Launch Date: 7 October, 2017

Today promised to be a fine day to head out to ‘Douglas County Proving Grounds’ to conduct some model rocket launches.  Wind and weather websites for Castle Rock indicated a wind speed of 5 mph and a temperature of 71 degrees at 3:00 p.m.   Not too bad.  It had been over three months since I last sent some models skyward, so this would be a much needed ‘flying fix’!

The first model off the pad was, of course, the Estes Mini-Brute Hornet.  This would be its 35^th flight on an A3-4T and 8-inch parachute.
As I was ‘commencing countdown’, a local bird did a fly-by to check things out!

 

After turning in its signature great boost and parachute deployment, the Hornet was carried to the southern edge of the flying field by the wind, where it landed on a gravel pathway.  Only a slight paint chip off of one fin.

Next up was the maiden flight of the MPC Super-Star clone.  The model turned in a picture perfect high flight on a ½A engine.  The streamer deployed and landed the model fairly close to the launch area.

 

The Super-Star was quickly re-prepped and put up for a second flight.  Again on a ½A engine.  Again, another perfect flight and recovery.  No damage to the bird after two flights, except for a small amount of paint bubbling from the hot engine casings. I may try this bird on an A engine when I can get to the bigger field at Dove Valley Park in Centennial.  

Next bird to fly was the old-fleet Delta II.  Equipped with a B4-4 and a 12 inch parachute, the model turned in a nice flight.  The delay was a bit longer than I would have liked, as the model was headed down when the ejection charge went off, but all was recovered safely.

I had intended to end the flying session at this point, but the last launch of the Delta II had attracted the attention of three boys who were tossing a football around on another part of the field.  They wandered over to see the rockets.

“Are you going to fly any more?” they asked.

Not one to miss an opportunity to introduce newbies to our wonderful hobby, I decided to put the Delta-II up again for their benefit.  As I prepped the bird, I fielded a LOT of questions, and explained what model rocketry was all about.

I let one of the lads push the button to send the bird on its way for its second flight of the day on a B6-4 engine.  Another great flight, this time accompanied by the ‘Wows’ and ‘Awesomes’ from the young onlookers.  They enthusiastically went on recovery and brought the bird back.

    I had one more bird in my model box – the diminutive Mosquito.  This one is a quick prep, so I had it on the pad in no time, and let another of the boys launch it.  A ¼A engine took it quite high.  We all strained to see where it went.

“There it is!!” one of the boys shouted, pointing.  I looked, and sure enough I caught sight of a falling object.
    Engine casing.   We watched as it descended and bounced on the turf about 30 feet away. 
    No rocket though. 



It took about a ten minute search before one of the boys found it at the east edge of the soccer field, quite a distance from the pad.  He received a dollar for his efforts.
Incidentally, this was flight  number 7 on this particular Mosquito.
With that done, I packed up to head for home. This local field has certainly proven itself totally suitable for model rocket flying, at least up to B engines.  Maybe even some C an D flights on larger birds. 
    We shall see.
   Anyway, today’s session: 6 great flights.  No damaged or lost models.  Perhaps a couple of new model rocketeers in the making.

I’ll take it.

Just Catching Up....

 

Back in 2016, I had a version of this blog that I ended up taking down for various reasons known only to me.  I had intended to re-post some of the original entries here on this newer updated version, but, alas, I found that I could no longer access them.    Bummer!

And I hadn’t saved any drafts of them either.  Double Bummer!

So, I will just have to sit down and re-write the material, take new pics,  and re-post them over the next couple of weeks.

Also, I haven’t progressed too much further on the Lunar Patrol build series, so there hasn’t been a great deal to report  there.

WHADDA SLACKER!

   I haven’t had a chance to get out and do much flying lately either.  It seems there have constantly been other things scheduled on those ‘ideal weather’ days.  Not to mention that, a couple of weeks ago, I took a floor dive while playing basketball, and have had to spend many a recent evening with a hot compress on a sore, swollen knee.  Nothing was broken or torn, but I guess I need to be a little more careful at my age.

Anyway, I have a lot of rocketry stuff planned for the very near future, so stay tuned!

Cheers.

BAR Rocket Fleet #111 Super-Star

Sport Model

High Performance
MPC Kit Clone
Designed by G. Harry Stine
Date Completed:  14 September, 2017

 Designed for 13mm mini engines

Length:  254mm
Diameter:  13.7mm
Weight:  10.2g
Fins: 3
Nose cone: Tangent ogive,   Approx.  4.1 Caliber
Color scheme: white, dark blue with red and dark blue trim

 The construction of this model began back in July of 2016, shortly after I became a BAR.  At the time, I had gathered the parts to build several mini engine birds in parallel.  The Super-Star was one of them, but the project eventually got pushed to the back of the workbench in favor of other rocket builds.

Even though this is a standard 3FNC model rocket, I reasoned that no fleet should be complete without a high performance Stine-designed bird.
The original kit was introduced back in 1971 as part of MPC’s Mini-Roc product offering. These birds were powered by a new line of 13mm engines in the 1/2A to B total impulse ranges.   At the time, competition modelers using these new minimum diameter 13mm birds and engines essentially re-wrote the NAR record books, especially in the low-power altitude categories.  The Super-Star was easily capable of an ‘out-of-sight’ flight on a B3 engine.
My build started with the plans being downloaded from the ‘Ye Olde Rocket Plans’ website, and dimensioned around an Estes BT-5 body tube.  I really enjoyed reading through the kit instructions.  They were obviously written by Mr. Stine himself –full of, well…Stine-isms!  It was as if one was reading a chapter straight out of the Handbook of Model Rocketry, except it was dedicated to a single model design.
Construction was fairly straight forward.  Initially, I had intended to turn the nose cone on the lathe, but I plopped on a spare Estes PNC-5AW cone I happened to have hanging around, and found that it would be quite serviceable.  Of course, this takes the model out of the ‘exact replica’ category, but I’m not overly concerned about that.
A small amount of clay weight was pressed and CA’d into the tip of the nose cone to give the bird a little more front-end ‘ballast’.
Since I am strictly a sport flier, I opted not to sand an airfoil into the fins, rounding the edges instead.  I also slapped on a standard launch lug.  This bird will go plenty high enough for my purposes without all of the performance optimizations.

 A DECAL TRIUMPH

 The decals used to decorate the Super Star came from the red, white, and blue sheet in the current Estes waterslide kit. 

I did try one thing that was really a test of my eyesight and manual dexterity – the digits making up the fleet number (111) were cut from the corner of one of the Estes decal sheets.  These were part of the tiny lettering that makes up the sheet product number and date.  The numbers are around 2mm in height.  It was no easy task to get them cut from the sheet, immersed in water, and positioned correctly on the model.   A magnifier lamp, micro-tip tweezers, and an Xacto blade came into heavy play here.  
The endeavor worked out pretty well for a 60+ year old guy who has to wear reading glasses in order to see anything at all!

Overall, the Super-Star build produced a nice looking bird that I am proud to have in my fleet.  It will definitely be on the launch pad at the very next flight session.

 

 

 

A REAL Blast From The Past...

One of my early childhood memories is that of a Nike Hercules missile that was on display in downtown Colorado Springs where I grew up..  I remember always being thrilled whenever I was in the car with my folks and we happened to drive by that missile. 
Of course, being around 3-5 years old, I knew nothing of military missiles.
In my eyes, this thing was an honest-to goodness SPACESHIP! 
I was quite convinced that the little access hatch on the side of the rocket was a door for miniature spacemen!
 I was also completely unaware that, at the time, a group of people in nearby Denver, and even in my home town of Colorado Springs were quite busy laying the groundwork for a model hobby involving missiles, rockets, and spaceships. 
Not to mention that a mere dozen or so years later, I would be deeply immersed in that hobby myself!
Or that another 40 or so years hence, I would still be deeply immersed in that hobby.
So, just the other day, I was thinking about that Nike Hercules missile which sparked my imagination so many years ago.  I knew that the vehicle had disappeared from display sometime in the late 1960's, and I wondered whatever became of it.
A quick search on the Wonderful World Wide Web revealed that there is a Nike Hercules currently on display at the Peterson AFB Air and Space Museum in Colorado Springs.  I wondered if this could be the same missile.
I found a website for the Museum, and shot them a quick e-mail inquiring if this was the same vehicle.
I got the response this morning....

"Mr. Mitton,

You are correct, our display Nike Hercules was presented to El Paso County in July 1959 by the US Army Air Defense Command, headquartered at Ent Air Force Base, and on display in front of the El Paso County Courthouse (now the Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum) for a number of years.  It came into our possession in the late 1970's when the North American Air Defense Command established a Visitor Center on then-Peterson Field in 1976.  The NORAD Visitor Center was replaced with the Peterson Air and Space Museum when the museum was established in 1981.

I've attached a photo of the bronze plaque that was part of the Nike missile display when it was located downtown."

Cool!

Here is a picture of the plaque...

and of the Nike Hercules itself on display at the museum...

Cheers!

MPC Lunar Patrol, Part 9, Booster Assembled

It's back to the workbench to plug away at the Lunar Patrol Build.
For starters, I procured Mrs. BlastFromThePast's hair drier to attempt a fix for the body tube warping mentioned a few posts back.
Placing expended engine casings in all of the effected tubing for support, the assembly was hit with hot air to soften the glue.
It worked.
Now the  model is the correct shape.  An engine fits nicely in the center tube, and the gliders fit much better between the fins.
The last items to attach now are the two half-inch sections of launch lug inside the glider support tubes.

These function to center the gliders and provided extra support to the edge of the tubes.
Construction is now complete on the booster rocket. 

 

Next step is shooting primer and performing additional surface prep for painting.

A Nifty-Keen Rocket Building Bench Accessory

Happy Labor Day!
This morning I got up and headed down to the shop to knock together a project for the work bench.
I have this unused Flat Screen TV stand banging around in the basement, and recognized it as a perfect benchtop stand for doing close-up detail work on model rocket components.

Pulling out my vintage hand tools, I set to work....
First, an appropriate sized piece of 1/2" birch plywood was cut out to make the work surface.

A little work with a hand plane and file to clean up the cut edges.

Once the piece is marked for centering on the mounting plate, I had to mark out and drill a few recess holes to accommodate some mounting screws and metal guide pins.

Now the plywood work surface gets attached with a few flathead wood screws.

Almost done.
As a finishing touch, a wooden stop bar will be added to the lower edge of the work surface to keep things from rolling and sliding off.  A paint stir stick from the BORG will serve nicely for this.  This particular stick has the added feature of an inch scale printed on it.
Cut to length...

Drill, countersink, and mount with some more flathead screws...

And, voila!..a very useful assembly accessory.
Coupled with a mag. light, it is just the ticket for doing some of that close up detail work.

Cheers!

MPC Lunar Patrol, Part 8 - Glider Pylons

After a long hiatus, I’m finally back on track to realize completion of the Lunar Patrol.

The pylon/standoff pieces and dowel pins that attach the gliders to the booster pods are the next items on the list to be built.

                The original MPC kit called for the pylons to be made of a piece of balsa wood cut to the shape of the template supplied with the kit.  This piece is way too fragile and prone to breakage on each and every flight.  I experienced this issue with my old fleet Lunar Patrol, and had to engineer an alternate way to strengthen them. 

The pylons in this re-build will be made from 1/8” thick basswood with the grain running perpendicular to the nose cones for added strength.

Since I do not wish to purchase a whole sheet of 1/8” basswood to make these small parts, I’m going with laminated pieces, from a 1/16” sheet which I already have on hand.

The pylon template from the kit instructions is a bit oversized for this build because of the slight difference in tube and nose cone diameter between the original MPC tubes and the Estes BT-20 being used. 

In addition, I am reasonably sure that my custom turned nose cones are of a slightly different shape and length compared to the kit originals.  I essentially guessed at them based on kit photos and instruction sheet illustrations.  The template gets tossed aside….

Instead, the pylons will be re-designed and shaped to fit the current nose cones.

To start off, I marked out a sketch of the basic nose cone profile on the piece of stock to establish baseline dimensions.  This was done by carefully sighting down straight over the nose cone, and keeping the pen perfectly vertical.

 

Two rectangular pieces are cut out to the required nominal length and width of the pylons.

The pieces are laminate glued together with the profile-marked piece on top.   What's up with the ragged marking line?  This was a dufus mistake...I grabbed a fine tip sharpie to go over the line so I could see it better.  The ink immediately ran into all of the wood grain.  Oh, well, I have to roll with this.

Now it’s just a matter of carefully sanding the nose cone profile into the pylon piece. This is done with a sheet of 220 sandpaper wrapped around a dowel.  I must be very careful here so I don’t break the piece because of the grain direction.  Mounting the part in a vice will help greatly with this process.

 

One additional note:  I used a razor saw to cut off a lot of the excess wood inside the profile before starting the sanding operation. No sense in doing a lot of un-necessary work! 

 

Once the piece is sanded down close to final shape, I switch to finer sandpaper (440) to finish the exact profile.  Checking often with the nose cone helps here.

 Since there are likely slight differences between the two turned nose cones, the second pylon must be made and fitted in the same way.

Stay tuned for Part 9...