Terrible names (a scratch building challenge)

[cbrarick]

Christmas trees: The Grinches' Revenge, Nightmare Before Christmas
My L1 flight "morning after bad thai food."
this red glare's project "another bad idea."

 

[MJW]

Here a few more poorly chosen names:
Land Shark XL
Ballistic Flyer
No Way Home
ACME Coyote Launcher
Recovery Optional

 

[dhbarr]

And He's Fly Hi Hing Hay Flare Hair Way Two Hebbun

Disclaimer: if your announcer renames it on the field it's not my fault.

 

[mooffle]

Wildfire

This sounded awesome for about 2 seconds before the realization set in.

 

[jqavins]

So I started thinking about planets and moons.

Phobos and Diemos. Sounds like good, nerdy names, right? Until you realize that Phobos means "fear" and Diemos "terror" or "dread".

Still, credit where credit is due, nothing else in thread yet has been as good as @Jim Hinton's "Indestructible 2".

 

[Y3kankerous]

Glad this thread got resurrected!
I used to do quite a few pub quizzes and there was often a team called "Norfolk and Chants", that could also make a good terrible rocket name (clue: say it out loud but not in front of the kids or boss)
Liked the HHGG refs and would add
Constructor Fleet (def. "yellow ships used to destroy planets")
Also some some film and music inspired ones...
We Brake For Nobody
How I learned to stop worrying and love the launch
I can never come home again cause I seem to have left an important part of my rocket, somewhere, somewhere in a field in Hampshire.
My spaceship knows which way to go

It occurred to me that some bad rocket names would work just as well as bad band names, especially in "heavier" music genres
Irrevocable Countdown
Catastrophic Motor Failure
Defeated Interlock

Generally any name decal in this sort of text lol

 

[MidOH]

Red Rocket
Sofa King
Vlad the Impaler (don't steal that, I'm using it)
We Todd Ed
Cornelius
Rockety McRocket Face
Amanda Huginkiss
Anita Bath
Ollie Tabooger
Moe Run
Lee Keybum

 

[jqavins]

Vlad the Impaler (don't steal that, I'm using it)

So are more than a coupler of other people. I've even nicknamed my furnace blower "Vlad the Impeller".

 

[MidOH]

Bummer, will have to try "Lord Impaler" to be halfway original.

Charcoal Kazoo.

 

[Jim Hinton]

Bummer, will have to try "Lord Impaler" to be halfway original.

Charcoal Kazoo.

If you want to dazzle them with your knowledge and worldly ways, call one Vlad Teppes. That was his real name. I have always found him to be one of history's more interesting characters. He gets a bad rap, those were incredibly brutal times and circumstances. Everything that he did to the Ottomans, he learned from the Ottomans. Brevity and good taste will preclude going into the details of his captivity as a child hostage to the Ottoman empire. I have no problem understanding the source of his ferocity.

Jim

 

[MidOH]

Haha. Thanks, that would be a cool rocket name. Would have to be one heck of a good/bad rocket though.

 

[Zeta]

Deep Aspce Probe

 

[teepot]

Red Rocket
Sofa King
Vlad the Impaler (don't steal that, I'm using it)
We Todd Ed
Cornelius
Rockety McRocket Face
Amanda Huginkiss
Anita Bath
Ollie Tabooger
Moe Run
Lee Keybum

The group I play golf with pulled the Sofa King gag on one guy in our group who had never seen it before. Another of our group does stand up. He wrote it down and slid it across the table to the mark. Who was half in the bag. He read the thing a dozen times and he never got it. The rest of the 24 of us were laughing are butts off. I had tears running down my face and I wasn't alone. The mark now is know as Sofa King.

 

[BABAR]

The group I play golf with pulled the Sofa King gag on one guy in our group who had never seen it before. Another of our group does stand up. He wrote it down and slid it across the table to the mark. Who was half in the bag. He read the thing a dozen times and he never got it. The rest of the 24 of us were laughing are butts off. I had tears running down my face and I wasn't alone. The mark now is know as Sofa King.

Our Air Force Academy Falcon Football cheer was (starting slowly and gradually speeding up)

”Hey, Falcon , Hey, Falcon, Hey, Falcon, Hey, Falcon, Hey, Falcon…….”

that said, ”Sofa King High” would be a good crude rocket name. It would be fun to hear the RSO call it out.

 

[Rob Campbell]

Future Confetti

 

[Zeta]

Catotonic

 

[caveduck]

There are some good ones from old rocketry history...these are from 50 years ago

"Disaster 17-B Valkyrie" (and it lived up to its name, acres of balsa with hilariously excessive power)
Geoff Landis crashed his "Tall Tale 10", lopped of a bunch of crumpled tube and renamed it "Short Snout 6"
"Groundhog" A very high aspect ratio swingwing glider notorious for death spirals...well named IMO
"Annoy Buzz Pester Irritate" - a Gnat (1/4A) B/G by alan15578

and my favorite modern one:

"up up down down left right left right" (most of the Konami Code)

 

[Y3kankerous]

Given the popularity of impaling references, for a fairly oblique but potentially even more grisly reference to good ole Vlad, how about...
Poenari Gatepost
Poenari is the "real" cragtop castle dracula which can only be reached by climbing one and a half thousand stone steps. At top, you are greeted by some waxworks of impaled victims (websearch something like poenari impaled if you are morbidly interested), maybe these could be a blueprint for a scratch build... with a ken doll like the ones that suffered a comparably terrible fate from @Daddyisabar s xenomorphs! but would need some good stabilisation!

 

[Alan15578]

There are some good ones from old rocketry history...these are from 50 years ago

"Disaster 17-B Valkyrie" (and it lived up to its name, acres of balsa with hilariously excessive power)
Geoff Landis crashed his "Tall Tale 10", lopped of a bunch of crumpled tube and renamed it "Short Snout 6"
"Groundhog" A very high aspect ratio swingwing glider notorious for death spirals...well named IMO
"Annoy Buzz Pester Irritate" - a Gnat (1/4A) R/G by alan15578

and my favorite modern one:

"up up down down left right left right" (most of the Konami Code)

In defense of the Groundhog, I preferred them because they were reliable and always boosted straight with no boost trimming. It was a Jon Robbins design that was optimized to use up 3 x 36 inch balsa sheet. I downsized it to a 1" chord, which worked well with A and 1/2A 13mm motors. I went down to a 3/4" chord for the Gnat, but this proved to be my least successful Groundhog. It just did not have enough wing area.

My most developed Groudhog is the "I aint nutin but a groundhog." I still have it. I bears the T178 (Hawkeye Team), crossed out and replaced with T2 (Dual Eggloft Team). This one was upscaled to a 2.5" chord for D class. It featured: Nylon pivot screws, making the wings and pivot serviceable and repairable. A balsa Fuselage covered with carbon fiber tow, since solid Spruce was too heavy. A pop stab DT with Sig DT fuse. A tow hook to assist glide trimming. And of course the undercambered and tissued wings. It was intended to use a FSI E5, which was briefly contest certified as a 17 NS D. However, I only had long delay E5s at the time so I clustered an A3-6t to get the proper delay for wing deployment. As fate would have it, the A3 catoed. This first cut the deployment release string, allowing the wings to deploy about 45 degrees, before the elastic burned through and the wings folded back again. A true to it's name Groundhog. It was repaired and now has a 24mm pod.

I don't remember any other flights, but I know from personal experience that a DT on a contest glider is the kiss of death. Any time I used one it was not needed. Still, I wish we had a good convenient electronic DT. Probably one that that would auto start after launch. I note that FAI rules permit R/C DT, but there is nothing in the US sporting code that permits this.

 

[Zeta]

The Big Zipper !

 

[BABAR]

Working off the Groundhog theme, “Sonic Mole” would also be a potentially spectacularly bad name.