Rocket Jones

August 28, 2005

My Rocket Binder

I am fanatical about being organized when it comes to my rocketry. I make checklists for anything more complicated than your standard Estes rocket, and my standard kit for a day at the field includes boxes within boxes, organized so that I know where everything is and can get to it without fuss or confusion.

I even have a checklist to make sure I don't forget anything when I'm packing my truck for the launch.

I also have a binder full of useful rocketry stuff that goes with me every time. Inside are my checklists, a roster of my larger rockets showing weight, chute sizes, expected altitudes on various motors and other important things I need to know when flying high power. There are wiring diagrams for my altimeter bays, enlarged photocopies of the various motor assembly instructions (the originals are small and hard to read), specs for my launch control box and hybrid system, and anything else I might find handy, all collected up into one book.

The picture shows the new cover for my binder (click for bigger). We took the picture a couple of years ago at Battle Park in Culpeper, Virginia.

Posted by: Ted at 01:36 PM | category: Rocketry
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August 22, 2005

Congrats!

Rich got his Level 1 Rocketry Certification on Saturday.

That means two things:

1. He can fly high power rockets now (H and I motors).
2. His wallet is gonna be empty.

Posted by: Ted at 11:34 AM | category: Rocketry
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August 18, 2005

Rocket Pictures

Almost two years ago, I put up a post about some of the unusual rockets that the kids and I have built and flown. In it, I said this:

I just realized I don't have pictures posted of another odd-roc we did, named Invader Zim's Song of Doom. She used a funnel for drag stability instead of fins, and the nosecone was a green plastic easter egg with silver alien eyes made from duct tape. This one had problems from the outset. Not with the going up part, but with the coming down part. As in parachutes not wanting to work correctly. She finally destroyed herself by becoming a lawn dart, and we have the video tape to cringe over anytime we want to watch it. Embarrassing.

I finally did find a picture of the Invader Zim's Song of Doom rocket. This is pre-decal, which were basically just "doom, doom, doom, doom..." winding up, down and all over the silly thing.

This next one is one of my early scratchbuilt mid-to-high power rockets, the Bootlegger. She's still in fairly good shape, but semi-retired after making many great flights. I made the logo in PowerPoint and printed it onto decal paper using a laser printer.

This rocket is called Watch the Birdie, and she was an experiment in finishing techniques. I used black primer followed up by an ultra-flat black cover coat, and around the rocket nozzle area I used heat-resistant barbeque paint. The flash adds a shine that really isn't there in real life, this thing is suck-all-available-light-into-it black. And for those who think all I do is big rockets, look closely at the picture and you'll notice that I built two. The little one is 3 inches tall and fully flyable.

Last one. The picture is small, but it's the only picture I have of this rocket, taken just before liftoff. Several years ago, Estes released a neat kit called the Prowler. It was a big rocket, being more than four feet long, and very customizable. What happened when I was building mine was that the glue siezed up before I got the tubes joined together and wound up with about a one half inch gap. It was strong enough to not matter, so I filled the gap with rocket bondo and got ready to paint it. Since this rocket was one half inch longer than the regular version, it must obviously have been crafted by the peace loving people of the workers paradise of the USSR as a defense against the inferior (by one half inch!) rocket built by the war mongering capitalist running dog lackeys. So after a red, silver and black paintjob (and the one yellow fin), in bold cyrillic letters she was christened the Prowlski.

I flew her on big motors for her size and weight. I lost her three different times, but since I had my name and number on the rocket, the first two times I got phone calls from the person who found it. The third time was in the early fall in a farm field (it wasn't cotton, corn or tobacco so I'm guessing soybeans), and even though I saw about where it landed I spent about an hour looking without finding it. I picked up the remains in the spring, because the farmer collected lost rockets as he did his harvesting, but this one went through the machine and was an almost total loss. I got the motor casing back undamaged (the expensive part - yay!).

I still have a couple of Prowler's in the box, I probably should build another one.

Posted by: Ted at 04:18 AM | category: Rocketry
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August 17, 2005

Rocket Launch this weekend

Hosted by the Northern Virginia Association of Rocketry. Held at Great Meadow Equestrian Center, in The Plains, Virginia. Starts at 9am, flying until 5pm. Normal FAA waiver to 4500 feet altitude, J motor maximum. Spectatin' and model rocketry free, high power is $5.00 for the day. Performance Hobbies of Washington DC will be onsite for all your rocketry needs.

I know Doug Pratt is planning on flying a biggun' on a HyperTech (or is that a SkyRipper?) J-330 hybrid motor (with nitrous injection). If I get the altimeter bay rebuilt in time I'll be putting up "Ain't Misbehavin'" on a RATTworks I-80 hybrid (now where did I put that picture?). I'm also going to launch my scale Phoenix (another picture here) on an Aerotech H-128 White Lightning. Plus my usual box o' little fun stuff.

You're invited.

Posted by: Ted at 05:55 AM | category: Rocketry
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