First is one of my own since it goes well with the title pic. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"These safety glasses are being worn for your protection, not mine"
-KenKzak ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right, a single experiment can prove me wrong."
-Albert Einstein re; Theory of Relativity. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do."
-Leonardo daVinci ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Logic is an organized system of thought that enables you to be wrong with confidence."
-Charles F. Kettering ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Can't ya see, you're not making Christianity better, you're making Rock'n'Roll worse!"
-Hank Hill ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"War without fire is like sausages without mustard"
-Jean Juvénal des Ursins on Henry V's firing of Meaux in 1421 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You can do anything if you have enthusiasm. With it, there is accomplishment. Without it, there are only alibis."
- Henry Ford ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak."
- unknown ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing."
-Wernher von Braun ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer."
--Frank Zappa ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The thing about quotes on the internet is that you cannot confirm their validity."
On Sept 19, I went to fly with the Alamo Rocketeers over in China Grove. Since my truck is broken, I went on my Harley Sportster with whatever I could carry in a knapsack. It's been a long time since I did that. You're limited to rockets that are either small enough, or that disassemble. Sturdy is important too. The Campitch 1 is certainly small enough once the flybar is removed. The hard part is getting by while leaving a new 25LB field box at home. It helps to have friends.
The CP1 sitting on a borrowed pad, loaded with a D12-0
After ignition it's only spun 180 degrees and the wing is already extended for ascent at least part way. The pads' rod angle adjuster is slipping.
That's the wing in the foreground after bouncing off the ground, and tossing up a small cloud of orange soil.
The hub is falling after making a respectable altitude, wingless.
No major damage to speak of, but the cam follower pin was sheared off where it came out of the reinforcement plate on top of the wing. The pin was essentially a 2-56 steel bolt. I've already done repairs and replaced the 2-56 with a 4-40 socket head bolt, and widened the camtrack slot to take it. In retrospect it's not too surprising that something happened, given the number of MC's that come apart under centrifigal loads. I would've been much less surprised if the 2-56 pin was simply bent but still there. While I was at it, I installed the heavier return spring I had pre-selected as a possible upgrade. I never liked the limited wing attachment method on this model. A secondary safety attachment would be nice, but how to do it without making the next failure worse?
This is the Campitch 1. The 1st of 2 recently finished monocopters. Both monos employ quite different wing control mechanisms, but I decided to build both at once because most of the construction is routine enough to be a bit boring and I always mix too much epoxy anyway.
The Campitch 1 uses a system similar to that of the Rotary Space Ship that I posted about back in March of this year. When the vehicle begins to rotate, centrifigal force causes the wing to slide outward on its' pivot rod, as it does so, a pin on top of the wing root follows a cam track causing the wing to rotate from down pitch to up so that it can ascend. Once the motor burns out, the mono will slow it's spin until a spring can retract the wing, returning it to down pitch so that it can autorotate for a gentle landing. No stopping, no falling.
Now, I've done away with the burn string that the Mousetrap requires. After I work the bugs out on D12's, I'll be able to fly it on my own small moonburn sugar motors.
I can't remember the last time I was hot to go to a museum. The Cosmodrome when I was in Kansas for LDRS 12? That was a space related museum, no surprise there. This time it was the McNay art museum here in San Antonio. I've driven past it a 1/2 a million times without knowing it was even there, this time we were pulling in. What snagged me was a traveling exhibit of the art of Edward Gorey. We aint in Kansas anymore, for sure. We managed to get down there on the final day of the exhibit and it was great. There were plenty of prints of course, a mere drop in the bucket from a prolific artist, but mixed in were occasional originals, and pencil layout sketches. One of the prettiest displays was a cabinet with hand drawn and watercolered envelopes that Edward sent to his mother over the years. I'll spare you further descriptions, the book covers above are adequate examples. The Doubtful Guest above was my intro to Ed Gorey, it was read to me/us when quite young, but then I grew up with hippy school teachers. My brother and his Sylvia were the ones who went with me, in fact drove me as I had no transportation at the time. Last weekend was my birthday and they gave me Ed Gorey's Amphogorey Again, a compilation. Love it.
The website below is a .net, but it's actually a .com. http://goreydetails.net/ Other than that go to Amazon for books or simply Google, there's plenty of E.G. out there.
I've been flying monocopters since 1988. I've also seen other people fly them. They all shared two common problems, the first is getting them to stay in one piece throughout the flight despite the high rotational loads. I've seen a few fly apart, including some of my own. Anyone who hangs in there a while, can conquer this sooner or later. The second problem is the subject of this post. When a monocopter's motor shuts off, they typically stop spinning and fall down. Some falling monocopters will reaquire spin, either backward or upside down, hopefully before impact,and make a safe landing.
In short, after getting monocopters to go up reliably, the next trick is to get them to come back back down safely. I've seen other recovery methods tried with varied success, but the coolest will always be autorotation, ie; true mapleseed recovery. Spinning up, and spinning back down, without stopping, without falling.
Last fall, I built the 1st step on this quest. I call, it the Flying Mousetrap. It somewhat looks the part. Mousetrap has a wing that pivots around the center of lift. There's a spring that pulls the wing to descent angle, and a length of string to hold the wing at ascent angle until the motor [D12-3] ejection burns it through. This gives a timely transition after slowing to autorotaion speed, but without falling or reversal. The string is actually dental floss, it's easy to work with at the field, and it comes in a neat dispenser WITH a built-in cutter. Minty fresh too.
I don't consider this to be the best approach to the problem. It's a simple up/down system instead of being reactive, and it limits the choice of usable motors to ones with suitable delay and an ejection charge. Since I make my own sugar motors, I would prefer a system that can use them, and they're all capped. However, I figured this would be a good first step that others might prefer.
