Which leads me to what I did two weeks ago
Last night I finished my current project. It started out with a 3" BT from BMS. It has a 38mm x 9" mmt and 1/4" ply fins. I added a section of 29mm heavy motor tube to the ends of each fin. Then put a 30mm plastic dome on each of the tubes. I reinforced the bottom of each tube with strips of balsa that I glued to the inside of each tube with TB II. I added a balsa centering ring to the bottom of each tube with TB II. Then soaked the ring with thin CA. The rocket is 45" long and weighs 40 ounces with a chute. I made a small Av bay for an Eggtimer Apogee that will go into the rocket and is connected to the nose cone. When the charge fire the Av bay and nose cone are ejected taking the chute with them, I hope. I'm calling it "Vesta Mining". It would be the survey ship that locates asteroids to mine. The stripes and cockpit are all pin stripping.
Yesterday I received the soldering station I ordered from Amazon. And today I put what Bill from BMS taught me to solder 15 rotary switches up. The first couple were a little ruff, but I got better as I went along. I'm also still trying to come up with a new design for the next project. I like the rocket plane from Mach7's lost box of rockets. Still working on the drawing. So for the rest of today I will be installing switches in my dual deploy rockets that don't have switches in them. Here are the pictures.View attachment 483292View attachment 483293View attachment 483294View attachment 483295View attachment 483296
Jim Jarvis talks about deployment bags in this video. He's one of my Level 3 TAP's, and I'm following his suggestion to do it his way. Something else he recommends is with a "zipperless" drogue configuration, have the drogue close to the aft section... "non-zipperless", closer to the coupler. Can't recall where I saw him suggest that, but that's what I'm doing.I’m a bit nervous about flying with a deployment bag, to be honest. It feels like a risk to give the parachute another step to complete before deploying. However, it’s vital that the massive parachute that is going to be needed on my level 3 rocket uses one and I am determined to not try anything for the first time on that rocket except the 75mm motors. It was somewhat reassuring at least how easily the parachute falls out of the bag when it is packed according to Ky Michaelson’s demonstration video on the website.
Something else he recommends is with a "zipperless" drogue configuration, have the drogue close to the aft section...
Depends on whether you are building a standard fincan or zipperless. Zipperless, closer to fin can, Traditional, closer to altimeter bay. I use OneBadHawk 3 loop harnesses and depending on the fincan style the drogue loop is closer to one end or the other.My TAP's are telling me the exact opposite - the drogue needs to be attached to the upper section to help keep it pointed away from the aft section when the main deploys.
Did the club launch thingy both Saturday and Sunday at Bong. Put 4 up on Saturday, all had decent flights despite the high winds. Had a few issues with chute tangles but everything recovered pretty much unscathed.
My son joined me for the Sunday festivities and the results were much more of a mixed bag. Winds were still a stout 13 to 18mph constant with gusts in the high 20s. Of the 7 we put up 4 were successful and we treated those in attendance to a "powered pinwheel" show on the other 3. Of those 1 was a total loss and 1 may be able to be restored.. Did have the opportunity to introduce myself to DigBaddy.
A post mortem of Sundays failures is underway. I'm pretty confident in looking back that my decision to fly those 3 did not take into account the angle of attack issues that the winds produced in relationship to the size, type, and location of the fins on those specific birds.. So....hopefully lessons learned.
Are there any videos floating around of the pinwheels?
What you've been remiss in (if anything; this stuff is not truly required) is getting someone else to take pictures or video for you. You concentrate on watching the rocket, and hand off the camera.Unfortunately not. I've been pretty remiss at taking pics or videos. Need to chance that at the next launch.
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