Nose Cone Shoulder....

[DRitchie]

I'm building an Aerotech Mirage, and the shoulder of the nose cone is actually a coupler that is inserted into one of the body tubes that make up the rocket. Instructions specified leaving 3 sinches of exposed coupler as the "shoulder" for the nose.

Of course I got it only part of the way in when the glue grabbed up, and now I've got a 4 inch shoulder instead of three. Will an extra inch prove to be a problem with ejection?

It doesn't seem like much, but I'd hate to crash this beast over something so simple...

 

[Initiator001]

You will be fine.

Enjoy flying the Mirage.

 

[powderburner]

Positioning of a coupler to serve as a "shoulder" has a tradeoff-

Needs to be deep enough into forward section to get a good structural joint and needs to be deep enough into fwd sectn to get a good (straight) alignment

-versus-

Needs to extend deep enough into aft section to get a good alignment and to spread out any bending loads

Extra length of the exposed portion of the coupler is actually a good thing (IMHO) as long as everything else works. The forward portion should still be loose enough to slide out easily.

 

[MarkII]

Since at ejection the nose cone blows straight out from the top of the tube (with considerable force and at considerable speed) and doesn't stop until it reaches the end of the shock line, then I don't think that having an extra 1 inch of length for your nc's shoulder should present any problem at all. The extra length would possibly make it less likely to drag separate, though, which is a good thing. (This is hypothetical, since I don't think that the Mirage's nose cone is very likely to drag separate in any event.)

MarkII