Rocket Pipe Dreams

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jqavins

jqavins

Слава Україні
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I'm talking about the tings that you think you might actually do some day (as opposed to being the first amateur to put a payload into orbit, other impossible things). I bet most of us have some.

I think about building a fleet of sounding rockets - sustainers and boosters - all in the same scale so that with a set of interstages one could mix and match like Tinkertoys. Real sounding rockets vary so much in size that these would probably span mid-power to L2.

My other one is a fleet of various size Big Bertha upscales and downscales. All scaled according to MMT size, and one made in every standard MMT size, from micromax to 150 mm. With a list of names that goes:
  • Tiny Tina
  • Small Sara
  • Big Bertha
  • Large Laura
  • Jumbo Jenny
  • Enormous Emma
  • Giant Gina
  • Tremendous Teri
  • Colossal Carol
  • Titanic Titania
(The list could use some work to avoid repeating the TT initials.)
 
I have a scale set of BBZ (Blue Bird Zero). And have the "kit versions" of the Der Red Max.

I also have a plan to do a scaled up Sentinel, either 3" or 4" dia. I'd also like to a scale up scratch of the famed 'Andromeda' (but there is a kit now..)


My immediate, but not definite plan/goal is L3..
 
My current goal is getting my level 3, which I am actually in the process of doing. Not sure how pipe-dream-ish these goals are but these are my future plans:

-Flying scale models of the Antares rocket. I'm thinking a BT-80 one to fly on 2 BP motors and a 6" diameter 1/26 scale one that flies on two 38mm motors. Start with boilerplates that have the general shape right to make sure they can fly well and eventually build "museum quality" scale versions with every detail I can cram in.

-Get into multistaging high power rockets.

-Get further into strap-on boosters for both small and big rockets. I have a Mean Machine with the Apogee strap-on kit but that apogee kit can definitely be improved on. It would be a lot better with a more durable material for the hooks.

-Build multistage rockets that ALSO have strap-on boosters, from LPR to HPR.

-Build an upscale of my level 3 rocket with a 98mm motor mount to eventually fly on an N motor.

-Probably the biggest pipe dream right now: Eventually build a huge rocket with at least two stages and four strap-on boosters powered by no motors smaller than an M.
 
jqavins said:
I think about building a fleet of sounding rockets - sustainers and boosters - all in the same scale so that with a set of interstages one could mix and match like Tinkertoys. Real sounding rockets vary so much in size that these would probably span mid-power to L2.
Click to expand...

That's a cool idea. I'd love to see someone do it, I think @Charles_McG is well on his way to accomplishing this.
 
jqavins said:
My other one is a fleet of various size Big Bertha upscales and downscales. All scaled according to MMT size, and one made in every standard MMT size, from micromax to 150 mm. With a list of names that goes:
  • Tiny Tina
  • Small Sara
  • Big Bertha
  • Large Laura
  • Jumbo Jenny
  • Enormous Emma
  • Giant Gina
  • Tremendous Teri
  • Colossal Carol
  • Titanic Titania
(The list could use some work to avoid repeating the TT initials.)
Click to expand...

Massive Martha?
 
I know Charles has an impressive sounding rocket fleet. To the best of my knowledge, they don't share a common, single scale. So some of the pieces can be Tinkertoyed together, if I'm remembering right, they can't all be.
jbuscaglia said:
Massive Martha?
Click to expand...
Could take Tremendous Teri's place. I want to keep "Titanic Titania", and it'll be hard to beat Tiny Tina. "Minute Mini" maybe.
 
  • 1:1 studio scale of the Cochrane Phoenix ( but with a third nacelle )
  • 76/13k sugar motor
  • BALLS + Hamster Dance at least once
  • Finish NARTREK
  • Internats at least once
 
When it comes to pipe dream, this really is a pipe dream. I read somewhere on here that all rocketeers go through a Saturn V phase; I'm still in that one. So every once in a while I let my mind drift off into things that could possibly be pulled off, especially with all the modern electronics that I wouldn't have even dreamed of as a teenage rocketeer punching octal code chads out of the Monroe/Lytton programmable calculator in the back of the math classroom in 1972.

A Saturn V with:
  • 3 stages - 5/5/1 motors
  • Properly jettisoning escape tower/BPC after ignition of second stage
  • Maybe even micro-max ullage motors and tumble-recovery interstage ring
  • Howzabout the third stage ejection springing open the LM adaper and kicking out a LM with spring-loaded legs to land properly - maybe as a drone or autogyro if necessary?
  • And one last motor to boost the SM/CM free of that and separate, with the CM on three little 'chutes and the SM streamering back?
Remember, I said it's a pipe dream - the complexity of such an endeavor is far greater than anything I've seen done with a Saturn V of any scale, up to Steve Eves' legendary model. Just the certainty of ignition of all those motors puts the whole effort in serious jeapoardy, much less all the other fiddly details - probably pop-out fins for the second and third stages, all that laundry, the fact that all I've done to this point is woosh-pop-drop L0 LPR stuff... but it's a dream!

Edited to add: As long as I'm dreaming, I'd love to have at least 1st stage motors with scale-looking nozzles! And fire - lots of fire!
 
Last edited:
jqavins said:
I know Charles has an impressive sounding rocket fleet. To the best of my knowledge, they don't share a common, single scale. So some of the pieces can be Tinkertoyed together, if I'm remembering right, they can't all be.
Click to expand...



That's actually exactly what I'm aiming for. To avoid making more custom body tubes, I'm accepting some variation off a mean of 1:5.2. So they end up 1/5 to 1/5.5. A bigger reason I consider many combinations 'sport scale' is that the Nike and Terrier booster fins change a lot with different flights, and I'm not making multiple boosters. For instance, my next flight up is a Nike-Nike Smoke, but mine has 4 fins, rather than three.


Built Sustainers: Apache, Tomahawk 9|12, Malemute (Improved)

Built Interstages: Ute-Tomahawk, Nike-Apache(Cajun), Nike-Recruit, Nike-Tomahawk, Nike-Nike, Terrier-Malemute, Terrier-Recruit, Talos-Terrier

Built Boosters: Ute, Nike (x2), Terrier, Talos

In Progress Sustainers: Cajun (I'll just put a different payload on the Apache), Recruit

Planned Sustainers: Black Brant V, Oriole.

Planned Interstages: Nike-Malemute, Nike-Black Brant, Nike-Oriole, Terrier-Oriole, Terrier-Tomahawk, Terrier-Nike, Terrier-Black Brant


Flights Accomplished:
Nike Apache
Ute Tomahawk-9
Nike Tomahawk-12
Terrier Malemute

Flights In Progress:
Nike Nike Smoke
Nike Recruit

Flights Hoped For:
Nike Malemute
Terrier Recruit
Terrier Tomahawk
Talos Terrier Misty Picture (looks like a 'Terrier Smoke')
Nike Black Brant
Nike Oriole
Terrier Black Brant
Terrier Oriole
Nike Nike Cajun
Nike Nike Recruit
Nike Nike Tomahawk
Talos Terrier Recruit
Talos Terrier Black Brant
Talos Terrier Oriole
 
jqavins said:
I think about building a fleet of sounding rockets - sustainers and boosters - all in the same scale so that with a set of interstages one could mix and match like Tinkertoys.
Click to expand...

Neat idea!

In my prior HPR days, I had a good-flying 38mm/54mm/3" scratch-build that was evolving that way. Interchangeable boosters/payload bays, etc.

I dig sounding rockets, and I may borrow that idea for an affordable scale collection. Of course, that would beg for a rocket garden to display them!

As for pipe dreams, I'm planning a 1/3 scale Aerobee 300 and a smaller scale of the Javelin III trio with launcher documented in Sport Rocketry a while back. Almost forgot- a nice launch complex in the side yard.
 
jbuscaglia said:
Petite Patty?
Click to expand...
I have an Alternates list. Petite Patty will go on that for the time being. Maybe I'll use it, and at least I won't forget it.
neil_w said:
Micro Mabel
Click to expand...
Mmmaybe. And there's another an 'M' on the alternates list: Mammoth Mary.

Maybe I should name some after the women in my life. King-size Kathleen (my wife), Large Lynda (my mother-in-law), Nanite Nina (my daughter), Mighty Miriam (my sister), Gargantuan Grace and Robust Ruth (my nieces), etc. Maybe not.

Charles_McG said:
That's actually exactly what I'm aiming for. To avoid making more custom body tubes, I'm accepting some variation off a mean of 1:5.2. So they end up 1/5 to 1/5.5. A bigger reason I consider many combinations 'sport scale' is that the Nike and Terrier booster fins change a lot with different flights, and I'm not making multiple boosters. For instance, my next flight up is a Nike-Nike Smoke, but mine has 4 fins, rather than three.
Click to expand...
The slight scale differences might be why I wrongly remembered that yours were not fully interchangeable. Mine, too, would be sport scale (if ever I do it); I'd be willing to make custom tubes, but not all of the fully scale modeled fiddly bits. Three fin and four fin versions of otherwise the same booster? Maybe. Maybe interchangeable fin cans so the rest of it doesn't have to be duplicated.
Built Sustainers: Apache, Tomahawk 9|12, Malemute (Improved)
Click to expand...
For me, this whole thing started (in my head) with a Quest Terrier-Orion, one built stock and one I'm converting to two stage. So an Orion sustainer would definitely have to come early on my list.

Do you ever figure to add things like Black Brant III, which is only about half the height of these others? Or the BB IV, which is the only one in that series using a BB V as a booster (under a BB III).
 
Last edited:
jqavins said:
Do you ever figure to add things like Black Brant III, which is only about half the height of these others? Or the BB IV, which is the only one in that series using a BB V as a booster (under a BB III).
Click to expand...
Don’t you think that my list is long enough as it is?
 
jqavins said:
Maybe I should name some after the women in my life. King-size Kathleen (my wife), Large Lynda (my mother-in-law), Nanite Nina (my daughter), Mighty Miriam (my sister), Gargantuan Grace and Robust Ruth (my nieces), etc. Maybe not.
Click to expand...

Yow! If I did that to my wife, I'd get a free trip to China - directly through the center of the earth, non-stop, with possibly enough momentum to continue on to the moon once I emerged! Much less to the whole family! You'll never go into space, not with those enormous titanium kajones!
 
I have no burning desire to get Level 1. If I DID go for it, would be nice to be the first to certify Level 1 on a helicopter model, I don't think that's been done before. I easily could be wrong.
Would be a 4 rotor job, folding blades, 6 feet tall at launch, blades open to a total 20 foot diameter rotor. It wouldn't spin very fast, my rocket choppers operate mainly on Air Brakey-ness rather than airfoil lift. Problem is finding material light enough and stiff enough to support the blades.
 
What about Medium Melinda.

This is hard because you can't go with a name you actually know can you. Basically, you are revealing that you don't have an aunt called Jenny because if you did, she'd crush you.

Anyway, I like the idea of having many things at the same scale.
 
jqavins said:
I'm talking about the tings that you think you might actually do some day (as opposed to being the first amateur to put a payload into orbit, other impossible things). I bet most of us have some.

I think about building a fleet of sounding rockets - sustainers and boosters - all in the same scale so that with a set of interstages one could mix and match like Tinkertoys. Real sounding rockets vary so much in size that these would probably span mid-power to L2.

My other one is a fleet of various size Big Bertha upscales and downscales. All scaled according to MMT size, and one made in every standard MMT size, from micromax to 150 mm. With a list of names that goes:
  • Tiny Tina
  • Small Sara
  • Big Bertha
  • Large Laura
  • Jumbo Jenny
  • Enormous Emma
  • Giant Gina
  • Tremendous Teri
  • Colossal Carol
  • Titanic Titania
(The list could use some work to avoid repeating the TT initials.)
Click to expand...
Tipsy Tanya may have some repercussions.
 

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