Taken by one of the photographers from Blue Planet Media (and I've forgotten his name to my eteranal shame), this liftoff shot of my upscaled Yellow Jacket boosting on twin C6 motors has been used in NAR promotional materials.

Sweet!

Talking to someone recently about rocketry, they were surprised when I mentioned that we flew them more than once. They were under the impression that the rockets flew up and disappeared or exploded or some such. We bring them back under parachute or other recovery method. The rocket in the photo has made 21 flights so far, and is still going strong.

Posted by: Ted at 05:55 AM | category: Rocketry
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Way back in 2003 I posted a little blip about finishing rockets, and the guy who laminated sheets of uncut one dollar bills to his airframe.

Here are some other interesting finishes I've seen.

On a rocket named Child's Play, the owner had his kids dip their hands in fingerpaint and left primary-colored hand-prints all over the rocket.

Another guy left his unpainted, but every time the rocket flew he wrote the date of the flight on the airframe. The rocket was covered with dates.

One that worked for me was a rocket I named Alchemy. The nosecone is chrome silver, halfway down the body it fades into Rustoleum's hammered silver finish, and near the fins it fades into a fleckstone faux-granite finish. It looks cool, if I do say so myself.

Another finish that I tried to create without success was to use that antique crackle overcoat over flourescent paint. A friend of mine used simple gold under black crackle that came out very nice. I thought it would be cool if the crackle finish exposed neon orange and green jags. Unfortunately, the flourescent finish has too much 'tooth' and wouldn't allow the antique finish to 'crackle' correctly. I sanded and repainted that rocket, trying slightly different techniques, probably four or five times, and never got it to work right. I still like the idea though... maybe someday if I get good enough with an airbrush.

Posted by: Ted at 12:39 PM | category: Rocketry
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1 Ted, try wet-sanding the undercoat with 600 grit sandpaper and then putting a coat of Future Floor Finish over that to gloss it. Then put the crackle coat on top and see how it goes.

Posted by: Maelstrom at January 25, 2005 08:05 PM (/NFjN)

2 Been there, done that. Problem with flourescent colors is that it needs that rough pebbly surface for the flouresc effect. Sanding it smooth or topcoating or both dulls it down to ordinary.

Posted by: Ted at January 25, 2005 08:56 PM (ZjSa7)

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Wow, this is a post that's been sitting in the draft pile for a long long time. Better late than never, eh?

Here's a cool picture of a rocket lifting off. The motor is an Animal Motor Works M2200(?) Skidmark. To give you an idea of scale, the rocket is around 10' tall.

Now when things don't quite go according to plan, you see things like the video clips on this page. Spectacular footage.

Thanks to A.E. Brain for the pointer.

Posted by: Ted at 04:34 AM | category: Rocketry
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One of the neatest types of hobby rockets are gliders. They soar into the sky straight up like a rocket, and then when the motor burns out they transition to recover like a glider airplane. Some are radio controlled. Divided into two general types, there are "boost gliders" which eject the motor pod at apogee in order to gain their flying trim, then there are the "rocket gliders" which keep everything together, usually relying on some sort of mechanical movement to achieve flightworthyness.

Mookie and I have had the extreme pleasure of launching rockets with Rob Edmonds for several years now. Anytime we have a club launch, Rob is usually there, testing new glider prototypes or perfecting existing models. The man is a font of glider-knowlege, and he's more than happy to share his expertise.

His company, Edmonds Aerospace, makes some of the coolest rocket kits around. Specializing in glider designs, Rob has carved out a niche creating the simplest and most fool-proof glider kits imaginable. They're perfect for beginners, but they also fly great! For more advanced rocketeers, he features binary gliders, larger models (for bigger motors) and the simplest RC glider available.

I noticed in the latest issue of Sport Rocketry a full-page Edmonds Aerospace ad. I'll excerpt it here, because it's an awesome educational concept:

The G-Pack

This special package will get your students into the air more quickly and at lower cost than any other rocket-powered product. You will enjoy costs of less than $2.50 per student and build times of as little as twenty minutes! Individual aircraft for 12 students are packaged with a single rocket booster that launches three aircraft at a time. Each student experiences a rocket launch of her own model, yet you can launch all twelve students with only four motors, cutting your flying costs by two thirds. Each group of 3 students can enjoy competing to see which aircraft remains aloft the longest!

He's designed this model to fly on Estes A10-3T motors, which come four to a pack (around $5.00 at WalMart). Plus you get the fun of multiple gliders flying at one time. Too cool.

Rob also suggests using the G-Pack for birthday parties, which would make for a memorable (and easy to do) event. The glider kits in the G-Pack consist of 5 parts, no cutting is necessary, and, being the owner of several Edmonds kits, I can tell you that they fly like a dream.

Just for fun, here are pictures of several of our rocket gliders. Click on the links to open in a new window.

Edmonds Deltie, Mookie has one of these too.

Another Edmonds kit. This one isn't a beginner model, it takes some effort to make it fly nicely.

Edmonds Tinee, another beginner-level kit. Isn't that the coolest looking thing?

Flying Jenny. This biplane glider is available from plans here. It's an old design, and when I lose one I just build another.

A Holverson Zoomie. No longer in business, I've got one of their Silver Hawk flying wing gliders in my 'to build' box.

There are a couple of others we fly, but I don't have pictures right handy. Something you might have noticed was that the gliders are mostly undecorated. I use pink highlighter to add some flair without adding the weight of paint. Makes 'em easier to see too.

Posted by: Ted at 09:06 AM | category: Rocketry
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From the Maryland/Delaware Rocketry Association Newsletter (html conversion of .pdf file):

There was also going to be the Kimberly Harms / John Lyndal full scale Honest John powered by four 4-grain full O motors. Dave Triano, Mike Hobbs had teamed up with Frank Kosdon on an 8" minimum diameter full Q motor attempt scheduled to go over 88,000 feet. Then there were all those 35,000 foot fun flights.

Of course, it helps to fly in the desert too. Black Rock, Nevada to be precise. The same chunk of desert where Burning Man takes place. Rocketeers in the Western U.S. have room that we east of the Mississippi only dream about.

Back to the story:

Not much comes back alive at Black Rock and this held true for the mighty Honest John. This was a full scale model of the real thing. It was built by Kimberly Harms and the Community Space Program out of Washington State. The motors were built by John Lyndal out of Oregon. John and Kim have combined their talents successfully on many other projects in the past. But this was the biggest one yet and this was Balls 13 at Black Rock. As with many other projects at the event there would be a secret conspiracy with the 700 pound, 24"
diameter, 4 full O powered rocket. Earlier in the event I was talking with Kim and
mentioned to her that she should put some "Cow Spots" on her military green painted rocket. She slowly shook her head and said she thought the project might go the way of the Cow . I wonder what she knew, that the rest of the world didn't. I had discussed with both Kim and John how the big projects get logarithmically more difficult. That was one thing we were all in agreement with.

[The photo below shows an actual Honest John being launched. The black, white and orange colors indicate that this is a test round, and the plumes emerging from the nose end are small rockets mounted at an angle to induce spin which increased stability and hence accuracy. The full-scale Honest John discussed in the article had no spin rockets and was launched vertically, as are all our rockets for safety reasons. -- RJ]

The Honest John was man handled onto the tower fully assembled. We were not out at their pad, which was over a mile away, yet we could see the progress as they finally got the big rocket vertical on the tower. The time had finally come and the button was pushed.

The Honest John climbed right up and off the tower. It started to take a slight arch to the right and then about 1,000 feet all hell broke loose. One of the O motors had catoed and that tore the rocket apart. The motor section continued to sail past the flailing payload and nose cone section. As the booster cruised by the nose cone it clipped it smashing the nuclear warhead to tiny bits [the Honest John was a nuclear-capable rocket used by the US Army, this was a full scale model - RJ]. The booster must have continued on to about 3,000 feet while the rest of the rocket fell helplessly back to earth from a much lower altitude. On Sunday I approached Kim to offer my condolences on the demise of her project and she told that "You can't cry over spilled milk."

When Mookie was a wee rocketeer, she took to design like a fish to water. One of her very first rockets was a beautiful flyer painted red, white & blue, and we watched it drift away under chute over an adjoining patch of woods. Despite our best efforts, we never did find it. She impressed me with her attitude because you could tell it hurt her to lose her rocket, but she accepted that sometimes you don't get them back.

Here's a nifty panoramic view of the playa at Black Rock.

Posted by: Ted at 08:07 AM | category: Rocketry
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For Christmas I bought my wife a serger (fancy type of sewing machine). Last night she asked me for parachute patterns so she can practice on that pile o' ripstop nylon I bought.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Posted by: Ted at 11:42 AM | category: Rocketry
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1 Shouldn't that be followed by a maniacal laugh?

Posted by: Catt at January 18, 2005 12:14 PM (FP3k0)

2 you conniving...conniver. But hey, somebody's gotta come up with a plan right?

Posted by: shank at January 18, 2005 12:20 PM (+H1yK)

3 make kites!

Posted by: Victor at January 18, 2005 04:16 PM (L3qPK)

4 Well, at leastit wasn't a bowling ball with the name "TED" inscribed on it (so she'll know who gave it to her).

Posted by: Tuning Spork at January 18, 2005 08:51 PM (D69Vl)

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Saturday, January 8th, from 10am - 3pm at Great Meadow Equestrian Center in The Plains, Virginia. We've been enjoying a stretch of spectacular weather, and it looks like it might just hold on through the weekend.

Y'all are invited. Look for me in the red Mazda pickup.

Posted by: Ted at 04:39 PM | category: Rocketry
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