I had posted a number of rocket designs a while back, with a fair amount of favorable comments from YORFers. While I am out to realize some of these designs as prototypes, I also manage to craft on the fly.

The first pic shows the prototype for the Night Ranger, for which a fellow YORFer had made a RockSim file and declared the design viable. It has a BT-50 tube/PNC, with two canards on the NC that match the tailfins in shape. Yes, that is a ping-pong ball installed on the tube (my first such build variation)! Length is almost 19.5". It does not match the visual dimensions shown in the original proposal, but our next launch day will be this week, so we shall see how it flies.

The blue bird in the background is Cuzzin' Mike's Echostar, and you can see part of his new SR-71 Blackbird. I figgered someone would ask...

The second pic shows one of my sidetracks, a little sporty bird I dubbed the Skedaddle. Using the dorsal fin from my failed El Dorado prototype I crafted two more and put 'em all on a BT-20 tube. The NC is an outdoor Christmas light bulb! At least until it breaks! The collar at the top of the tube is a section of corrugated packing sheet that gives the feel of the ribbed Saturn V panels. Kind of white trash, but hey... they get the point across. I expect to use a 6" parachute for recovery, considering the possibility of breaking the rattail fins. Length is 12".

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__________________
-Brain
SKY AYE ROCKETRY
Follow Your Impulse!

I like the retro look of those two! Kind of a cross between Buck Rogers (50's) and Tin Tin style ships. Very nice. I particularly like the little details—enough to make them interesting, but not so much as to detract from the over-all design. Well done.

Cool rockets. The yella one looks like it should be loaded in a crossbow.

__________________
Scotty Dog
NAR 90998

Wow, Brian. The yellow ship looks alot like the Mars Lander from the Disney Mars rocket called the "Umbrella Ship", which was a solar ion powered spacecraft. It is documented in Jack Hagerty's "Spaceship Handbook". I am old enough to have seen the original Disney series based on some of Von Braun's concepts and have it on DVD when they released the Tomorrowland series.
I am concerned about the forward canard surface area as Rocksim is not foolproof. I am interested in the flight.

Chas

__________________
Charles Russell, MSgt,USAF (ret.)
NAR 9790, Lvl 1
SAM "Balls Three"

Yeah, me too!
I have just finished building the motor mount and will install it tomorrow. Sometime this week we fly! I will attempt to provide video.

Stay tuned...

__________________
-Brain
SKY AYE ROCKETRY
Follow Your Impulse!

The yellow one now sports additional details: the canards and fins now have a black strip along the leading and trailing edges; the ball and a band above and below it are black; and the 'grooves' along the trailing edges are black. Racy!

__________________
-Brain
SKY AYE ROCKETRY
Follow Your Impulse!