I'm heading out of town on business for a bit, so the backlog on my rocket bench won't be getting any smaller for a couple weeks. I'm pleased with all my recent progress, and am looking forward to finishing the last few birds in the queue, some of them years in waiting

Anyway, here's the last one out of the pipe for a bit. I call it the SuperThree. A 2-stager I scratch built upon BAR'ing was called the SuperGee, and was recently retired. It was a regular flier in my fleet, so I built the SuperThree as a 3-stage replacement for it. Plus, I took on the challenge of coming up with an 18mm 3-stager that could fly without benefit of a B14-0 in the first stage. The goal was to keep it light, light, light, and give it launch lugs suitable for a long rod.

So I built it minimum diameter and used all 1/16" balsa for the fins. Only two coats of primer - a fill coat and a finish coat - were used. No other fillers - eg, thinned FNF - were applied to the fins. As a result, there's still some grain showing in the fins, but I'm starting to like that as I get older Similarly, only minimal fillets were added to the fin roots. 3/16" lugs were selected with the expectation of using a 4 foot long rod.

I ended up adding about 10g of noseweight based on Rocksim, but haven't run any post-paint sims yet. The last one I ran said 1164' on a B6-0/A10-0T/A8-5 combo. I may add some chrome trimkote to the sustainer to aid tracking/recovery, but otherwise, it's ready to go.



For symmetry, the motor hangs out the back end of the 1st stage, so a hook was added for retention. This guarantees positive stage separation.



The rocket strikes me as being very similar to the MPC Microsonde 3. Dave Schaefer has one, so we'll have to drag race. The thing I like about the SuperThree over the Microsonde is that my boosters should tumble. Those Microsonde boosters will surely use ballistic recovery

Doug


.

I see you're also working on a Little Joe.....

__________________
Bill Eichelberger
NAR 79563

http://wallyum.blogspot.com/

I miss being SAM 0058

Build floor: Estes - Low Boom SST Semroc - Marauder, Shrike, SST Shuttle

In paint: Canaroc - Starfighter Scorpion Centuri - Mini Dactyl Estes - F-22 Air Superiority Fighter, Multi-Roc, Solar Sailer II, Xarconian Cruiser Semroc - Cyber III

Ready to fly: Estes - Solar Sailer II Semroc - Earmark

I've noticed myself doing the same thing recently, and liking the results; does that mean I'm getting old too? Pretty soon, I'll start appreciating wrinkles...

__________________
Paul
If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane - Jimmy Buffett
NAR #87246 www.wooshrocketry.org

....having impure thoughts about raisins.... noticing that hot Shar Pei down the street...

__________________
Bill Eichelberger
NAR 79563

http://wallyum.blogspot.com/

I miss being SAM 0058

Build floor: Estes - Low Boom SST Semroc - Marauder, Shrike, SST Shuttle

In paint: Canaroc - Starfighter Scorpion Centuri - Mini Dactyl Estes - F-22 Air Superiority Fighter, Multi-Roc, Solar Sailer II, Xarconian Cruiser Semroc - Cyber III

Ready to fly: Estes - Solar Sailer II Semroc - Earmark