Odd-Roc’s

I fellow park flyer commented the other day that my blog doesn’t adequately  represent my rocket collection, and frankly, he’s right. My girls are enamored with finding things around the house and yard and asking “Dad, can you turn this into a rocket”. The answer is usually yes. About 80% of my rockets are actually odd-roc’s, so I’ve decided to post some photo’s of just a few in my collection. Yes, you’ve seen my night launch saucer, my dining room table w/ pizza,  and my collection of crayon rockets, but that’s just a small sample.  An odd-roc is any rocket design that isn’t the basic 3FNC, which is three fin’s and a nosecone. I’m a big saucer fan – in fact I’m beta testing Art Applewhite’s largest delta design to date – 36 inches in diameter. I’ll post a review after I’m finished with the build and first flight.  I also  found a kitchen sink at the dump the other day – that will be my ultimate test.

Thunderstruck

UPDATE: This will now be flying at LDRS 31 in New York. I’ve dramatically reworked the electronics so I can now house a professional high speed  HD camera in the gold exhaust port on the right side of the rocket.

Working on my major project for the Thundersrtuck Launch starting this Friday, March 30. Launch will be around 3pm March 30th.

This is a full size AGM-84 Harpoon Missile.

diameter: 11.5″
Height: 16 ft
weight: Approx 200 lbs fully loaded
motors: 3 6 grain 75mm M class motors,  ~ 20000 Ns total impulse (which makes it an “O” motor, my first!)

For perspective, that is an 8 foot ladder in the photo above

Thank goodness I’m in good shape – to get this photo I had to carry the two upper sections of the rocket solo up the ladder and into the booster.

Arduino controlled Saucer

 

I built this saucer for the annual MWP 9 Night launch. Since the night launch has a limited FAA altitude ceiling, traditional rockets just don’t cut it. The RGB LED’S on the saucer are controlled by an Arduino controller which I can control with my phone via Bluetooth. Cool to change the patterns while the saucer is on the pad.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make the launch this year. Next year I plan on embedding the LED’S into the rocket in a matrix so I can transmit scrolling messages to the rocket from the pad kind of like this one, but much bigger

The Ladies of Rocketry

My Girls have been after me to start a local rocketry club. I’ve been resisting, as I know it will be a lot of work, and they are all already over-scheduled. There is no denying the fact that girls and rockets are a natural fit.

 

 

 

 

Old launches

I was recently asked to go through some old photo’s, and found a bunch of old launch photo’s from loved, but long forgotten rockets. Here are a few:

 

This was a Rocketry Warehouse Halloween special which included a ‘pumpkin’ parachute..

This is an upscaled Este’s Snitch called  “woket”. This particular rocket is still in my fleet, but undergoing MAJOR modifications to turn it into a night launch rocket. I’ll post some video when I’m done adding about 300 LED’S and batteries, and a computer controller to it. Should be an ‘interesting’ flight

 

 

 

 

Here is an original rocket vision machbuster.

I built this 10 years ago, and finally flew it on a cti f240 Vmax

rocksim indicated it would go 0 to 1200 MPH in about .3 seconds (which is the burn time of the engine), and reach about 4000 ft. I couldn’t fit a tracker on it, but decided to write my phone number on it just in case…..
When the motor lit, it sounded like an explosion. I had a 210fps video camera going, and only got 1 frame of the rocket leaving the pad, which means it was probably going faster than 1200 MPH by my calculations.
I can’t say much more. Nobody ever saw it, or heard from it once it left the pad. Still waiting for my phone to ring

LDRS 30 Day 2 & 3 : Argonia dirty

 

     Short update… Need to get to bed for the long trip home. Day two was just as hot and dirty as Friday. Local’s told me Argonia Kansas just passed their record for days over 100 degrees. When I got back to the hotel Friday night, I took off my sandals to the ugliest site I’ve ever seen – my feet! This town has redefined the word dirty for me. Looks like I have a wicked tan, but it’s just a few layers of dirt.

 

     I was supposed to be in the “odd rocket” Discovery Channel competition on day two with the pizza rocket, but they ran really long and blew through the FAA waiver time before getting to my rocket. They asked me to come early on day three, but I was also in the “fastest rocket” competition, and I didn’t want to screw up all of the prep on that rocket for the pizza. Frankly, I was happy not to launch the Pizza because I have a feeling it will only survive one launch, and I really want to do it with my kids. Sorry Jim – didn’t get a chance to test the WRC+ in a live launch at LDRS, but I’ll be back at Bong in a few weeks.

     Spent a fair amount of time being interviewed by Discovery Channel. Don’t know how much of the footage they will use, but it was fun, and I got my 15 minutes of fame (at least in my own mind ). Also got to meet Kari Byron, the host of Mythbusters. I have to say, I was a bit surprised how nice the crew was. Below is some photo’s my brother took of them taking video.

 

 

 

 

 

 

     Jim Harris was nice enough to ship me a demo 98mm 11000 M1800BL rocket motor. He knows I love his black lightening motors. The motor still isn’t certified, but it sure seems done! My patriot went up over 15,000 feet! The crowd actually clapped at the launch. Jim’s a smart businessman, because I plan on buying the first 98mm certified motor he makes

Below is the pad video from the launch. Nadine was able to catch a few great photo’s of the launch – I’ll post them when they arrive.

LDRS Day 1

     Wow – I never realized Kansas could look and feel like Mars! Temperature today was 103 degrees, wind gusts of 25 mph, with a consistent breeze filled with dust and dirt ensuring no part of your body or equipment was going unpunished.

Because of the Wind, I was a little worried about sending up some of the rockets. Finally decided to send up the large flying saucer. As you can see, I got a bit dirty. They initially put me on one of the close pads, but when the pad manager saw the engine sticking out of the top, he talked to the RSO and shipped me out to one of the away pads. Good thing he did! I had a 54mm motor mount in this saucer – within 3 seconds of launch, the motor mount and motor ripped through the saucer and kept on flying – corkscrewing all the way up. We were able to find the saucer, and it didn’t have any damage. Unfortunately, I have yet to find the reloadable motor.