Saucer work

[WillCarney]

I was just working on two saucers and I thought it was ironic so
I just had to share. The attached picture is a little dark (sorry).

Down in front is the smallest saucer I have done. "MMX Delta"
from Art Applewhite's web site at just two inches in diameter.

Behind it is "Mucho CINCO" which is the largest saucer I have
done or am working on to date. I wanted it to be over 4 feet in
diameter but in making the templates and cutting the patterns it
came out to just about 40 inches in diameter. This one will have
a lot of LED's for night flying L and M motors. I am still not sure
if this one will need a parachute.

William

 

[Brian Barney]

wow! shoot, im making a 18" wide pyramid to fly on G's, and your gonna fly one on an M at night? I really want to go to that launch!
hehe, I cant wait to see this one built!

 

[Chicagonative17]

As long as you scale everything up from smaller pyramids or saucer kits, it will definetly work. I have done it on an I motor at night, it is truely spectacular. Fly on a Sparky motor or a green gorilla. Just with the sparky motor, make sure the material used to make the rocket will withstand the sparks because it can put holes through some material.

PS: don't do it in the wind. I witnessed a K powered saucer at night fly horizontally 15 ft. over my head and everyone elses head on a white lightning motor. While it was the coolest thing that ever happened to me, I don't want that to ever happen again.

Ian

 

[WillCarney]

First of all, this is not a pyramid, it’s a saucer. It’s a five sided
flying saucer like Art AppleWhites Cinco series with a upper
and lower section. The picture was a little dark and off angle a
little. Here’s a shot of it more from the side. The bottom
section is about 8 inches tall and the top section is about 14
inches tall. Give or take a few inches (I did not measure that).

This will have several layers of fiberglass inside and out side of
the matte board body. It will have inside stiffeners of fiberglass
matte board and be foam filled as well. I plan to put quite a few
LED’s on it for night flying. It will have a 75mm motor mount
for L and M motors. Right now I need to cert L3 before I fly
the saucer on an M. Hopefully I can have my certification
flight before our Muscle Launch at the end of April. An M
sparky would be cool at night, the fiberglass should withstand it.

Saucers can be tricky to fly if you don’t know much about them.
I have successfully flown saucers even with winds up to 18 mph
but with high thrust motors. Saucers by there nature have at least
3-4 times the drag of a regular rocket for it’s motor size. Most
flyers are aware of the thrust to weight issue on regular rockets
but with saucers you have to be aware of thrust to drag as well.
The balance points must be equal also. A saucer that weather
cocks might take a little to figure out why. Besides a low thrust
motor it might be one side was too heavy. On any saucer, it must
be balanced horizontally. Too much weight on one side will
affect it. This is going to be tricky on this big one because all
lights need to have an equal weight on each of the five sides.
This goes for batteries as well. A saucer might be just plain
unstable or over stable. Over stable with long motors sticking
out the top can make the saucer weather cock in higher winds.
The general rule of thumb for saucers is to have the CG about
center of the motor mount tube or forward (with the out motor
in place). The CP is always under the body.

I will post a build later when I am more complete on the construction.

William

 

[WillCarney]

I am going to post the build from time to time.

Here's a shot of the center panel (flat between sections) of my
large saucer project with the first layers of fiberglass.

William

 

[WillCarney]

The backside with it's first layer.

William

 

[WillCarney]

After the first layer on both sides of the matte board were cured
I decided that it still need much more strength.

Here's the panel with one more layer of fiberglass attached to a
1/8 inch 3-ply birch. Adds a little weight but I will deal with that
later.

William