Yoyodyne Aerospace YA-52

[DynaSoar]

Yoyodyne Aerospace's R&D section developed this design
(1) with what was laying around,
(2) with no plans at all,
(3) completing one step before even considering the next,
(4) with all cutting done free hand,
(5) in less than 12 hours
(6) there is no #6
(7) because they could.

Dual 24mm MMT, haven't decided yet whether to make it glide or use chute recovery. Still needs fine tuning of materials joint and fillets, but the airframe is done.

The views in the collage are:

top bottom side from above the nose

nose view tail view

Not all R&D projects become kits. Two previous projects will become kits, right about today. Check with Rebar at Southern Thunder 2005, or after he gets back, to see the kits. This one, maybe. We'll see after flight testing.

Yoyodyne Aerospace: "It's the only way to be sure."

 

[dr wogz]

Dyna, Nice job!!

Reminds me of a shark!

 

[lalligood]

The nose cone & dual tube design reminds me of the Fat Cat Rockets' IFPI Strikeship. (FWIW, there's a link on the page to reviews on EMRR which show how the tubes are joined together.)

Still, it's a very cool design... I like the little sidepods too except I (along with other folks I'm sure) would probably leave the little caps off the back of the side pods & load up whatever size motors (13mm? 18mm?) we could squeeze in there!

 

[DynaSoar]

Originally posted by lalligood
The nose cone & dual tube design reminds me of the Fat Cat Rockets' IFPI Strikeship. (FWIW, there's a link on the page to reviews on EMRR which show how the tubes are joined together.)

Still, it's a very cool design... I like the little sidepods too except I (along with other folks I'm sure) would probably leave the little caps off the back of the side pods & load up whatever size motors (13mm? 18mm?) we could squeeze in there!

The pods are 18mm. It's not real stable so I'd be wary of addong motors there without really weighing down the nose.

I'm thinking about kitting it, but between styrene sheeting and square tube, and 6 nose cones, it wouldn't be cheap.

 

[DynaSoar]

I was thinking maybe a nice metallic finish.

 

[DynaSoar]

Looks like I have some CyA work to do. The heat from sitting in the sun drying made the plastic warp a bit.

 

[DynaSoar]

I though about adding a second scramjet but I think it looks cleaner this way.

 

[DynaSoar]

Well, the silver paint wouldn't dry and got fingerprints in it, and was impossible to clear coat. So I decided to go stealth. I repainted it with Rustoleum High Heat paint, the stuff made for painting the outside of wood stoves and such. It has a great dark charcoal grey color and is extremely flat. Silver is pretty, but I think this suits it better.

 

[vjp]

Where does the Oscillation Overthruster go?

 

[user 13]

Who was the chief desiner? John Bigboty? I assume it is a seekret.

 

[vjp]

Originally posted by mach7
Who was the chief desiner? John Bigboty? I assume it is a seekret.

That's BigbooTAY, monkeyboy!

 

[DynaSoar]

Yoyodyne Systems is originally from Thomas Pynchon's novels "V", "Gravity's Rainbow" and "The Crying of Lot 49". It's pretty much assumed that Yoyodyne was Pynchon poking fun at TRW.

Earl Mac Rauch (writer of Buckaroo Bonzai) wasn't the first to borrow from Pynchon. Star Trek's art director did so much earlier, and that continued throughout the ST series.

However, Pynchon did take note of the use in B.B. and spoofed them back. In his 1990 story "Vineland" he talks about a movie called "Eddie Enrico and his Hong Kong Hotshots". He also talks about Ramon Raquello, the name of the orchestra leader who was "interrupted" in the War of the Worlds broadcast. This was a round about way to reference Grover's Mill, NJ where the Martians landed in WotW, but also where Yoyodyne was located in B.B.

As for the overthruster, I don't need one. I don't intend to go plowing through solid objects. It plays heck with the paint job. Besides, it won't fit. The flux capacitor takes up too much room.

 

[DynaSoar]

Here it is on its maiden flight on two Estes E9-8s. We flew it from a high power pad farther away from the controllers since we weren't sure how it'd act. It acted fine, doing a slow roll (maybe three 360 degree rolls) all the way up and over.

I shouldn't have trusted the cheap, thin motor hooks to work well enough all by themselves, and added tape. Both motors spit out at ejection. The nose came off and the chute came only halfway out. But that was enough. It came down in a flat spin, landed belly first and bounced. Not a scratch on it.