Rocksim 10

[n27sb]

Check the source of the H160 thrust curve. Is there more than one? Is the variation published with the certification data?

What is your launch elevation and weather conditions? A hot, humid day in Denver will probably show another 1000 ft AGL vs. sea level.

Is your speed approaching M=1? Rocksim has unrealistically high drag in this regime. I usually switch over to RASAero at this point.

Thrust data looks good.
Speed is maybe mach1.2, could be the culprit
I am try not to bust our 11.5k ceiling but I want to get close to it.

 

[ghostfather]

For example the best I can get RS to predict on an H160 is about 10 or 11k feet. That includes optimal mass and shrinking the components to a minimum.
Is it possible to go to 15k with an H160 or is Rocksim just not good in that configuration?

I flew a MD design on the H160 to 8.8K feet last year, though RS estimated it to only 8.3K. Not a huge difference.
I know the Tripoli H record is 14.8K that Adrian flew back in 2011, but that was from a high altitude site in Colorado. Of course, you can sim that as well in Rocksim. Does make a big difference.
My design was a bit longer than absolute optimized MD to accommodate a GPS xmitter, otherwise I would have never found it. I also tend to believe more in the accuracy of a GPS track than the altitude reading from barometer based altimeters. Not many GPS units that will fit in a 29mm, but it just happens that Adrian makes them.

 

[Dan Griffing]

Our primary goal at this point is for our new programmer to learn his way around in the spaghetti bowl of code that makes up RockSim. It is a big program with lots of tentacles. The directive I gave him was to learn where things are located, and to fix the nuisance bugs that we’ve been doing work-arounds for, for so long."

I can sympathize entirely. Before retiring I spent years working as a software engineer on large projects that had a long history of source code.

With time, all large software projects grow increasingly unmanageable, even, and maybe especially when only one developer was involved.

So I sympathize with any software engineer whose job it is to take over a mountain of code and to make changes to it without introducing new problems.

Most software engineers would rather design new applications than maintain old stuff and do version 10 of anything that has to have all of the old features working, but be better in any way.

I’ve consigned myself to being laid off rather than to maintain someone else’s code base. The ironic thing is that it can take more skill to maintain software than to design and write good new stuff. That’s because it requires you to live within the mental model of the original software designer while understanding their bugs and limitations and making extensions to it that don’t break something.

 

[Dan Griffing]

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Bobby and I work at Apogee Components, and I created this account today to answer some of your questions / concerns about RockSim V10. Note, that with the world as it is right now, my time for these outreaches is a little limited, but I'll be checking this thread daily for the foreseeable future. Please feel free to leave any questions or comments here, and I'll address them (but please, troubleshooting and customer service should still be conducted through our normal channels).

That being said, I'm late to this party so let me go back and address a few things.

Kuririn said "Hopefully it isn't 10 years till 11"
Fear not! We made the changes around the development here so that we can really get RockSim to the next level. 10 is just the first step in a long list of improvements, and we've really doubled down on the RockSim development going forward.

Fattbank64 (I'm paraphrasing) said "Components and parts DB need scrubbed"
We agree! And so we did. We've fully rebuilt our parts and rocket databases for this release. If it is available on apogeerockets.com, it's in the V10 database.

FredA mentioned the new programmer and speghetti code giving him some worries. I'd like to clear up our meaning here.
Yes, he's relatively new (to us, not his profession) and RockSim is a complex program, not just in what it does, but the way it's coded. That being said, we are extremely confident in his capabilities. This guy is a rockstar, just unbelievably talented, and we're certain he's the right man to bring RockSim to new heights.

There have been questions regarding the free upgrades and how to find your license keys. Fortunately, for many of you Apogee has that information on file in your account, and should make it painless. For more information, please see this page - https://www.apogeerockets.com/blog/RockSim-10-Now-Available

Thank you all for your time and continued support of Apogee. Even though we don't hop on here to say it enough, we love this community more than you could know. You're all family in our eyes.

Please feel free to ask me anything!

My kudos as a retired software engineer for the job your “rockstar” has done with RockSim10! Inheriting a monster software project and coming up with a new version that doesn’t break anything is a real accomplishment!

I’ve seen major Silicon Valley companies shudder at how dependent they were on their software engineers.

Rocketeers around the world should understand how grateful they should be for RockSim10.

 

[g.pitts]

I can sympathize entirely. Before retiring I spent years working as a software engineer on large projects that had a long history of source code.

With time, all large software projects grow increasingly unmanageable, even, and maybe especially when only one developer was involved.

So I sympathize with any software engineer whose job it is to take over a mountain of code and to make changes to it without introducing new problems.

Most software engineers would rather design new applications than maintain old stuff and do version 10 of anything that has to have all of the old features working, but be better in any way.

I’ve consigned myself to being laid off rather than to maintain someone else’s code base. The ironic thing is that it can take more skill to maintain software than to design and write good new stuff. That’s because it requires you to live within the mental model of the original software designer while understanding their bugs and limitations and making extensions to it that don’t break something.

We’ll said, Dan. Only those who have walked in your shoes can appreciate the truth in your words.

 

[dpower]

I finally upgraded to v10 on a MacBook Pro - went rather seamlessly, despite the annoying need to temporarily change security settings. Now that it's 64-bit, I won't be stuck on macOS Mojave - this was the last critical app holding me back. I like the recommended motors feature, though it took me a while to figure out how to run it. A search of the help turns up nothing when typing in "Recommended motors". Right-clicking in the "Recommended motors" tab doesn't give an option to run, that would be the intuitive way...

Anyhow, thanks to Apogee for providing this no-cost upgrade from v9.

 

[les]

Quick question - maybe I need to send to Apogee

When selecting materials, why is fiberglass so much lighter than G10 fiberglass?

When I was converting the Estes USS Andromeda Rocksim for the Wildman 3X upscale, I had to convert the material from cardboard/balsa to FG and found the weights absurdly light. They came in more realistic when I selected G10 FG

 

[Blast it Tom!]

G10 is a pressed laminate fiberglass epoxy that is actually pretty heavy for that kind of stuff, .065 lb/in^3 or 1.8 gram/cm^3, take your pick. I wonder what they are using for "fiberglass", which could have a pretty wide range of glass/vs binder, different resins for binders, etc.

When using G10, you have to be careful with the direction the plys are laying, though obviously that is parallel to the plane of the sheet. Also, please ALWAYS use respiratory protection and goggles at the least- those glass fibers are tough on people-parts!

 

[Dan Griffing]

G10 is a pressed laminate fiberglass epoxy that is actually pretty heavy for that kind of stuff, .065 lb/in^3 or 1.8 gram/cm^3, take your pick. I wonder what they are using for "fiberglass", which could have a pretty wide range of glass/vs binder, different resins for binders, etc.

When using G10, you have to be careful with the direction the plys are laying, though obviously that is parallel to the plane of the sheet. Also, please ALWAYS use respiratory protection and goggles at the least- thos glass fibers are tough on people-parts!

A similar safety concern exists for working with and sanding carbon fiber parts. Wear a respirator!