Bruce Peterson's landing to be correct) look good. In the photo you'll notice the two in the lower right center have unpainted fins- because I've been trying differing fins on those two shapes. You'll also notice that one shape is flatter and wider than the other- to see which flies best. The problem was that when launching each on a rocket, there was too much dynamic interfearance (the LB would strike the booster, or hit the deploying chute etc.) and then you had to totally set up for another launch... makes data gathering slow. The solution was simple- one day while out with my 4 year old shooting a little airplane with a rubber band and a stick it dawned on me that I know all about the boost with an LB aboard- all I'm intrested in is segments of the glide. If I rig it to launch with that rubber band and stick, I can do dozens of flights over and over. So I've just converted the test LBs to launch that way. Not only does it work well, but my 4 year old thinks it's really fun too :cool:
 
Dr.Zooch said:
I've been working on a number of shapes to see which flies the best. They sometimes make Steve Austin's landing (well Bruce Peterson's landing to be correct) look good. In the photo you'll notice the two in the lower right center have unpainted fins- because I've been trying differing fins on those two shapes. You'll also notice that one shape is flatter and wider than the other- to see which flies best. The problem was that when launching each on a rocket, there was too much dynamic interfearance (the LB would strike the booster, or hit the deploying chute etc.) and then you had to totally set up for another launch... makes data gathering slow. The solution was simple- one day while out with my 4 year old shooting a little airplane with a rubber band and a stick it dawned on me that I know all about the boost with an LB aboard- all I'm intrested in is segments of the glide. If I rig it to launch with that rubber band and stick, I can do dozens of flights over and over. So I've just converted the test LBs to launch that way. Not only does it work well, but my 4 year old thinks it's really fun too :cool:
Click to expand...

Cool...now if we could see a picture!:rolleyes: Unless you're referring to the picture in post #110 above..;)
 
I'll take a few today if I can find the time- it pretty much works like the ten cent gliders you had as a kid... before the CPSC and lawyers had them banned that is.
 
Note that it's the same simple thing that we all used as kids and we never shot anyone's eye out... okay, well... maybe once or twice. ;)

4trf0002b2.jpg
 
Intresting up-date here...

I took the 1977 shape and made several others with assorted changes. I test shot them over and over and today did it a bit more. Oddly, the one shape that consistently flew the best was... the exact 1977 original shape! No foolin' folks. Through altered fins and curved corners and differing angles, the final winner was the shape I'd developed in the months before I went away to college and spent a ton of money to learn about flying and aerodynamics. The only differance in the overall lifting body is the addition of a center fin to aid in avoiding adverse yaw.

Proves the old saying... if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Now if we could only teach web and software developers that lesson.
 

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