Proteus

[rocketmanMV]

This is a public reply to Murray Lampert, inquiring as to my experience with Hawk Mountain's Proteus kit. Be prepared to have patience with Alan as he doesn't sell many of these rockets and seems to make them up as they are ordered. It took a total of five weeks to receive all the parts. Having said that, this rocket rocks. Well thought out, tough as nails, good documentation, excellent personal support from Alan. He does almost too much in preparing this kit; I would have liked to do more of the fabricating myself. I built and painted it in seven days. My Proteus has flown on the following reloads: L1120, M1315, M1419, M2400, M1939. All flights were successful EXCEPT the M2400; seems that I overlooked the Mach delay switch on the altimeters; the apogee drogue charges fired at 2000 feet, severing the two 4000 pound kevlar straps and tearing out the electronics bulkhead and bay. The drogue chute was in tatters, the whole three part mess came in with a thud. The ONLY damage was one slightly fractured fin fillet and light shattering of the nose cone shoulder. Like I said, tough as nails. The biggest bruising was to my ego as this was at LDRS this year, being filmed by both the Discovery Channel and Extreme Rocketry. You can check out the action on the this year's LDRS video. All the flights have been arrow straight, the M1939 went to 11,842 feet. The L1120 was a majestic, albiet slow flight to 4200 feet; I wouldn't fly it on anything smaller. At any rate, as a Level Three project, this rocket is well worth the (big) bucks, in my humble opinion.

 

[Rocketman248]

The Proteus is my dream rocket! I WILL get it someday, and I WILL fly it on an N2000W!

Do you have any construction/flight pics?

 

[Rocketman248]

Two more questions. How much did yours weigh, and do you have a Rocksim file for it?

 

[rocketmanMV]

At liftoff with an M1419 my Proteus weighs 56lbs. Yes, this a heavy rocket, but you should know that Alan supplied my kit with over 100 feet of climbing rope for the main harness and I use it all. The forward payload bay is packed with rope, SkyAngle XXL parachute, piston and kevlar harnesses.

No, I don't do RocSim as I'm a Mac guy.

No flight pictures to post as I'm an illiterate Mac guy and I don't know how to post them.

Another interesting feature of this rocket is the bonus payload/electronics bay built into the nosecone. I use mine to house a transmitter for my tracking system, a Marshall unit.

 

[Ryan S.]

definantly an awesome looking rocket, it had a great flight on that M1315. Although it did seem the chute was a bit tightly packed but it got in there.

Dont make having a mac sound so bad You can always get virtual PC, Rocsim works great with it.

Posting pictures is the same with a Mac. just save a file to your desktop, then right below the area you type your posts there is a little attach file button. Click it then you can choose the file right from your desktop

 

[LampertRocketry]

Thank you for the response and information. I have a couple of projects on the go - and am working on my L3 as I stated. No big rush. I have a 1/5 scale carbon elongated V2 called a Blossom V2 on the go - it's a big project at 11.5" dia and about 11 feet high. Also a full scale HV Arcas - high altitude - 100 percent fibreglass tubing. Excepting the teeny stuff, we are aiming to use glass or carbon tubing for all of our future projects for durability. Most of our 'losses' have been zippers and CATO's of cardboard or plastic rockets.

The Proteus has always kept my eye. Not that I want to build a "kit" but I am very practical and it is one neat package that will save me lots of hunting around and machine shop expense. How much change can one make in a rocket? Change the number of fins and their shape? Nosecone characteristics. Length of the sections (sustainer/payload, etc.)? There just isn't much to change when one is talking a basic rocket. I think with the Proteus, one is building a 'basic' rocket. Not much to change. I might consider extending the motor tube to accomodate future larger motors. And playing around with electronics - onboard video, onboard GPS or RDF beacon, etc. Doesn't pay to homebrew altimeters or flight controllers although I might build a few to use in non-critical applications (ie. flight recording). That's about it really. My enjoyment comes from the therapeutical aspects of basic construction and more so, travelling and flying rockets as a family. It won't be too long before the kids have their own interests and social activities that don't include Mom and Dad.

Anyway, thanks again for the info on the Proteus. It's on our list - maybe for LDRS this summer!

Murray Lampert

 

[Rocketman248]

That full scale ARCAS sounds awesome! I love the design of that rocket.

The motor tube in the Proteus is pretty long already. It's long enought to accomodate the 42" long N2000W. Although, I suppose if you want to use the AMW 98-17500 hardware, which is 48" long, you'd need to extend it. That N4000BB is one heck of a motor

 

[LampertRocketry]

Originally posted by Rocketman248
That full scale ARCAS sounds awesome! I love the design of that rocket.

The motor tube in the Proteus is pretty long already. It's long enought to accomodate the 42" long N2000W. Although, I suppose if you want to use the AMW 98-17500 hardware, which is 48" long, you'd need to extend it. That N4000BB is one heck of a motor

I could be off a bit here, but I think the HyperTek MAX M needs about 60 inches - in order to fly M's on a regular basis that's what I need to fly for the sake of economy. Not to mention that I just think passing gas is fun.

Murray