Venus Probe, 1/2 of a successful flight

[BABAR]

Flight report and a few details, some of these pics have been posted before.

Better than first flight, where incomplete separation led to nose blow, which doesn't work with this rocket. Successfully deployed the lander, which actually had a nice flight. I had time to pull out the camera and turn it on and catch the lander on the way down.

Did NOT deploy the mothership main chute, mother ship came in ballistic, surprisingly little damage to the body tube--- BUT there was a blowout in the rear. I have three 1/2 circle baffle plates on this, looks like the blowout was due to pressure around where the engine hook penetrated. May be partially overpressure at the engine mount due to the baffle plates, I dunno.

BTW, this is modified for D engines, which I think are a nice engine for descent altitude on this bird and allows you the liberty to paint it well. Got this one on Ebay, didn't have the original decals, so made up my own design. One thing I was REALLY happy with, the lander has wooden dowels for the legs. I used mylar metallic tape to decorate these before attaching them to the black plastic fittings (the mylar comes in lots of colors, including silver, copper, and gold, so gives you lots of options.)

Something I DON'T like about the original design is that the forward body tube is too small. The little yellow (green/grey/ color of choice) man has to fit into the tube with the nose, in addition to both parachutes and wadding if you choose to use it (I use a bit in addition to the baffle plates). It is a tight fit.

Rebuild is in order for this bird (will save the original as a hanger queen, but will re-use the nose cone/lander unit, if I can find the right body tube to replace the forward unit of the mother ship. Will replace the retention "ring" (which has to be INCREDIBLY draggy) with three paper straws which should easily accommodate the dowels. Rest of this should be an easy build.

 

[K'Tesh]

Sorry about the blowout. Good luck on the rebuild.

On my VP's I cut the motor tube down to allow for the BT-50 body tube segment I used for motor tube. The new motor tube matched the length of the outer fin can body tube, and I overlapped the new motor tube with the original tube (using centering rings to keep everything straight) and maintained the original design's length (except for VPIII which is outfitted for up to E motors). I built the motor mount so that the the engine hook was butted up against the aftmost centering ring for the tube that connects the fin can to the forward body. That way the centering ring acts as a the trust ring for the motor. I don't have a baffle that body tube is so tiny, that the amount of recovery wadding is a reasonable expense (and could be supplemented with dog barf). To protect the original motor tube from the hottest gasses, I added a couple of inches of aluminum cut from a soda can to act as a flame guard.

I agree that the mothership's forward body tube is a bit small, but if the original motor tube has the wadding placed in it, that frees all the remaining space for the parachutes.

Another idea for the leg retaining ring is to use strips of balsa to hold the ring centered on the forward body, and allow air to pass freely between them. You'll maintain the appearance of the original, with out all the drag (not that this is really a competition flier though).

VPI is on eternal mission (unless I can sneak onto the property and cut my way through the blackberries to retrieve the lander).
VPII is in primer (D powered mod)
VPIII is awaiting fins

I've contemplated a 4th build with a BT-50 for the connecting tube... Maybe someday... especially if VPI's lander is ever recovered.

 

[aerostadt]

This model really needs the extra power of 24 mm BP motors. D12's will work good. As I recall for smaller fields I have used the 24 mm Estes C11's successfully.

 

[joekipp]

Wow, that's a neat model. Very cool design. I hope Estes makes more at some point.
Joe