Well, my Nike Smoke saga continues.
As I related earlier, my second Nike Smoke went into the trees and was lost. Or so I thought (again).
It was intact, descending on parachute with nose cone all attached when it went into the trees after its second flight. I gave it up for lost (as I did for the first one) especially as that night it rained a hurricane and it got a drenching in whatever tree it was in.
Well, again to my surprise, my brother-in-law found it on the ground a couple of days later, sans nose cone and shock cord. How it got down and how the shock cord came away I can't even guess. But there it was.
Upon examination, the body looked pretty good, despite the really serious Florida thunderstorm drenching it endured. The back end---the engine mount--feels really heavy as it obviously has absorbed a lot of water and when I stand it on end, water still pours out of it.
Yet, overall, it looks structurally solid.
So, my plan is to heat dry it out in my garage--it gets Florida hot out there--for a few days to see if that will bake the moisture out of the engine mount area. Also the engine is welded in there at the moment, so once it dries out, I hope to be able to remove it without destroying the body tube.
So, I want to ask---does anyone have experience re-launching a rain-drenched rocket like this? I'm a little concerned that the rear body tube will be weakened by the rain soaking and it will collapse on liftoff.
Should I just scrap it? Or maybe try adding balsa struts to the rear to increase its structural integrity?
Thanks for any advice.
P.S. As for Nike Smoke number one, I did order a nose cone from Apogee and it fits fine. Also got a couple of F-42--- engines and hope to launch it on those--halfway between those F-26s and the F-50 that made it really take off.
As I related earlier, my second Nike Smoke went into the trees and was lost. Or so I thought (again).
It was intact, descending on parachute with nose cone all attached when it went into the trees after its second flight. I gave it up for lost (as I did for the first one) especially as that night it rained a hurricane and it got a drenching in whatever tree it was in.
Well, again to my surprise, my brother-in-law found it on the ground a couple of days later, sans nose cone and shock cord. How it got down and how the shock cord came away I can't even guess. But there it was.
Upon examination, the body looked pretty good, despite the really serious Florida thunderstorm drenching it endured. The back end---the engine mount--feels really heavy as it obviously has absorbed a lot of water and when I stand it on end, water still pours out of it.
Yet, overall, it looks structurally solid.
So, my plan is to heat dry it out in my garage--it gets Florida hot out there--for a few days to see if that will bake the moisture out of the engine mount area. Also the engine is welded in there at the moment, so once it dries out, I hope to be able to remove it without destroying the body tube.
So, I want to ask---does anyone have experience re-launching a rain-drenched rocket like this? I'm a little concerned that the rear body tube will be weakened by the rain soaking and it will collapse on liftoff.
Should I just scrap it? Or maybe try adding balsa struts to the rear to increase its structural integrity?
Thanks for any advice.
P.S. As for Nike Smoke number one, I did order a nose cone from Apogee and it fits fine. Also got a couple of F-42--- engines and hope to launch it on those--halfway between those F-26s and the F-50 that made it really take off.