What did you do rocket wise today?

[Art Upton]

Now looking forward to flying the Partizon in 2/3 mode* with the G88 Smokey Sam I picked up today at the motor vendor at the launch.

Next Year


* Means only using 2 of the 3 body tubes the kit has. I leave them non-glued for modular length use and shipping if needed.

** Yes , this is the one that has flown on an I205 twice

 

[Antares JS]

Decals for Shuttle Intrepid. Unfortunately, the aged decals came apart in a few places and I had to make do with what still worked. It came out decently enough, though.

 

[Sooner Boomer]

Had a great launch at Sayre today. We got a lot of students from OU and Univ. of Tulsa. We had 16 or 17 cert attempts with 13 or 14 passing. I launched my latest Design #2 on an H242. New rocket, new av bay. ET Apogee altimeter and JLCR. Clear skies with a bit of wind. It landed about 1/4 mile away. We had a lot of rockets land in the same area. Great day to launch!
(edit) Featherweight tracker says my rocket landed about 1/2 mile away. It's really neat to see the descent rate change when the JLCR lets go snd the chute opens!

 

[jeffjblack]

Not much else to say except: "Rocket Suffers Rapid Unplanned Disassembly"

 

[Raythain]

Great day flying with the JMRC crew, and got to spend most of the afternoon prepping right next door to @Art Upton.

Almost made a major misstep and tried to fly my dual deployment trainer without arming the altimeter. Dodged a bullet because the WiFi reached and I could arm my Eggtimer Quantum from the flight line.

Guess build season includes printing a set of new checklists for the range box.

 

[Gastrok]

Planning the build of a 3" version of my 4" "smoosh", the rocket in my profile picture that I flew for my L1.

Like the 4", it's a LOC Iris with trimmed fins.

 

[jmasterj]

Pulled some fillets on my Nuclear Crowbar, attached a fin to my Exocet, and worked on my Ultimate's av-bay.

 

[miket6000]

Over yesterday and today I made an attempted at making a nosecone mold from the 29mm PML conical urethane cone. The first half has a number of small voids on the inside, we'll see how the 2nd half comes out tonight when I separate the halves, hopefully a little cleaner as I was more aware of what I was doing.


Here it is sitting on the parting board with fillets and about 4 coats of release wax and a thin layer of PVA release agent. The layup consisted of a small amount of shredded 0.5oz cloth along the seams, then a few layers of 0.5oz and a backing of a couple of layers of 6oz for strength.


The first cup of epoxy kicked hard and fast so lesson learnt I poured the second one out onto a plate, it lasted much better that way.

Final mold half below and a pic of the worst of the voids. If anyone has done suggestions for how to best fill them, I'm all ears. Current plan is automotive filler, but I'd love for someone more experienced to chime in.

 

[John Kemker]

Spent about an hour, maybe two, using two different sanders to remove all the paint off my AMW FiberMax. Also used a "plastic razor" scraper to remove the stickers prior to sanding.

Want to pass on a tip for those using power tools to sand rockets:
If you have an air compressor, or canned air, blow out your equipment on a regular basis while sanding. Blow the dust off the sandpaper, also. This does a couple of things for you. 1) It keeps the dust from clogging up and potentially damaging your equipment. 2) Clearing out the sandpaper helps it cut better, without having to replace it. Also blow the dust off the piece you're sanding, for much the same reasons.

 

[Sooner Boomer]

Some edited pictures of the Tripoli Oklahoma launch today.

 

[Art Upton]

Great day flying with the JMRC crew, and got to spend most of the afternoon prepping right next door to @Art Upton.

Almost made a major misstep and tried to fly my dual deployment trainer without arming the altimeter. Dodged a bullet because the WiFi reached and I could arm my Eggtimer Quantum from the flight line.

Guess build season includes printing a set of new checklists for the range box.

So I will add to @Raythain 's report here

My Friend Fred was still working on preppin' a Loki 38mm motor and I ask Raythain next to me was if he is prepping a 4" ebay. I get closer and he says no, it's a 3" for my School Rocket. I then see a 'Maze with Blue' Rocket on the prep cradle on his table.

"Is that the EZ-DD kit" I ask? He answers "No, I made this out of the parts before the kit came out. Seems he has been Soldering Egg Timer Kits for folks that could not solder them.

He did something I had not seen in awhile and even forgot about. Most of us at JMRC fly drogue-less as you have heard me say before, even when we traveled to the Rock in days of old*. He used a Drogue in the Chute Cannon, and a Main in the booster with no motor backup he explained.

Later when the rocket flew, just after I exclaimed "Arcing Over" , the apogee event happened and a Green Chute popped. At first I thought, did he pop the main? No it was the drogue and it made the rocket easy to spot in the sky.

Then in a short bit, it did pop a red main.. POP I even heard... And the rocket landed gently..

Really , Really nice flight

*Fun thing I remembered about JMRC traveling to the Rock just now. Here is Big Red Bee's camp pictured on his website. If you look to the left, you will see the tip of a Saturn V on the trailer parked next to him. That is JMRC's trailer

 

[Wayco]

Started a build thread on the Estes "So Long" yesterday:
https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/waiting-so-long.189418/
My first build thread in quite a while.
I have a question regarding the booster for this rocket, has anyone seen how the booster recovers?
Back when I was building the two stage Estes Mongoose, I moved the fins into the middle of the booster tube to get it to tumble. Ballistic recovery of the booster was trashing the body tube.
If anyone has or has seen the booster on the So Long descend, please post up.

 

[Art Upton]

I put this OpenRocket together after breakfast. I flew one of these in 2003 on an Aerotech long burn H45-10 back when they had motor ejection. I also turned it into a Hybrid rocket back then, flying the first Hybrid at a NARAM on an H70 Ratt Hybrid. I then flew it on SkyRippers all the time till I wore it out

I got an H45-P yesterday from the motor vendor, but I will start out the shake down flight on the G69N End Burn with my new one. I am looking forward to building this over the build season upon us.

I have an Aerotech Nose Cone on this design, I have all the parts but the fins to build it in stock. Need to get the fins laser cut with Thru The Wall to Motor Mount tabs. My old one was back when LOC TTW fins did not go all the way to the motor mount, just into the tube.

Who does custom laser fins now?

 

[boatgeek]

I put this OpenRocket together after breakfast. I flew one of these in 2003 on an Aerotech long burn H45-10 back when they had motor ejection. I also turned it into a Hybrid rocket back then, flying the first Hybrid at a NARAM on an H70 Ratt Hybrid. I then flew it on SkyRippers all the time till I wore it out

I got an H45-P yesterday from the motor vendor, but I will start out the shake down flight on the G69N End Burn with my new one. I am looking forward to building this over the build season upon us.

I have an Aerotech Nose Cone on this design, I have all the parts but the fins to build it in stock. Need to get the fins laser cut with Thru The Wall to Motor Mount tabs. My old one was back when LOC TTW fins did not go all the way to the motor mount, just into the tube.

Who does custom laser fins now?

View attachment 676935
View attachment 676936

Dragon Rocketry will cut plywood fins. I believe Wildman will do composites.

 

[bjphoenix]

Decals for Shuttle Intrepid. Unfortunately, the aged decals came apart in a few places and I had to make do with what still worked. It came out decently enough, though.

Many years ago I built plastic models and rarely had any problems with decals, these days with me working on old kits from my club's junk pile I've had a lot of problems. I put decals on a couple of kits today and had to soak them for a long time, up to 5 or 6 minutes, to get them to cleanly release. I still had a few that tore and so I had to put the pieces on the surface and then slide them around until they met. Previous rockets I've only had problems with the decals that wrap all the way around. I've thought that for those in the future I should cut them in half, put the 2 halves on, then slide them around until they meet. Today I learned that I had to be patient and wait until the decals completely let go of the paper before I try to put them on.

Of the 3 kits I've been building in the current batch I'm still working on paint for one of them. This was an Estes Rainmaker but I'm building it with Nike-Apache inspiration. The transition from BT-55 to BT-5 is a cardstock cone and I was going to paint it white, with the sustainer painted black and silver. Once the white was on now the challenge was how to mask it to paint the darker colors. I decided the only way was to cut a piece of masking tape to similar pattern as the transition cone. I've seen those calculations online but I had already derived my own calculations so that is what I used. I put a big piece of tape down on the side of a paper milk carton, drew the pattern on it and cut it out with hobby knife. It wrapped around the transition very well. Now the next challenge is keeping paint from leaking under the tape, which I've seen happen a lot with this particular tape, so I sprayed a coat of white over it so whatever leaks under the tape will be the same color as what is already under there. After that dries I will spray the silver then black.

 

[BrendanH69]

Stinking hot and humid day for flying at QRS Nov. launch day yesterday.

The mini Tin-Tin Rocket got its maiden flight on a CTI Pro24 6G 139G107 Dual Thrust, which was fun! It got to about 2000ft with a good landing, although a couple of the fin-pods have aa hairline crack or two.





View attachment Pro24 6G 139G107 Dual Thrust.MOV

 

[BrendanH69]

Also yesterday, I had mixed success with the first dual Deploy attempts.

"Flight 1" was with a CTI Pro38 1G 143G150 BlueStreak. It had batch date of May 2017 (quite young compared to the rest of my inventory) and so it needed to have the Pellet Mod done per CTI advice https://www.motorcato.org/document/Bulletin_Pro38_1G_Pellet_Issue_v1.2.pdf
I attempted the mod, but just could not get the pellet out and it was at risk of damaging the top of the grain. So it went to the pad un-trimmed, and yes it failed.
The pellet ignited very energetically, blasted the grain out he back of the rocket, and shot the case and delay up inside the rocket, causing it to bunny hop off the top of the rail! I'm now the proud owner of a damaged 1G of Bluestreak propellant, which I'll vac bag and put in the magazine for some future use.

No damage done fortunately, so it got inspected and reloaded with a CTI Pro38 1G 117G69 Skidmark and it flew a reasonably successful dual deploy flight to 1269ft about 45mins later, with the first case still jammed halfway up inside the airframe! Got the case out at home with the aid of a broom handle and a hammer!





View attachment IMG_1842.MOV

 

[Art Upton]

Also yesterday, I had mixed success with the first dual Deploy attempts.

"Flight 1" was with a CTI Pro38 1G 143G150 BlueStreak. It had batch date of May 2017 (quite young compared to the rest of my inventory) and so it needed to have the Pellet Mod done per CTI advice https://www.motorcato.org/document/Bulletin_Pro38_1G_Pellet_Issue_v1.2.pdf
I attempted the mod, but just could not get the pellet out and it was at risk of damaging the top of the grain. So it went to the pad un-trimmed, and yes it failed.
The pellet ignited very energetically, blasted the grain out he back of the rocket, and shot the case and delay up inside the rocket, causing it to bunny hop off the top of the rail! I'm now the proud owner of a damaged 1G of Bluestreak propellant, which I'll vac bag and put in the magazine for some future use.

No damage done fortunately, so it got inspected and reloaded with a CTI Pro38 1G 117G69 Skidmark and it flew a reasonably successful dual deploy flight to 1269ft about 45mins later, with the first case still jammed halfway up inside the airframe! Got the case out at home with the aid of a broom handle and a hammer!

View attachment 677185 View attachment 677186



View attachment 677187

View attachment 677188

Thanks for reminding me of that issue, I had forgotten.

 

[Hammster]

During our group's launch on Saturday, one of our members brought a few boxes of rocket goodies for anyone to take what they might want. I grabbed a Big Bertha and what was left of a Mega Mosquito (MM). What was left was basically the fin can part of the rocket (still in pretty good shape) and the nosecone. Anyway, yesterday I printed a coupler and glued it into the fin can of the MM. Lots of glue and a tight fit. It's not going anywhere. I'll need to pick up a BT80 tube and cut it to the correct length and then attach it to the coupler. Here's a pic so far. No significance to the brown color of the coupler. It's just what filament (PLA) I already had on the printer.
Luckily I already have a standard Mosquito so I was able to calculate how long the new piece of tube will be based on ratios from the small one.
Getting back to the Bertha; it seems the old motor mount was removed from the body tube so I'll need to fabricate a new motor mount and insert it. Other than that, and maybe a couple of shiny clear coats, not much to do with the BB.

 

[jqavins]

Getting back to the Bertha; it seems the old motor mount was removed from the body tube so I'll need to fabricate a new motor mount and insert it. Other than that, and maybe a couple of shiny clear coats, not much to do with the BB.

Standard BB 18 mm MMT, or will you upgrade to 24 mm?
------------------------
Yesterday I finally started to design my retro design entry. I have the back end, a nominee for the nose cone, and a plane 4" tube in between. The fins are temporary stand-ins for the swoopy ones that inspired the project. Generating those will be a PITA, so I sizes some plane trapezoidal fins and will duplicate their total area in the swoopies.

 

[Art Upton]

Standard BB 18 mm MMT, or will you upgrade to 24 mm?

Upgrade, Upgrade !

You can always just use an 18mm adapter , and then still be able to use a D motor when you have a big field.

 

[Hammster]

Standard BB 18 mm MMT, or will you upgrade to 24 mm?

My first thought was to go bigger so I likely will.

 

[Hobie1dog]

Sprayed more primer on the bad seam on the Guideline rocket

 

[RokitFlyr]

Looked at the handful of projects that need paint before it gets too cold. Yeah, that didn't happen....

 

[Art Upton]

Looked at the handful of projects that need paint before it gets too cold. Yeah, that didn't happen....

I feel that pain, I have a few.. they ain't happenin' either

 

[Tookanforever]

Ground tested the Arcas, prepping for Distant Thunder..

 

[RokitFlyr]

I feel that pain, I have a few.. they ain't happenin' either

And that unfinished pile will grow because I'll have to build more during the winter....sigh...

 

[Gastrok]

1. Sanded primer on my Estes PSII Nike Smoke. Might get away with just 1 coat of primer. Wouldn't that be special ;-)
2. Working on my plan for the last CMASS launch of the year. ETA....crap, just saw we still have red flag fire conditions at the field. Maybe no launch ;-(

 

[Joekeyo]

Packed some large items in truck for this weekend's launch. Tent, chairs, EZ up etc.
Went to printer to pick up flight cards for NSL.

 

[GrouchoDuke]

Thought about it.