No worries! It was honestly very minor and I didn't glue it that well (expecting that it may get knocked off on landing) and I instead focused on making sure the tail and wings were strong.
Very easy repair!
Radical Rocketry F-104 Starfighter Build
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Very easy repair!
Also I may have stressed the part by the way I had transported it to the field...
Also I only used (I think) wood glue and model cement for the fuel pods since I felt it would be fine to have them pop off. YMMV.
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For a sport bird, flights don’ get better than that!It was quite windy with some heavy gusting. Worse yet, the wind was pushing chuted rockets behind us towards the river behind us.
That made this launch quite tricky since I also wasn't sure how it would behave in wind. *Plus* I had actually rearranged the clay in the nose more towards the bottom half to try to stop the arcing towards the cockpit.
Flight was beautiful!
View attachment 576646
glad the harness deployed well.
not promising anything, but the T-tail on this bird maaaaay actually make standard forward eject with standard internal shock cord a decent choice (pun intended.)
on my asymmetric fin birds, an unintended but often beneficial side effect is that (assuming you assign the side with the asymmetric fins as dorsal) the rocket will descend with the fins up.
with that tail, your rocket will tend to descend dorsal side up, at maybe a 45 degree angle. So your motor casing in this orientation would take the first hit.
YMMV.
Nice to see a great looking rocket that flies well too!
congrats.
Thanks Babar!
I vaguely recalled someone warning me that the most likely damage for this kit would be to the tail on landing and I had wanted to try the "flat recovery" for other projects (including a SBR 5.5" Hellfire with a clear domed nose and lots of nose weight), so this was a great opportunity for me to try and gain the experience.
You do bring up a great point about how the configuration of the tail fins would more likely lead to it having the rocket come down bottom first though.
Also I didn't catch the body's landing, but I think it hit the road since my first landing on grass was 1thoughts?
I would add that I love the quality,weight, and strength of the thin plywood used in this kit!
@BigMacDaddy any thoughts & experience?
I have not had tail damage other than an early version with a shallow tail slot that had a hard landing when chute did not deploy (in that case the tail popped off entirely).
I do think that the wind made it swing back and forth more and was more likely to land on a fuel pod.
I wonder if you might as well bring it down on the front of the body tube if you are going through all that effort to run an external line to the back of the rocket.
Other option would just be a larger parachute on the body (or maybe leave the body and NC together with a much larger chute).
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If this DIDN'T have the tail, I would say the harness is a definite plus. But main purpose of the harness it to protect the tail, which this doesn't need (i theeeeeeenk) because of the T-tail design. I suspect even the best harness wobbles a bit, so not surprising to get a "wing-ding." Aside from @lakeroadster 's "hell for stout" approach, which may make this bird too heavy to fly, I think some dings are just part of the routine.
It's a great rocket, but the design is one of those where you can expect to make some repairs. But that happens any time you get away from 3FNC or 4FNC (and sometimes even with those, unless you sweep the fins forward like I do!)
Birds like this are decision makers, I always think they need to fly once just to prove they are rockets (a lot less challenging to build rockets that never fly. I remember reading an article about Estes "show" models [rockets that were production for sale, but demos built for show]. IIRC they were built definitely NOT stock and never intended to fly.) For really fancy designs like this, depending on your mood or passion, making them Hanger Queens after the first flight isn't unreasonable. maybe @neil_w can relate how many of his designs fly more than once.
All of them, eventually. A couple of my more recent builds have only gotten up once so far due to lack of flying opportunities. But I have not yet flat-out retired a model after one flight.
I’ve read that as well. No recovery gear or shock cords. No motor hooks. Hella stout basswood fins. Built for display and handling.
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Not good yet with split quote replies
1. I have thought of bring rockets in with a rear mounted shock cord attachment (cord removed for display). Haven’t done it yet. Ostensibly the reason is “delicate tail feathers”. But I am not sure the lip or edge of the body tube would fair much better. Possibly with some sort of sci-fi -ish 3D printed ring support (or maybe a short 3D printed body tube SEGMENT?). But at least for LPR I would be worried it would buckle. Maybe someone who actually DID it could comment…..?
2. If you have a heavy nose cone and room for more laundry (two chutes) completely separating nose cone may impact (pun intended) the force from landing the cone and body together. I know I see that with a lot of high power rockets, although being a mere mortal L-0 I am not sure why? If you have room for two chutes, wouldn’t one BIG chute be less complex? Maybe separating big parts keeps the from bashing into each other on bigger high power rockets.
I do wonder? If you have a heavy cone and it is pretty stout, would it be reasonable to use an extra length of shock cord so the cone hangs a few feet lower from the chute than the body? Rationale: cone lands first, chute is only supporting the body, so should slow it down. Logic makes sense, but also since TIME is in the equation (for deceleration), the differential length of cord needed might be impractical.
Thanks to all for your experience and thoughts, great points and ideas here!
Wing tanks to me were greebles, so them coming off was of no big consequence and if I wanted to, I can just leave them off. For me, it's more critical to protect the wings and tail surfaces, so I'll keep this one as is for now since it is actually functioning as I had planned and see how it does after a few more launches.
On the first launch it came down flat on grass and was fine, but my club fields can have hard pack soil in spots as well as stones mixed in, so not the best nor the worst landing surface.
Maybe we can get more reports from others who have built them... unless it was for purposes of being a "nonflying model rocket" or "show model".
I was also considering getting another of this kit (gotta build different Starfighter paint versions!) and I can try a different method on that as well... do my own drag race lol
I also have a 3" Fat Cats F-104 that I will start soon which I'll apply the learnings to, so...
Wing tanks to me were greebles, so them coming off was of no big consequence and if I wanted to, I can just leave them off. For me, it's more critical to protect the wings and tail surfaces, so I'll keep this one as is for now since it is actually functioning as I had planned and see how it does after a few more launches.
On the first launch it came down flat on grass and was fine, but my club fields can have hard pack soil in spots as well as stones mixed in, so not the best nor the worst landing surface.
Maybe we can get more reports from others who have built them... unless it was for purposes of being a "nonflying model rocket" or "show model".
I was also considering getting another of this kit (gotta build different Starfighter paint versions!) and I can try a different method on that as well... do my own drag race lol
I also have a 3" Fat Cats F-104 that I will start soon which I'll apply the learnings to, so...
great thread 
Oh, since I have a bunch of great minds here (no joke!), have any of you tried off-center nose weight to affect flight trajectory?
This was something I had been pondering since many of my winged rockets seemed to have a flight under boost that arced/curved up towards the cockpit and I figured it was due to the canopy bulge causing more drag on the "top". This would be arcing towards you/over your head if the rocket is placed so that you see the "top" of the jet view.
My first flight of this kit did just that and so I was thinking that more weight on the bottom side of the nose of the jet may help pull that side down and so I shifted more clay to the jet's bottom side, which I believe worked.
This was something I had been pondering since many of my winged rockets seemed to have a flight under boost that arced/curved up towards the cockpit and I figured it was due to the canopy bulge causing more drag on the "top". This would be arcing towards you/over your head if the rocket is placed so that you see the "top" of the jet view.
My first flight of this kit did just that and so I was thinking that more weight on the bottom side of the nose of the jet may help pull that side down and so I shifted more clay to the jet's bottom side, which I believe worked.
I just recalled another reason (or the reason) I was concerned about the tail fins with this design...
Even landing on a plowed farm field can be rough on rockets. There's dirt on that top fin surface.
This happened a few years ago and I still haven't decided on the best fix since that's a weak point. To make things worse, the paint is a special metallic paint.
You had mentioned a swing (on descent under chute) and I actually saw this on your F104 video; however, I think the same can also hurt the model coming down tail first (depending on landing surface).
I believe that's what happened on the above model. It swung in a circle coming down on the chute and wham!, the tail took the hit into the plowed dirt for that special "ripped pants" look.
lakeroadster
When in doubt... build hell-for-stout!
A bigger motor negates the extra weight.
Probably the best design enhancement for this rocket is a rear eject spool design, that will put the nose into terra firma instead of the fins.
I was working yesterday on a spool cartridge design for my Spad XIII rocket:
The parachute has it's own spool.
The motor has it's own cartridge.
At ejection the motor pops out the back and drags the parachute spool out of the rocket.
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lakeroadster
When in doubt... build hell-for-stout!
I'll just leave this right here.... what a gorgeous version of an F-104... I think I'm in love... 
The N104RB Red Baron
The N104RB Red Baron
Did not a very Famous Rowdy Test Pilot fly one of these to the edge of space on a whim?
But when the engines stalled he could not get them restarted and once lower in the atmosphere had to eject and let the plane crash and burn.
But when the engines stalled he could not get them restarted and once lower in the atmosphere had to eject and let the plane crash and burn.
Yes - here is a great story about those events...
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/the...ovie-featuring-chuck-yeagers-nf-104-ejection/
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