Wildman 4" V2 - Flight video & World's shortest build thread

[bclark989]

Hi all,

Finally got to fly my Wildman 4" V2 this past weekend and wanted to come brag about it. This is my first fiberglass build and it was my first successful use of dual deploy (the Hyperloc in my avatar is barkdust).

Here is the build:

I started with this pile of parts:



I followed these instructions and found some black and orange spray paint (Go Beavs!) and made this!:



Here she is on the pad:



So after about 6 months of what was actually a very slow build, a surprisingly difficult masking tape job for paint, a successful battle with launch fever in May (brought it all the way to the desert but wasn't comfortable with no nose weight and I hadn't tested ejection), she finally flew on a CTI J430 White Thunder this weekend. Perfect flight, perfect recovery. Can't wait to put a bigger motor in it.

Cheers!

[YOUTUBE]kxMpoouYBT8[/YOUTUBE]

 

[llickteig1]

Did you wind-up adding nose weight? If so, how much?

 

[burkefj]

That was a great flight and perfect dual deploy, even If it had a somewhat non scale liftoff speed��

 

[bclark989]

That was a great flight and perfect dual deploy, even If it had a somewhat non scale liftoff speed��

Ha! Indeed. It would be fun to see a real V2 go from 0 to 560mph in 1.9 seconds.

Did you wind-up adding nose weight? If so, how much?

Yes, about 6 oz at the very tip using fishing weights and epoxy, which gave me a stability margin of 0.625 on the pad with a liftoff weight of 7.75 lbs.

 

[Bee]

What is the preferred motor to give this V2 the scale liftoff speed? Should it liftoff with just enough thrust to keep it stable then progressively increase thrust to achieve an altitude of about 5,000 ft or less? Frank achieves a beautiful scale liftoff effect with his large lightweight foam rockets. Can it be done with a heavy short rocket?

 

[bclark989]

Can it be done with a heavy short rocket?

It's tough. Here is a write-up on the relationship between thrust-to-weight ratio and the acceleration of a rocket:

Calculating Rocket Acceleration

If you pick the numbers out of their examples, the model rocket has a TTW ratio of ~10:1, which is pretty typical of model and amateur rockets (my V2 in this launch had a TTW ratio of ~11.6:1). The shuttle on the other hand has a TTW ratio of ~1.5:1, which is well under what we allow per our safety codes. The lowest I would probably feel comfortable going would be 4:1 in no wind. For my V2, that means an average thrust of 137N.

Maybe I'll fly it on the I165 C-Star in September (4.7:1 TTW).

 

[flynfrog]

stops copies me

 

[jd2cylman]

stops copies me

Naw, different roll pattern. His is closer to this one:
View attachment 297865

I made this one for the Wildman drag race last November at the MidWest Power launch (XIII).
I did not use any nose weight (but it is set up for HED).
It was the first time I built a Wildman kit the same year he released it....

Adrian (dog squeaky football was not included as payload...)

 

[bclark989]

Nice pictures! I liked the black and yellow scheme of the various stock photos I could find, and then just opted to tweak it to black and orange because the Beavers don't get as much love as the Ducks out here, and the OSU rocket team flies with us pretty often.

I took the pattern from John Coker's website, although I didn't get it quite right in terms of the heights of the three main sections. Here is his page on the V2: https://www.jcrocket.com/locv2.shtml

 

[farsidius]

Nice flight on the weekend. Rocket looked great!

-brant