Presentation on Deuce's Wild! and High Power Clustering

[curtisheisey]

As some of you know, I'm a devout enthusiast of the Upscale Deuce's Wild!, and I have been building and flying upscales over 10 years. I have assembled all my collective knowledge about Deuces and high power clustering into a presentation. This was originally slated for TRITECH, but I was unable to attend. I have prepared the presentation and posted it on youtube for our edification and enjoyment.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_VGQAOb9yW-omvS_AXVoQkFU2p--zh6v
Synopsis: This presentation summarizes the flight physics behind the Deuce’s Wild! and offers a concise explanation of why the thrust lines should focus half way between the center of pressure and center of mass for safe flight on a single motor. Precise motor alignment is important for safe high-power clusters, and the author presents a number of maker 3d printing and CNC techniques for creating optimal and precise Deuce’s Wild bulkheads. The article summarizes best practices for safe high-powered clustering. The author calls out notable Deuce’s Wild! flyers over the years. Finally, the presentation offers a photo and video gallery of a number of some the author’s most spectacular Deuce’s Wild! flights.

Teaser photos and video (latter by Howard Greenblatt).

 

[Astrogoose]

As some of you know, I'm a devout enthusiast of the Upscale Deuce's Wild!, and I have been building and flying upscales over 10 years. I have assembled all my collective knowledge about Deuces and high power clustering into a presentation. This was originally slated for TRITECH, but I was unable to attend. I have prepared the presentation and posted it on youtube for our edification and enjoyment.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_VGQAOb9yW-omvS_AXVoQkFU2p--zh6v
Synopsis: This presentation summarizes the flight physics behind the Deuce’s Wild! and offers a concise explanation of why the thrust lines should focus half way between the center of pressure and center of mass for safe flight on a single motor. Precise motor alignment is important for safe high-power clusters, and the author presents a number of maker 3d printing and CNC techniques for creating optimal and precise Deuce’s Wild bulkheads. The article summarizes best practices for safe high-powered clustering. The author calls out notable Deuce’s Wild! flyers over the years. Finally, the presentation offers a photo and video gallery of a number of some the author’s most spectacular Deuce’s Wild! flights.

Teaser photos and video (latter by Howard Greenblatt).

Are there stl files available for these motor mounts?

 

[les]

I have what may be a dumb question on Duece's Wild.

I've seen the info on how they can maintain stability if only one motor lights.
I've also seen the statement on the importance for "The rocket motors need to be balanced in thrust...."

This seems to contradict the first statement....

A simple "mind sim" using a standard 18mm DW.

Both motors are C6. If both light at about the same time, the thrust is equal for a nice straight flight.
But if only one lights, there is thrust from motor A but not motor B, creating an imbalance equal to the magnitude of motor A (taking into account the moment created by the 15 degree angle) vs 0 thrust from motor B.

Now let's say I use a C6-3 for motor A and a B6-6 for motor B. The motors are imbalanced. If only one lights, we have the situation as above with only one motor operational.
But if BOTH light, due to different thrust curves, there will be an imbalance in thrust. But the magnitude of the imbalance will be the difference between the 2 motors, which will be less the difference between 1 motor and no motor.

So if it can maintain a stable flight with the difference between one operational and one non-functional motor, why won't it maintain a stable flight with the LOWER difference between two operational, but different thrust curve motors???

My mind sim thinks a smaller delta will create less of an issue than a larger delta. What am I missing?

 

[curtisheisey]

So if it can maintain a stable flight with the difference between one operational and one non-functional motor, why won't it maintain a stable flight with the LOWER difference between two operational, but different thrust curve motors???

So you you do have a very good point. Strictly speaking, the thrusts don't actually have to be balanced for the Deuce. The case where one motor doesn't fire is an actually an extreme case of imbalanced thrusts. It will fly basically up, basically stable, but it won't be a post card flight. And that is assuming you have built the thing correctly and don't have any other off axis alignments or imbalances in the construction. If you look at the video I posted on the one motor HPR test, it goes sideways then up with a lot of oscillation. HOWEVER, I would never recommend unequal thrust motors or deliberately flying on one motor for an HPR Deuce. The point I am trying to make is for best safe practices. You can always have a little wind gust in some crazy odd direction, and things don't go like you think they should for the sunny day scenario. When flying HPR clusters, safety and best practices should be paramount, and not trying for clever stunts. And flights on one motor don't look that great, either.

And there is also timing and shape of thrust curves relative to each other that can probably do a lot of weird stuff.

 

[curtisheisey]

Are there stl files available for these motor mounts?

Jim Flis was very gracious about being ok with people upscaling his Deuce design. The new Fliskits owners have some HPR Deuce kits in the pipeline, probably in the Fall, so send them an email to get on their list and news. Way down the road, after they do a few kit runs and kit interest wanes, maybe I'll release some of the STL design files for ones they didn't use or older designs, if they are ok with it.

There are a lot of tips in the presentation for rolling your own.

 

[Astrogoose]

Jim Flis was very gracious about being ok with people upscaling his Deuce design. The new Fliskits owners have some HPR Deuce kits in the pipeline, probably in the Fall, so send them an email to get on their list and news. Way down the road, after they do a few kit runs and kit interest wanes, maybe I'll release some of the STL design files for ones they didn't use or older designs, if they are ok with it.

There are a lot of tips in the presentation for rolling your own.

OK. Thanks for the reply. Enjoyed your presentation.

 

[curtisheisey]

Are there stl files available for these motor mounts?

PM me. The Fliskits 3in upscale kit is in active production, so not those, but I can certainly fix you up with some other size.

 

[curtisheisey]

I will be giving a vNARCON 23 talk on clustering tips and safety. For part of it, I will present a systematic safety analysis that can be used to improve safety in clustering, dual deployment or other aspects of rocketry. I will briefly touch on the Deuces Wild! , but the thrust of the talk, pardon the pun, is clustering more generally.

 

[Rocketjunkie]

I've built upscale Deuces since 2004. Here's a build thread on the 98 mm version https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/bigger-deuce.47449/ including pictures and video. Still flying is the 5.5" body, 54 mm motors version. Flies well on 1 motor if it has enough thrust to get it up safely. The 98 mm version didn't have enough thrust on 1 M1419 to get it high enough for the chutes to open before it hit the ground. My avatar is the 98 mm Deuce on M1075s. Lots of Deuce videos on my channel, TomB0667 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkKBb0dZGp9VBZIEt02q2Ug Search for Deuce ground, Deuce onboard, Deuce98 ground and onboard. I was mentioned in the presentation.
54 mm and 98 mm. I've also made a 24 mm but destroyed when an Ellis E12 cato'd and the other ejection went through the blown out motor mount. It loved the E9s.

 

[curtisheisey]

I confused things. I gave a TRATECH 22 presentation on Upscale Deuces Wild. The Youtube link is here as well as on the Tripoli website somewhere (or pointer to their recording of it). I can pm you the slides. Tom graciously let me include info and pictures on his Deuce's Wild fleet, and he is certainly the premier UDW filer, ever.

On Sat at vNARCON, I will give a more general clustering tips and safety talk. I mention the DW (yes, as painful as it was, I moved most of the UDW slides to the backup, because I am up to 49 minutes in my dry runs)