What did you do rocket wise today?

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Put a few more decals on the Goblin, printed out a few extra to replace the ones I ruined, and static-fired a pair of C11-7s to make a display spike for it. Yes I KNOW I’m way too close, I wanted to get a good video of the first one to show to a couple of my Discord friends.
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Who says you can’t have fun for $4. Thing was fun and only 3.99 lol. 220 Swift for the Friday fun build.
 

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Was the Astron Streak the one with the mylar body tube? Anyone ever launch one of those and see it again?
Yes, it was the first rocket my parents bought me once they had the necessary. A strip of adhesive paper was wrapped around the tube to permit fins to be glued there. The directions also explained how to carve out the nose cone to gain another few feet of altitude. No, I never saw mine after the first launch on an A8-3. Or maybe it was an A .8-3.

Best --Terry
 
Finished the Yalga instructions. Better get more testing in before the burn bans start.

Bought some styrene rod and tube, some half round and a pack of Bare Metal gold foil.

'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes...'
 
Had one as a kid. followed the instructions for maximum apogee.
Split the nose cone, hollowed it out, reglued it back.
Carefully airfoiled the wings.
IIRC there was a choice of three fin shapes. Chose the maximum apogee one (popsicle stick shape I think).
Launched it on a C, lost sight of it going up.
Saw the ejection charge go off on the way down.
Never found it.
My friend said it blew apart.
BUT IT WAS WORTH IT!
A couple of years ago I printed some of these. They used 18mm motors and even on A's they were sacrificial.

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Was the Astron Streak the one with the mylar body tube? Anyone ever launch one of those and see it again?
Yes it did have a Mylar tube. I Never had one. My friend did. His hit 2000 and came back. I did have a Centuri Little Hercules about the same size and similar to the Astron Streak with one more fin. Both could attain 2000 feet with a C6-7. My Hercules went up on a C6-7 on a clear day with no wind out of sight and came down about 100 feet away from the launch pad. It was painted Black with shiny silver tape on the tip of the fins. That helped seeing it on the way down about 400 feet from the ground.
 

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Built a Streak around 67 or so. My very first rocket. Never flew.

In keeping with the thread, I read through the forum. Looked at the 7.67" nosecone that is getting a bono putty repair.
Didn't feel like sanding today.
 
Received a receiver for telemetry I ordered a week back. RFD900+ for long-range 900MHz. This is for the GSE end of my link. Configured it and a Bluetooth transceiver then carefully fitted all that and a battery (1300mAh 3s) and 5V SBEC to a box to neaten it all up.
VTSRx.jpg
This is a diversity receiver and has two antennas so it can select whichever is getting the better signal level at the time for reception. One side will be fed by a 6-element Yagi-Uda and the other by a regular dipole. That way if my pointing is off I still get telemetry of some sort.

Cranked up the mill and spent part of the day working on an antenna boom to hold the aforementioned Yagi, dipole and also a patch antenna for video telemetry reception. Happy with the result so far

Eventually the receiver pictured and an additional VRx (video receiver) will be mounted onto the same boom.
 
Prevously I had put some holes in some 2x4" pine to make bases for my receiver masts. Painted them yesterday and here is the result. The bases get screwed to nuts that go into T-slots on my car roofrack. In the absence of a 56mm holesaw I had to use a boring head on the mill to make the hole.
BoringMastMount.jpg
Mast.jpg


Completed mounting three antennas to a boom ready for tracking. Still need to terminate one coax and mount a couple of receiver boxes to the boom. Might print up a bracket or two on the 3D printer for that.
AntennaBoom.jpg

So that is a patch antenna (1.3GHz), Yagi-Uda antenna (915MHz) and a double centre-loaded whip (435MHz). The loading coils on the antenna make the radiation pattern less dependent on ground planes.

The GSE is coming together :).
 
I put a whole can of Krylon 2 in 1 filler primer on my current project. Right now it's 4 fins and 54 inches of BT with a 38mm mmt. But I have plans. [cue.. Boris Karloff.. laughing madly ].

how did the primer sand? I’ve usually had real good luck with it but just ran into a nightmareon my HPR where it’s wouldn’t harden. Had to strip it all off. Was a pain.
 
how did the primer sand? I’ve usually had real good luck with it but just ran into a nightmareon my HPR where it’s wouldn’t harden. Had to strip it all off. Was a pain.
That's too bad. It went on kind of spitting but turned out ok. Sanded better than Rusto. Almost no clogging of the sandpaper and very little dust compared to Rusto.
 
I received my replacement AA-10 Alamo AAM from Rocketarium. This was going to be my Sport Scale entry at NARAM-62, but housekeeping at the Marriot in Austin TX made it disappear- I assume it was thrown out, but it was not located.:mad::dontknow: So, no competition entry for me at NARAM, but I still couldn't leave it as is, so I will build it again.


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At about 1am today I put 2 coats of color with Krylon paint on my current project. I'll paint the fins tonight. I also prepped a few rockets to fly today if the wind slows a little bit more.
 
Got to fly a rocket! Made it down to the ROSCO launch and got one flight in on a scratch BT80 Cherokee D upscale on an E23-8T. I was surprised that the ejection charge was pretty much spot on, as I expected it to be a hair late, but forgot my drill.

A buddy flew an Aerotech Initiator on an F40-7W which had a lot of oxidation, but it started well with a particular starter. It was a bit late on election (still plenty safe, just a little farther over the top than desired). No damage as well.

We prepped 2 more rockets to fly (me a Formula 54 with an H220T-M and he a duplicate F40 prep with a slightly drilled delay - we borrowed a drill). We missed the rack and the weather turned quickly with lightning spotted in the distance, so the range was shutdown for the day.

Kind-of a long drive for launching 2 MPR's, but I'm not complaining. I believe this is the first time he and I have flown rockets since Fall of 2019. . .

Sandy.
 
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