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For awhile, I have been wanting to make up a low power, large diameter, short rocket to use for demo flights. Something more eye-catching than say a Baby Bertha, but can still fly on cheap engines, to low altitudes when necessary due to small school fields and such.
And, something sort of simple so if it landed on a roof or up a tree, it would not be much of a loss.
Last Friday night ,I finally threw one together. Using some Estes BT-101 tubing, and one of several vac-formed "Apollo BPC" cones left over from my Little Joe-II models.
It was made short since I wanted it to be short, and, I could cut three of them out of one of the 24.7" BT-101 tubes I have.
Made the centering rings out of 1/32" plywood. Gave it a 24mm mount, but for demo uses it can fly on as little of a B6-2 to about 80-90 feet up.
Test flew it at the BRB June launch last Saturday. The first flight, on a C6-3, did not go well. The model curved over on boost and ejected shortly before it hit the ground. Landed hard, breaking a fin off, but that was easy to fix. I was puzzled about why it veered so much. I took a liftoff photo, so I actually did not see the powered part of the flight, only shortly before ejection. Club members said it gradually turned, but I did not understand it, it was not windy. But it did end up going downwind, which unstable rockets tend to do. So, I figured it might have been marginally stable.
I did not have a big lump of clay around to add as noseweight, as I would have liked. So, I just CA'ed a burned out engine casing into the nose cone. Flew it on a B6-2, and it flew dead straight up, ejection right at apogee, about 90 feet up, but the chute "fell" inside of the hollow nose cone, so it did not come out.
OK, Take Three. Added some paper towel inside of the nose cone to fill it. So the chute could not fall inside of the nose cone. Later on I may glue in a plastic disk or friction fit a piece of blue foam to serve the same purpose, especially if I build another of these. Flew it on a C6-3, straight up, chute deployed fine, and a really good flight.
The name of the model? Well, I think I will call it "Stubby".
Yeah, it’ll get some paint, now that it is proven. But it will not be anything fancy since, again, it will be running a high risk of loss at demos.
BTW - link to the rest of the pics from the BRB launch:
https://birminghamrocketboys.com/BRBGallery/main.php?g2_itemId=129046
- George Gassaway
And, something sort of simple so if it landed on a roof or up a tree, it would not be much of a loss.
Last Friday night ,I finally threw one together. Using some Estes BT-101 tubing, and one of several vac-formed "Apollo BPC" cones left over from my Little Joe-II models.
It was made short since I wanted it to be short, and, I could cut three of them out of one of the 24.7" BT-101 tubes I have.
Made the centering rings out of 1/32" plywood. Gave it a 24mm mount, but for demo uses it can fly on as little of a B6-2 to about 80-90 feet up.
Test flew it at the BRB June launch last Saturday. The first flight, on a C6-3, did not go well. The model curved over on boost and ejected shortly before it hit the ground. Landed hard, breaking a fin off, but that was easy to fix. I was puzzled about why it veered so much. I took a liftoff photo, so I actually did not see the powered part of the flight, only shortly before ejection. Club members said it gradually turned, but I did not understand it, it was not windy. But it did end up going downwind, which unstable rockets tend to do. So, I figured it might have been marginally stable.
I did not have a big lump of clay around to add as noseweight, as I would have liked. So, I just CA'ed a burned out engine casing into the nose cone. Flew it on a B6-2, and it flew dead straight up, ejection right at apogee, about 90 feet up, but the chute "fell" inside of the hollow nose cone, so it did not come out.
OK, Take Three. Added some paper towel inside of the nose cone to fill it. So the chute could not fall inside of the nose cone. Later on I may glue in a plastic disk or friction fit a piece of blue foam to serve the same purpose, especially if I build another of these. Flew it on a C6-3, straight up, chute deployed fine, and a really good flight.
The name of the model? Well, I think I will call it "Stubby".
Yeah, it’ll get some paint, now that it is proven. But it will not be anything fancy since, again, it will be running a high risk of loss at demos.
BTW - link to the rest of the pics from the BRB launch:
https://birminghamrocketboys.com/BRBGallery/main.php?g2_itemId=129046
- George Gassaway
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