A Fish Named Wallyum
04-13-2006, 12:35 AM
Many moons ago, when I was in my BAR infancy, I was inspired to build an upscale of a rocket that I found on JimZ's site. (Okay, so that happened a lot, but this was a particular incident with a particular rocket.) Fascinated as I had been by the Estes Condor, I was doubly taken with the Space Twins, one of the Estes Design Of The Month plans.
http://www.dars.org/jimz/eirp_41.htm
Having armed myself with a selection of tubes and cones from Hobbylinc and Apogee, I worked out a slightly off scale plan that used a length of BT-56 for the booster and BT-50's for the gliders. The booster used one of the PNC-56 cones that seemed to be everywhere at the time, while the gliders used two of the feather-light PNC-50 cones from an Apogee nose cone/tube/ring bonanza. The gliders were carefully upscaled and the test flights showed it. The test glides from the front porch were amazing. Perfectly straight and showing very little tendency to lose altitude. I was really pumped and couldn't wait for the first flight.
Well, the first flight pretty much "underwhelmed". I used a C5-3 because I found a stash of them marked down. Both gliders ripped off at boost and circled overhead as the now completely unstable booster section attempted to leave me a message in the sky. Both gliders had torn free of the mounting dowels, so I figured that the white glue I used was too weak. I rebuilt the mounting using epoxy and ran into the same problem on the second flight. Disgusted, I tossed the booster into my failure pile and occasionally pressed the gliders into service as pinch hitters for the glider on my Condor upscale.
Tonight when I was hunting up the decals for the Shrox Icarus, I ran across the booster section and, for a laugh, looked up the flight logs on EMRR. When I realized that I had used the high-thrust C5-3, I began to wonder if things would have gone differently with a B4, B6, or C6 in the booster. All it would take to find out is a cleaning and repair of the booster and the mounting points, and new dowels for the gliders. Our next club launch is 4-22/23, which gives me over a week to get things ready. One way or another, I'll have some pictures soon. (Either rebuild/flight or rebuild/failure/permanent retirement pics. :rolleyes: )
http://www.dars.org/jimz/eirp_41.htm
Having armed myself with a selection of tubes and cones from Hobbylinc and Apogee, I worked out a slightly off scale plan that used a length of BT-56 for the booster and BT-50's for the gliders. The booster used one of the PNC-56 cones that seemed to be everywhere at the time, while the gliders used two of the feather-light PNC-50 cones from an Apogee nose cone/tube/ring bonanza. The gliders were carefully upscaled and the test flights showed it. The test glides from the front porch were amazing. Perfectly straight and showing very little tendency to lose altitude. I was really pumped and couldn't wait for the first flight.
Well, the first flight pretty much "underwhelmed". I used a C5-3 because I found a stash of them marked down. Both gliders ripped off at boost and circled overhead as the now completely unstable booster section attempted to leave me a message in the sky. Both gliders had torn free of the mounting dowels, so I figured that the white glue I used was too weak. I rebuilt the mounting using epoxy and ran into the same problem on the second flight. Disgusted, I tossed the booster into my failure pile and occasionally pressed the gliders into service as pinch hitters for the glider on my Condor upscale.
Tonight when I was hunting up the decals for the Shrox Icarus, I ran across the booster section and, for a laugh, looked up the flight logs on EMRR. When I realized that I had used the high-thrust C5-3, I began to wonder if things would have gone differently with a B4, B6, or C6 in the booster. All it would take to find out is a cleaning and repair of the booster and the mounting points, and new dowels for the gliders. Our next club launch is 4-22/23, which gives me over a week to get things ready. One way or another, I'll have some pictures soon. (Either rebuild/flight or rebuild/failure/permanent retirement pics. :rolleyes: )