ZZakk's Lab

Rockin' with Fizzie-Rocs

2011-11-07T17:32:00.004-06:00

Fizzie powered toys rocked!
I consider one of these to be my second flying rocket after the Korny-7 but my first real thrust powered rocket. A recent web search yielded several similar rockets of this type and most look close enough to my recollection so as to make no never mind. They operated as water rockets powered by water and a fizzie type tablet. Pour in the water with the provided funnel/measuring cup, drop in the pellet[s] and quickly insert the nozzle plug. Then turn the rocket upright and insert the plug assembly in the pad base which is attached to the ground with a large nail, back-away and pull the release string. No recovery system, thus the rubber nose tip.

Vinegar and baking soda would probably fly just as well but the fact that the fizzie is in pellet form allows time for insertion of the nozzle plug where a quick dissolving powder would not. I don't recall what became of this rocket but I know I put it on the 2nd story apartment roof at least once.

About the same time, or not long after, there were a couple other fizzie powered toys, a squirt pistol and a submarine. The sub definetely used more than one pellet and would drive forward, dive, then resurface. I wanted that sub. I did have the gun one summer. Both were also red plastic.

These were toys that, like pump-up water-rocs were an idea that were ahead of the materials technology of the day. Polystyrene doesn't hold up well enough. Polycarbonate [Lexan], PET and similar plastics have allowed the reintroduction of such products

Wig-Wag Monocopter

2011-10-16T10:29:00.007-05:00

Ascent position

Descent position [almost]

The Wig-Wag is yet another monocopter with an adjustable pitch wing. Like the two Campitch MC's the wing automatically adjusts from ascent pitch to descending autorotative pitch.

The Wig-Wag employs a weighted arm mounted to the hub and a wire loop mounted to the underside of the wing leading edge which goes around the weightbar. Before ignition, the weightbar dangles down holding the wing down with it. As rpm increases centrifigal force swings the weightbar outward, thus upward, until it's horizontal, pulling the wing up to ascent angle. After motor burn out, as rpm decreases, the weightbar sags downward again, bringing the wing down into autorotation mode. Unlike the Campitch MC's, this pitch control system is more responsive in flight and doubtless more tunable on the ground since it's controlled by the mass [and length] of the weightbar alone rather than the interaction of wing weight and spring strength. This actually works like the weight ball governor on old steam engines [and some early petrol engines], particularly stationary units. So like them, at peak performance, the Wig-wag monocopter is literally running ball[s]-out.

While the Campitch MC's would've been difficult to design without serious drafting, preferably CAD, the Wig-Wag was cobbed together a part at a time with no drafting of any sort. It aint perfect, but it's a good first attempt and entirely functional from first flight on.
The wing and hub are used parts resurrected from the remains of the CP-1. This makes for a wing that is too small and heavy but it does turn in fair flights on C motors. The weightbar is made from an RC pushrod clevis and a piece of 2-56 all-thread with a lead fishing weight nutted on. My biggest conceptual stumbling block was coming up with a suitable weightbar pivot mount on the hub. Installation of an upright piece of G10 fiberglass was easy enough with my bandsaw followed by grinding access for the flybar with a moto-tool. What was actually more difficult was bending a suitable wire loop for the wing and then mounting it in the best spot. I bent two loops and then punched three pairs of holes in the wing before I was reasonably satisfied. I was glad to be utilizing used parts as I had no concern for cosmetic issues.

So far the Wig-Wag has made three flights. First on a C6, then on a D5, followed by a D12. While the two Estes motors were fine, the Quest D5 suffered a case burnthrough. While this is no big surprise anytime you spin one, that recycled undersized wing makes matters worse. This led to replacement of the motor mount tube.

After puzzling for quite a while over a name, I settled on Wig-Wag due to the resemblance between the weightbar and a wig-wag railroad crossing signal.

SpaceX Has A Pipedream

2011-10-09T14:18:00.005-05:00

Spaceflight Now has a recent article [Reprinted from CBS Space] on SpaceX's vision of making their boosters reusable. The simulation video is sharp. The stated intention is for direct descent and landing under rocket thrust. Sounds simple enough on the face of it but I immediately saw some flaws in the plans.

First Stage; Slant range puts the booster a long way from the launch site and variable target orbits increase possible descent points over a large arc, typically well out over the Atlantic. The sheer height of the Falcon 9 booster makes me want to install much larger landing legs [and more of them]. This is why all flyback booster designs thusfar have wings, wheeled landing gear and sometimes jet engines.

Second stage, This might actually be a bit easier than the first stage. Because the 2nd stage is itself orbital [or nearly so], one can pick the reentry point and bring it down where desired. A reentry heat shield adds a lot of weight though. At least 2 motor restarts are needed, but restarts are not that uncommon here. Need a lot of spare fuel for both the deorbit and the landing. Second stage motor nozzles are typically optimized for high altitude/vacuum operations and will be inefficient back at sea level.
I believe it was NRL that was ground testing a booster 20 or so years ago that was low-pressure [no turbo pumps] and had a variable expansion thrust bell, kinda like the "turkey feathers" on a fighter jet engine nozzle. This allowed inflight expansion ratio optimization for any altitude.

Capsule and boosters are shown returning on thrust alone. Even with thrust for landing, parachute systems would still be more economical and probably lighter for slowing and stabilizing the vehicles in an upright position instead of relying on attitude thrusters and the mains alone. Parachutes would also add some safety in case of motor failure, or at least reduce the splat.

>>>>>>
"We'll see if this works," Musk said. "But it's going to be certainly an exciting journey. And if it does work, it'll be pretty huge. If you look at the cost of a Falcon 9 ... it's about $50 (million) to $60 million. But the cost of the fuel and oxygen and so forth is only about $200,000. So obviously, if we can reuse the rocket, say, a thousand times, then that would make the capital cost of the rocket for launch only about $50,000. ... It would allow about a hundred-fold reduction in launch costs."
<<<<<<

Was Mr Musk reading that off a script???
Nobody's gonna get 1000 uses out of any booster, even if there is that large a backlog of flight contracts. Divide flight contracts by; payload production rates, vehicle refurbishment rate, available ground support, optimal launch windows... I'm sorry but I would've scoffed at 100 flights per booster. How about 10 flights each on a 5-10 booster fleet. By then; if the economics are sound, you'll be building a few replacements and/or an improved new fleet anyway.
Note that Elon says a 1000 fold reduction in booster cost relates to only a 100 fold reduction in overall launch costs. That sounds reasonable as other costs go up drastically. Additional flight systems complication, booster retransport, refurbishment, range comm/nav systems, additional facilities...manpower, manpower, manpower.

I have great respect for SpaceX and what they have accomplished. In fact I'd like to work for them, and I can't say that about most of the aerospace industry or NASA itself.

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1109/30spacexflyback/

Upgraded PC At Last

2011-10-09T13:02:00.003-05:00

Hooraw!
My friend Steve recently replaced my PC tower with a much newer one. Not precisely cutting edge as it was assembled from hand-me-down components, but it's a lot more advanced than my old one which I had for over 11 years.

There's a helluva lot of work to do yet, software and tools to transfer or download, and gigs of folders to transfer. Wherever practical, I'm downloading fresh copies or newer versions of software and tools just to be sure they're clean and up to date. Normally I cringe and start to break out in hives every time I'm faced with "Updated" or "Improved" software. Most of the time it has compatability issues or unresolved glitches, or will no longer do what I needed it to do beforehand [Quicktime comes to mind on that score]. Naturally, I totally object to automated updates and block them always. The learning curve is pretty steep, principally changing from Win 98 to XP, and Bobcad 17 to 21.xx. After using dialup all those years, having a hi-speed internet connection sure is nice too.

Steve is a computer professional and I cannot recommend him enough. You can reach him through the following link; pcmaverick.org
Thanks Steve.

Don't Forget the Cheese!!!

2011-10-02T10:37:00.008-05:00

One of the things I like best about living in south Texas is Mexican food. To be more accurate; Tex-Mex food. I aint talkin' about Taco Hell here. Above all else I love breakfast, I'll have breakfast for dinner even, this includes breakfast tacos. I usually ask for cheese on my breakfast tacos and from time to time the cooks forget to do so. Happens to burgers sometimes too. Over the last 30+ years this has added up to quite a bit of lost cheese. Brings a tear to my eye.

Today I was trying out a new restaraunt, ordered myself some coffee and two tacos; bacon, egg & cheese and chorizo, egg & cheese. When the order was ready the manager brought it out because my server was busy elsewhere. The tacos were large but they looked a bit thin, I peaked under the flaps and there was plenty of cheese but nothing else! No eggs, no porky bits. Without some grilling time, these weren't exactly quesadillas yet either. The manager was all apologetic but I had to laugh out loud, disturb the whole place loud. That was funny!

The Wheel of Cheese Turns Full Circle.

Blog Annoyance

2011-06-19T19:17:00.004-05:00

The previous blogpost has the wrong date.
It should've read June, not January.
The reason why is smart software that is dumber than I would've thought.
Instead of using the date when it was actually posted, the software used the date from when the post was first created and saved as a draft, this despite extensive editing and additions the day I actually posted it. While the draft date might be useful information to me in a nagging sort of way, it is totally useless to the reader.
There are a couple other drafts scattered in my Edit Posts section, and if I decide to use them eventually, I'll now have to remember to paste them into a new post rather than risk them posting with the wrong date, or worse, being inserted amidst older posts outright. I would consider that to be an example of revisionist history, albeit minor and unintended. Rereading my old posts, I've run across quite a bit of stuff that could use reediting, but most are of the typesetting or spelling variety plus a few phrases that could've been done better. Just not worth the effort. If I found some gross errors, that might be a different story
People can rip pages from books, but that leaves evidence of the fact. People can burn books, but there are always more books. Be wary of the web, because computer editing and manipulation are very hard, or impossible to detect, especially text. Anyone can post to, or reedit a Wiki entry.

Beware of Rotating Parts!

2011-01-12T11:28:00.011-06:00

At a typical modroc launch, any monocopter pads get set up nearby other pads in order to share launch control wires. I already posted about the [extremely] close call I had on the Pitchwing-2 first flight. This time it was another new monocopter called the Wig-Wag.

Right after takeoff the Wig-Wag drifted downwind slightly and the wingtip collide with an 1/8" stainless steel launch rod. The rod was mounted in the same launch rack that the Campitch-2 didn't hit. The launch rod was ruint [Texan for ruined, but with more finality], totally FUBAR! The only part of the rod that was still straight was the 1" section clamped in the pad base. One might expect the rod to be bent away from the direction of impact, or bent sharply toward DOI at the point of impact. Nope, neither. After the sharp 20-25deg bend away from DOI at the base the remaining rod length was bent in a continuous arc like a bow. quite strange really. I'm an old hand at straightening bent metal but this was scrap!

I owed Art Applewhite a new launch rod. Luckily I had some spares at home.

The monocopter wing was fiberglassed balsa and suffered only a 1/2" deep notch in the leading edge, and the MC went on to complete a nominal flight. That's right, it kept on flying.

Repairs were relatively easy. I sawed out and replaced a square of balsa, filled the gaps with Cya and micro balloons, then sanded the fill to shape and reinforced the area with a fiberglass patch. Since the wing is already a veteran of many flights on the Pitch Wing 1, I didn't even bother to touchup the paint.

I'm glad this first flight was only on a C6, if it'd been a D12, damage might've been much worse.

Campitch 2, 1st Short Hop

2011-01-12T10:35:00.007-06:00

Pics by John Lee

These are pics of the Campitch 2's 1st flight. Just a test hop if you will. I would've posted these pics before if I'd known they existed. They were uploaded out of flight sequence at Flickr, so I didn't find them till the other night.

When I designed the CP-2, I meant it to be an 'E' powered monocopter and I succeeded well. A 'D' motor barely gets it into the air as the photos illustrate. Only about five feet up, woo-hoo!

I hate "reinventing the wheel" [Unless it can become a perverted mockery of science!], and I see no point in rewriting the flight description when I can copy & paste from one of my own previous blogposts.

>>>>>The first flight back in August [2010] had us rolling on the ground, and we weren't even on fire! I launched the CP-2 on an Estes D12-3, it took off from a 2x4 pad low on the ground and ascended to no more than 3ft [more like 5ft] as it travelled 5-6ft upwind, then curved left going just over a modroc launch rack passing through a gap in the launch rods with scant centimeters to spare, then it drifted back downwind to land right next to it's takeoff point. It looked a lot like an olympic highjumper in action.<<<<<

Lucky thing, one of the launch rods was missing that day. [And that leads to another story.]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I haven't posted lately because I had to move. With major assistance from my brother, I started moving early Thanksgiving week. It took us nearly 2 weeks, after which there was a lot of settling in and rearrangement of storage, closely followed by more holidays.

While I have my own PC up and running, it currently has no online connection. I have to borrow time on other computers.

Success of the Campitch 2, an update

2010-11-29T00:08:00.006-06:00

The Alamo Rocketeers had a night launch and weenie roast on Nov 20. The first time I've done any night flying in years and years. We started early enough to do some day flying too.
Right after sundown I flew the Campitch 2 without any visual augmentation. I used an entirely antique Aerotech E10-4wl moonburner that I had been hanging onto for years. The flight was fantastic, a complete success and a worthy use for that old motor. It was a blustery evening but the CP-2 maintained good stability, achieved a respectable altitude and was in full autorotation mode about 1/2 way down, landing less than 100 feet downwind.

After the last time I flew the CP-2 I obtained a new piece of 3/16" graphite tubing, cutting a new flybar 3" longer and then added internal wire tipweights to increase the weight from 11g to about 20g, nearly doubled.

Snaking the thermalite ignitor fuse into the offset port on that E10 was definitely cause for reminiscence. Ahhh... the moonburners that I have known. I initiated the thermalite with a
Quest Q2 ignitor. If I'd remembered them Id've used a flashbulb initiator to wow the crowd.

Moonburner Motors Get Bent

2010-11-09T13:28:00.011-06:00

First time I've tried to upload a vid clip.
Hope it works OK.

When I first started experimenting with making my own sugar motors, I made several decisions under their own merits which eventually lead to an epiphany. When combined, these factors
created an interesting moonburn synergy.

First, I chose to use 15/16" diameter [24mm] phenolic cases that are thicker walled, than Aerotech, being 3/4"id instead of 7/8"id. To simplify the nozzle issue, I elected to buy Aerotech nozzles instead of producing my own from scratch, though this requires that I turn down the nozzle OD to fit my cases. Like most other experimental motor makers, I still wanted to maximize the propellant fraction. I decided to pour directly in the cases, including the convergent frustrum. No casting tubes or liners required. After only a couple false steps, I tried silicone tubing as my core spindles, which works great when casting sugar propellant. The silicone spindles are longer than the motor case, and extend all the way from the nozzle to beyond the top end. A rod or dowel, as the case may be, the same diameter as the nozzle throat, but loose inside the silicone, extends through, acting as an alignment guide and throat plug. After curing, the rod is drawn out, then with a steady tug, the silicone stretches, losing contact with the core wall, and pops right out pretty as you please.

Though I started with core burners, a major goal all along was to make moonburners since I couldn't buy any commercial ones for a long time, and then when I could, only in 'J' and above.
With the old Aerotech D-G moonburners, the fuel was precast and had a drilled port to one side that you would have to blindly hunt for with a piece of 'S' bent Thermalite. Even for
someone experienced with these motors, it was tough to install, tough on the Thermalite and chuffed too often at the best of times.
Epiphany; My flexible silicone spindles need not be straight. I attached the silicone tubing to the nozzle throat with a short plug, then 'S' turned the tubing over to the case wall where
it's held in place with a suitably fashioned wire clip. This creates a smooth pathway for the ignitor during installation AND expulsion, even when using Copperheads. This 'S' turn also creates a short area of coreburn configuration near the nozzle, producing a higher takeoff spike before it settles into full moonburn mode. Perfect for a medium size 'D'-'E' bird.

Another goal of making motors was that my wife [now ex] and I had always been into clustering, especially air-starts. Estes 'D's are great for this but keep costing more and more.
I was already enamored with the idea of focused thrust [long before Flis-Kits] and wanted a way to add that feature to already existing rockets with air-start clusters. The curvy silicone core spindles work even better with the angled nozzles. Now there's only one shallow bend instead of an 'S' curve. This also reduces the coreburn section, making the motor more of a true moonburner. Since classic moons ramp up and down more gently than other motors, they are less prone to affecting the flightpath if multiple ignitions are uneven, or lacking. Focused thrust, of course, further reduces possible flightpath disturbances. I made a 10 degree angled nozzle holder for my lathe, so that I could modify the Aerotech nozzles before gluing them into the cases.

Angled lathe tooling with unmodified nozzle
installed, and a used angle nozzle motor.

Campitch 2

2010-10-25T12:57:00.011-05:00

Pics by: KeithAlanK

This is the new improved Campitch 2.
It has the same features as the defunk Campitch 1 but is larger and beefier. Most notable is that the wing is much larger, by nearly 50%. The span is 2" longer, but the wing is made from
1/4" x 4" Sig airfoil stock instead of 3/16" x 3" stock. The thicker wing allows for a thicker 3/16" carbon pivot rod instead of the 1/8" carbon, then steel pivot rod on the CP-1. The hub assembly is about 1/2" longer on the motor side.

The CP-2 is already leading a better, or at least charmed, life than the CP-1 did. It has made three flights so far with nothing worse than some burn through charring [routine] and a ding on the wing tip.

The first flight back in August had us rolling on the ground, and we weren't even on fire! I launched the CP-2 on an Estes D12-3, it took off from a 2x4 pad low on the ground and ascended to no more than 3ft as it travelled 5-6ft upwind, then curved left going just over a modroc launch rack passing through a gap in the launch rods with scant centimeters to spare, then it drifted back downwind to land right next to it's takeoff point. It looked a lot like an olympic highjumper in action.

Todd, one of my flying buddies said he'd buy me lunch if I would fly it again. I didn't have any more suitable motors for it, so I told him I would if he could donate an Estes E9. For various reasons, I had yet to use any E9's before, so this one was my 1st. Well that turned in a perfect flight, 60-70ft up, transitioning to full autorotation mode about 1/2 way down and landing about 100ft downwind.

September launch dates were all rained out, so I had to wait till October for flight #3. Since the CP-2 flew so well on an E9 I figured it could handle one of my long sugar moonburners. These are sized the same as the E9 though heavier start to finish and has a higher sustain burn and longer duration. Well this spinny thang tookoff and immediately tilted about 45 degrees downwind for about 100ft then curved back and up in a boomerang turn till it was knife edged, pointing into the wind, at which point it ran out of sugar and dropped straight into the ground. Amazingly, the only damage was a little mushing of the wingtip, easily fixed by supergluing my fingertips to it.
The only other time I ever saw a monocopter with quite that flight profile was when I actually launched one with no flybar installed at all. Obviously a flybar with more authority is needed.
Not too surprising really, since the flybar was the same one the smaller CP-1 used.

Tig Bitty Alert

2010-10-15T14:15:00.008-05:00

The orange paper has an exact [from the screen] print of
the other side of the shot glass.

This blogpost was substantially written by my brother Keith
and first appeared in his blog; Zzakk's Garage last year. I
edited it to make myself 1st person and made some additions.

Back in 1991 when my brother and I owned a screen printing
company (that did everything but T-shirts) we used to make
personal items from time to time. Keith handled the artwork
/typsetting and darkroom, plus made the screens--I was in
charge of the machinery and tooling (makes perfect sense if
you know us) and then we would do the actual printing
together.

I had Keith pirate the art of Patty Melt [one of Cherry's friends]
whipping out her tig old bitties from a Cherry Comics adult
comic book, and we printed at most a dozen shot glasses
[1 sub-carton]. We shipped two of the shot glasses to Larry
Welz, the comic's author, who then sent us the original and
never-seen-before-now drawing that's in the frame. We
traded a few comments about our favorite liquors and
thoughts on doing a production run. Unfortunately, our
epoxy based glass ink wasn't durable enough for hard use
[we termed it "Souvineer Quality"] so we declined due
to warranty concerns.

We put milk in the glass so our printing would be legible in
the photo, then drank it. Till someone else brought it up,
we never thought about the humor of our choice of liquid.

Probably the only time Keith has tasted white milk since
we made the shotglasses 18 years ago.
Personally, I can't get enough of the stuff.

The first issue of Cherry Comics was titled Cherry Poptart.
A great way to infuriate Kelloggs and Archie Comics at the
same time. There were some not so thinly disguised Archie
characters in that first issue too.

Time to Google Larry Welz and see what he's up to lately.
www.cherrycomics.com If you're 18 or older.

Girl Genius Comics, Steampunk Heaven

2010-10-14T15:41:00.012-05:00

Not an artistic page but
Agatha's rant says it all.

2008 Hugo award

A quick plug for Girl Genius comics.
The hero is Agatha Heterodyne, an extremely sparky
mad scientist from a long and dangerous family of
sparky mad scientists. A nice girl actually, but she's
learning fast.
I wouldn't mind being her Lab Assistant.
Phil & Kaja Foglio just uploaded this great photo of
the Hugo award they won for Best Graphic Novel
of 2008. Great trophy. Absolutely fantastic comic.
I can't recommend it enough. You can read a new
page every weekday online, but support your artist
and buy the books, I have the 1st 7 or 8 plus a lot
of other Foglio comics and cool products.

I installed a link in the lefthand sidebar some months
ago but I wasn't fired up enough to do a blogpost
about it till now.

Back in the Saddle, NOT!

2010-10-12T15:12:00.005-05:00

I had high hopes for upping my post rate this fall
here at the Lab, but such is not going to be the case.

In late September my landline was disconnected and
I about refuse to pay a further autodebited dime to
ATT/yahoo for their klugey [sp?] email that I have to
constantly wait for advertising to load on. I expect
advertising on Yahoo free sites, but not on something
costing me over $17/mo and is slower than ever already.
GRRRRR!
When the email software switched over, the previously
full featured address book lost everything except the
names and email addresses. All the phone numbers, all
the USPS addresses, all the aliases and side notes. ALL
GONE! DOUBLE GA-ERRRRR!!!
Of course this means my access is limited at the moment,
and I'm losing all my old email files and peoples addresses.

So my friends & relations who read this, please email me
at; kur.kzak@gmail.com
I tried changing my blog personal data to the new email
address and was denied. WTF?
If I can't resolve that issue I'll have to change emails again.
Gee, Google Blog and Google Email together sounded like a
Good idea at the time.

I also aquired a cell phone again after doing without one for
about 7 years and not missing it most of the time.
Thanks K&S.

Campitch 1 Monocopter Pt 3

2010-09-03T22:46:00.004-05:00

A good ascent. Note wing gap.

Takeoff. Sign of an inadequate flybar.
1 ft up and already 1 ft sideways.

The wreckage.

The Campitch 1 is no more.

It made 10 flight attempts in 10 months.
Four flights were considered OK, one was very good,
and only one was nearly perfect. One way or another
it tossed it's wing four times. It tore up one part or
another of the cam system four times, and broke one
flybar. The final flight did all three at once.

Even the best flight bent the cam follower bolt. It
was the ninth flight and I used one of my 24mm E
sugar moonburners. It ascended to around 60 feet, it's
highest flight, and when it coasted about halfway down
it finally slowed enough to retract the wing into full
autorotation mode. D motors never gave it the needed
height to do this.

On the tenth flight, I used an Aerotech E11J. At about
the 40ft mark, still under power it disintegrated. The
flybar was broken and the cam follower bolt was half
torn from the wing root, and the bolthead was pulled
through the G10 fiberglass cam track.

This spinny thang taught me more than all my previous
monocopters put together.

The biggest problem the CP1 had was it's pretty wing.
Being fully glassed it was too heavy [especially with
balance weight added to the leading edge], and that
eliptical wingtip made it too slick. Together this
gave it a higher than average rpm AND a tendency to
not slow down anytime soon.
Again, because of the wing weight, the unweighted
3/16" flybar used on the first five flights lacked authority.
This caused the motor and wing to pick their own pitch
angle and for the monocopter as a whole to squirrel
around and track at odd angles instead of going straight
up. The second flybar was 1/4" diameter and slightly
longer, but it had so much drag altitude was reduced
by half.
The wing retract spring is always an issue. If it's too
heavy; it takes extra rpm to extend for takeoff.
If it's too light; it has to slow more to retract into
auto rotation. I used springs because I had a pile to
pick from. A better solution would be rubberbands
which might be easier to fine tune.
Finally, 1/8" pultruded carbon tubing it totally
unsuitable for D+ powered monocopters. I managed
to break them outright 4 times, in three different
applications.

I'll spare y'all the flight log.
Yahoo Monocopter Group won't be so lucky.

Space Truckin'

2010-08-30T22:50:00.008-05:00

Courtesy: Pirate Art Institute

I loved this painting the first time I saw it.
It was an illustration for a short story called; Ride to Live, Live to Ride. The story was about a biker who was a high-iron contractor doing orbital assembly, but ends up being a hero. It appeared about 20 years ago in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. I've long since lost
track of the issue, author and artist.

My brother Keith photographed and printed it for me. Some cleanup was done at the time with ink and brush. I had a grandios plan to screen print parts of it on layers of plexiglas, for a 3D effect. The back layer would've had the stars engraved and sandblasted into it. The stack would then be mounted in a deep frame and internally backlit and edgelit [fibreoptic].

More recently I scanned it and we digitally cleaned it up again and then added colors to the Grateful Dead logo.

Sugar Motor Testing Pt.2, Getting Sweeter

2010-08-20T21:27:00.008-05:00

t
Art Applewhite's Cinco38 Prototype
Pizza Hut

My Tide Wave version with ISP
38-360 case for comparison

Tide Wave on 1st sugar flight.
Using Ultra-White recipe.

Tide Wave pouring on the sugar
and spinning hard.

A big update to the previous post.
Since that test took place back in February I've burned 3 more sugar reloads in the test series. Since the test stand is still broken [the new guage I want for it aint cheap], I went ahead
and flew them in an Art Applewhite 38mm Cinco Saucer clone, my Tide Wave, or in Art's prototype Pizza Hut Cinco38.
Since it's 1st flight I've trimmed down the wavy edges twice on the Tide Wave. The spin under power was fine by me, but the spinning causes recovery problems. I've also flown the Cincos on an Aerotech G64W reload and an ancient and suspicious single-use Aerotech 320Nt H145 manufactured in 1988. These 2 motors definitely bracket the sugars below in the medium H category.

The motor that blew the stand had Bi-modal KNO3 [an inspecific mix of powdered and granular], my usual opacifier 1% Lamp Black, plus 1% Red Iron Oxide. A very fast recipe.
The next 2 are the same as above but with 8% Titanium shavings added for sparks. One had fine sparks, the other coarser sparks. The mildest recipe, nicknamed Ultra-White, uses granular KNO3 and 1% Titanium Oxide as a white opacifier. The only test recipe not burned yet is Ultra-Pink. Same as Ultra-White above but with the addition of 1% RIO on top of the TiO2.

So far, except for the wrong nozzle incident, everything has worked well. Ignition with my now standard Copper Thermite ignitors has been a non-issue. The RIO sure is messy stuff but it
really does improve pouring viscosity, just as other sugar cookers have noted. I didn't doubt it, but wow, seeing it happen is amazing.

At this rate, I'll have to make more test loads by the time the test stand is repaired.
Aw shucks.

Sugar Motor Testing [not all sweet]

2010-08-10T23:42:00.007-05:00

Ignitor hookup.
Black crescent at bottom of guage
window is probable damage.

Instant On! Ignitor wires inflight,
Guage needle is still on zero.

Burnout. Foreground smoke
came out of guage face

Expelling a bit of casting tube.

Blackened guage guts hanging out.

In order to evaluate possible changes to sugar motor recipes, I developed a new shorter motor that would be more economical to operate. It helps that I was given a damaged reload case [Thanks Ray!]. My long motors use two 6 1/8" fuel slugs, unfortunately the short motor, after repair, only fits 5 1/4" of fuel. An even 50% would've been nice, but this is close enough, and it was a free motor.

Late last year I made 4 pairs of reloads, all physically the same, but each pair has a somewhat different formula. All are moonburners since they burn twice as long. Eventually some will go to a thrust stand, but IMO, chamber pressure tests are initially more important. It's good to know what even works before tieing up [or risking] a high dollar digital thrust stand.

I made a new nozzle with a 3/16" throat that would be used with some of the new grains, especially the baseline formula. Being virgin territory, none of these reload kits have the
nozzles listed on the labels like I do with the larger mature reloads. On Feb, 20 2010, the morning of the test, I picked the new 3/16" nozzle and installed it with reload #1 rather
than with reload the mildest. Reload #1 was a hotty and should've been tested first with a 1/4" or even 5/16" nozzle. The motor survived the test but barely. Probably only because it trashed the guage and was blowing out both ends. As it is, it severely belled the nozzle washer and crumbled the corners of the nozzle where it was pressed into said newly angled washer. Despite the short foliage and limited dipersal angle, we never did find the polycarbonate guage window. There is evidence that the pressure guage was damaged previous to this test attempt.

The hydraulic test stand has been cleaned and is getting rebuilt. Besides the new & better guage, it's getting a grease fitting and a brake bleeder valve. Instead of filling the stand with brake fluid as before, I'm going to use grease. This will allow for easier transport of the stand and with a good grease gun I should be able to use the stand to pressure test motor case materials and other components.

Wanted: Spunky Lab Assistant

2010-07-27T23:59:00.006-05:00

A recent Best Buy commercial shows some
customers shopping for a Geek Squad assistant.
This in no way inspired this post, the body of
which was already written, it merely makes it
timely.

In order to expidite the process I'm going online
in my search for a new Spunky Lab Assistant.

First let me dispel rumors about what happened
to my previous Spunky Lab Assistant [SLA]. She
did not get blown up, burned down, nor
bisected by lasers. I did not turn her into a
monster, rather she turned herself into a
monster all on her own. Another story for
another day [off the web].

This is not as easy as I thought it would be.
I'm trying not to be too picky about specific
job skills, but there are quite a few that
are inherent to the long tenure of any Mad
Scientist's SLA.

Summary of desired job skills;
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Major or minor in any 2 of the following;
chemistry, mathematics, physics, applied or
theoretical, computers, or other tech field.
A dropout with a good reason has preference
over a graduate with a bad reason.

Experience with grant applications.

Know the A B C's of proper fire extinguisher use.

Be able to sew Ripstop & Tubular Nylon, Kevlar,
Nomex and Denim.

Know the charades gestures for; Sedative.

Be able to work both English and Metric factors
in the same equations without freaking out.
[It's a rocketry thing.]

Know what the Periodic Table is for, and NOT for.

Be able to tidy up without disturbing "all my
tubes and wires and careful notes."

Know how to make a lab coat and safety gogs
look jazzy.

Make GOOD Coffee, sometimes with makeshift
equipment, or under adverse conditions.

In the words of Dr. Hawkeye Pierce as played by
Donald Sutherland; "She's gotta be able to work
in close without getting her tits in the way."

Oh yeah, most important; If I start running, she
should be able to keep up!

Apollo 11 Owners' Workshop Manual, No Really!

2010-07-13T00:07:00.005-05:00

When I first saw this last year or so over on
Zzakk's garage, I assumed it was some kind
of spoof. Not sure if the book even existed,
or was just a cover.

I found the link on Spaceflight Now website.
The link went to Amazon. There it was, for sale.

I'd like to add that I had the Haynes manuals for
all my motorcycles and love them. Much better
than Chiltons IMO. Haynes books are more
likely to list a substitute for that hard to find
Grumman Z347L pintle injector spanner.

Maybe if my brother buys this for my birthday
I can fly that Lunar Lander out of my back yard.
It looks good there, but it's tough to cut around.

A Classy Ride

2010-07-05T23:21:00.005-05:00

But pretty it aint.
The Bell X-14, I want one!
Can anyone name another jet powered aircraft
with an open cockpit?
I suppose it's just as cool that the X-14 is a VTOL,
but I like the open cockpit best. I want to take it
to the coast and wave to the girls as I cruise slowly
just off the beach, scarf trailing behind.
Surprisingly it would go 172mph and reach 20,000Ft,
brrrr, it's cold up there! Well, not too surprising,
any plane that can VTO has power to spare. Range
was 300 miles. Corpus Christi here I come.

The X-14 was built on the cheap in 1957 using
Beach Bonanza and T-34 Mentor parts. Vertical
lift is provided by a belly mounted flap that
vectors the dual jet exhausts downward. Bleed
air from the engines to puffer vents at the wingtips
and tail provides control in hover.

Good news, it's being restored at a museum in Indiana.

My very 1st Rocket, Corny but Cool.

2010-06-29T23:25:00.006-05:00

This had to be my first rocket, such as it was.
I'm sure it wasn't my first parachute though,
there were doubtless some paratroopers before
then, certainly plenty of them after. You could
always tell where my brother and I lived, there
were always parachutes, or the remains of
parachutes, hung from the wires and trees near
the house. Actually, it wasn't too long before
we were making our own 'chutes out of whatever
came to hand.
I was only 4 or 5 years old, but I remember
getting the Corn Flakes and going positively
apeshit over the Corny 7 offer. I remember
having to wait till the cereal was gone before
we could cut off the boxtop and send it off
with the whopping 35cents. Y'know, back
then, food would actually get stale after a
while. I still remember the agony of waiting
and the pure joy of the package arrival. To
this day ordering stuff is at least as much fun
as fondling stuff in a store, especially in this
electronic age we live in.
I admit it, Ebay be FUN!
I remember playing with the Corny 7 in the
back yard and the "Foomp!" sound it made as
you launched the capsule. I also remember
playing with it awfully close to the apartment
building, but I don't actually remember
whatever became of it. Likely I put it on the
roof.
As I rcollect, being the Corny 7, the astronaut
figure in the capsule was Corny the Rooster.
The available info doesn't seem to support this
though. I question whether all of the capsules
were blue. I keep thinking mine was red.
Thanks to RBToys.com.

Atlas 5 Updates

2010-05-06T08:18:00.011-05:00

Atlas 5-411 Astra 1KR, Flt#8, with single strapon.
Note the vectoring main motors.

Atlas 5-511-AV010, New Horizons, Flt#7
All up with five strapons.

This illustration speaks for itself.

A special thanks to Gunter Krebs who made comment on my Atlas? 5 post. He also posted a link to the Atlas 5 info on his most excellent website; Gunter's Space Page
I had visited Gunter's sites in the dim and distant past and since then lost his address.

So it turns out that the Atlas 5 can be flown with up to five strap-ons, or as few as one [or zero of course]. This is still practically unique in the space launch industry. Aside from the two shuttle systems which are asymetric by nature, the augmented Atlas 5 is the only other one that I know of. This of course requires a robust thrust vector system and an equally capable flight control computer able to adapt to, or be programmed for, the asymetry from the moment of liftoff in addition to the usual trajectory programming, weather, and any other possible anomolies.

While the original Atlas balloon tankage was welded stainless steel, I learned that the Atlas 5 tankage is isogrid [machined] aluminum. The main motor[s] are/is a Russian RD-180. Actually a single assembly with two chambers. One more very useful link: Atlas 5 Data Sheet

The DSP Goddard

2010-04-23T12:07:00.008-05:00

3-2-1 Ignition.
Note the clip attachment.

1st stage ascent.

Staging smoke and weathercocking

DSP stands for Deep Space Probe, 'cause it sure doesn't look like an atmosperic rocket. I named it Goddard in honor of Robert Goddard's famous first liquid fueled rocket which
was likewise a tractor rocket. A tractor rocket pulls from the front rather than pushes from the aft.

The Goddard was inspired and built in a junk pile back in the early '90's. The top cap is from a Colgate upright toothpaste pump that was a good fit on a BT-60 coupler once the internal
threads were moto-tooled off. It was supposed to look like a docking ring, but I never bothered with the extra details. The large ball was from a Valentines balloon bouquet and was clear plastic with a tiny teddy bear inside. Last I looked, it and other sizes were available at Hobby Lobby. The gold pressure spheres are plastic Xmas ornaments. The conical body is the
heart of it and was originally a Yoplait Yogurt cup. The legs are the only costly components, Dave Brown fiberglas pushrods from the hobbyshop. The tailring is a handy droppoff of LOC 5.38 airframe tubing.

One leg is used as a blind launch lug for a 3/16" rod. The other 2 legs each have an ignitor extension wire up them, with flat blade crimps at the bottom for the micro-clips and binding posts at the top for wrapping ignitor wires to.

With a single motor, the Goddard balances behind the nozzle. With two D12's the CHAD booster motor crosses the balance point, and once I even flew it 3 staged. I don't recommend it except in absolute calm. It flies quite well on E11J & F12J's on calm days, and E15W & E18W on breezier days. The old Estes E15 was good, but I have yet to try the newer Estes E9.
Even staged, short delays are the rule.

I have 80% of the parts I need for an H-I sized version, that'll stand nearly 6ft tall.
All Range Safety Officers fear me!

1st pic by KeithAlanK, pics 2-4 by John Lee.

I was speechless!

2010-03-11T10:13:00.007-06:00

I'm over it now.
This is the longest I've gone between posts.

When the Obama administration killed the NASA Constellation Program I truly did not know what to think. Since I didn't want to start blathering like an idjit without knowing any real facts,
I just shut up. Too bad politicians and newscasters can't do the same. I do try to look at both sides of anything, thus I can't be gung-ho about every cool aerospace project that comes along,
or about a cancellation. I did NOT like the Constellation Program, particularly the Ares I, top and bottom. I won't miss it a bit. The Ares V/VI iterations looked better, but were plagued by problems as well. As near as I can tell, it needed bigger engines than are currently available. Until they re-approach or exceed the Saturn Program F1 engine they're wasting time and money. Now it appears that NASA is going to redirect research money in that direction. The "New Hydrocarbon Engine" is intended to meet or exceed the Russian RD-180 which puts
out 860,000 Lbs of thrust. Not big enough I say. Hydrocarbon is fancy talk for Kerosene. Not as much energy per pound as burning Hydrogen, but it's a LOT denser, which saves volume on the first stage where it can be used. Saved volume means less booster weight and height, and it doesn't need to be insulated, or defueled if a launch is seriously delayed.
Another article spoke of NASA initiating real research into orbital fuel depots. Another needed link in the chain to future space activities.

Between cancellation of Constellation and the Shuttle retirement, the job loss numbers are nothing short of staggering. I hear numbers like 20,000 jobs lost in Florida alone. Combined job losses in others states may rival that. This is a bad time to even threaten that, given the nation's financial woes. That's a lot of folks that aren't going to spend an extra dime towards improving the economy even while they can. Another factor to consider is the message this sends to our children. We are trying to get more kids interested in science and high tech educations, meanwhile the folks who currently hold those kinds of jobs are getting laid-off enmasse.

A recent report stated that it would take 2 years from the go signal to add new flights to the shuttle's remaining few. No big stumbling blocks besides putting the fuel tanks back in production. The shuttles will still be flying for most of this year, so that still leaves a bit of a gap. Maybe some overtime or the temporary shift of extra workers would close that gap somewhat.
I do think the STS system is aged, but we should not walk away from its' capabilities for any reason. I never felt that the STS should be our only major access to space, and now less than ever, but we should continue to use it where other vehicles won't suffice. At this point it would take quite a while to produce new improved shuttle orbiters, but we should get on with that. It'll always be more expensive to do so later.
Special thanks to the articles I found at Spaceflight Now.
http://spaceflightnow.com/

Basically, I'm Annoyed!

2010-01-18T16:23:00.006-06:00

Here's a rare picture free post.
This is just words, about words.

It's not uncommon for fad words to come and go in daily use in our culture. Some words stick around, some peak and then decline rapidly, some not fast enough. The word; "Problematic" thankfully has faded away. It's not a bad word in itself, but so few people used it correctly,
it would set my teeth on edge every time by reflex.

What has me growling this time is the word; "Basically".
What really set me off was an American reporter in Haiti being interviewed by another reporter over a live feed right after the recent earthquake. This guy said "Basically" at least six times, but never kept it basic. That's as bad as a hippy saying "Like" and/or "Y'know" every sentence. This guy was educated and experienced though, how embarrassing. I hope his colleagues make a blooper disc of it. I wouldn't mind "Basically" so much if it didn't precede the LONG version of an explanation so often. It should be followed by one or two concise sentences of explanation tops, otherwise it's not basic is it?

After listening to enough people say "Basically", I realized that a lot of the time it's thrown in while they're collecting their thoughts or composing the next sentence before launching into an explanation, thusly it takes the place of dead air or the more honest; "Uhhh" or "Um".
No excuse!
After a few times though, it has a negative effect on one's appearance of intelligence.

OK, I wrote; "Basically" 5 times, [including this time] but only USED it once, in the title. There it was used correctly and concisely, IF you don't bother to read the post.

The Ace MonoKopter in Action

2010-01-10T21:47:00.003-06:00

This is my Ace MonoKopter when I flew it in Oct 2009.
The motor was an out of production [rats!] Aerotech G33-5J.
I've wanted to do a post about the MonoKopter for a while
now, but a lack of decent photos held it up. You must agree,
this sequence of pics are well worth the wait.

To give y'all an idea, the MonoKopter is 48" from motors to
wingtip fin, the wing is 27" x 7" x 3/4"thick, the flybar is a
1/2"dia x 36" oak dowel. The weight is approxx. 28oz less
motors.

I ordered the Monokopter from Korey Kline in person, along
with a couple of his other Ace kits at LDRS-6. Being an ARF,
I had a bit of a wait for it to be produced and shipped. Well
worth it though. After numerous flights in the late '80's and
throughout the '90's, I considered it retired after a bad
landing damaged it. In fact I planned to give it a Viking funeral
after I completed CAD drawings of it. I'm glad I decided to
start flying it again. I figure by next fall I should have a serious
replacement for it after my smaller [and cheaper] monocopter
autorotation experiments are concluded. Ummm, lets say
instead, when the experiments progress far enough.

You might wonder why MonoKopter is spelled with a capital K.
Normally monocopter is spelled with a lower case C. I can't
recall for sure at this point if it was correct, but the MK's
designer Korey Kline, like myself, Ken Kzak, are fond of K's.
I do know I've always spelled it that way.
The photo set was a good bit longer but I left a few out.
Blogger.com will only let me upload five per post.

25% More Goblin

2010-01-01T23:55:00.009-06:00

Pics by; KeithAlanK

Welcome to 2010.

This is my slightly upscale Goblin. I originally built it
for a halloween Goblin contest that was going to be
held at a launch at McGregor TX about 10 or so years
ago. The launch got rained out as I recall, but I'm
glad I built the new Goblin anyway. It uses an Estes
Citation Red Max/Patriot black plastic nosecone. The
fins are 1/16" plywood through to the MMT, and the
airframe is BT-60 with 1 layer of 3oz glass. The
motor mount is 24mm for D12's thru small F reloads.
Like the original Goblin it uses streamer recovery.

The demon artwork came from one of my favorite
comic books; Those Annoying Post Brothers by Matt
Howarth. When I first saw that demon I thought of
the Goblin artwork, they're from different artists
but appear to be from the same Hell.
The Indecline art on the left fin is from a stenciled
graffitti that is on freight cars all over the country.
I skewed the art slightly to better fit the fin, and
now the character looks like he's walking downhill.
Indecline inclined.

As a kid I built an original Goblin kit, making it my
first D kit though I never flew it on more than a C6-5.
The trees verging on my local field were already well
enough decorated with my model rockets. That Goblin
got scrapped long ago, but its' nosecone still flys on
another rocket.
The stand is a cast iron star that came from a Texican
gee-jaw store. My brother gifted me several different
stars one Xmas after I flashed on the concept of using
them for rocket stands. Thanks bro.

Great results despite a crummy start

2009-12-21T11:55:00.003-06:00

Pics by:KeithAlanK

This is my first train post at the Lab.
Along with my other bad habits, I'm fond of trains too.
Plural of caboose is cabeese and a common nickname is
crummy. These days you can simply call a caboose a trailing
anachronism.

This crummy started out as a toy cast in at least 5 clashing
and semi-translucent colors of plastic and covered in
meaningless and/or contradictory crooked stickers. It's part
of a battery powered christmas train set by New Bright,
running on 45mm gauge plastic track. It's aproxximately 1/32
scale. Along with repainting and adding window glazing, I
added a few details. I ordered and installed Ozark Miniatures
pewter marker lamps and eliptical springs castings on the
trucks. I had to build new roof walks to replace the originals
which I lost somehow. The Y-type rerail was fabbed from a
track part. Standard operating orders my imaginary railway
company, the GT&O, requires that all locos, cabeese and
plows must carry a rerail device [the imaginary trackage
aint so good]. The chain slung on the other side is for the
crews to drag stuff with. Sometimes a car has to be dragged
at a distance, and once, the conductor shot a moose. The
marker lamps are functional with a 3V grain of wheat bulb
in each one. Another bulb is hung inside as a ceiling lamp.
I chose to use a pair of C batteries so that I could use up
tired hand me downs from the loco which sucks up 6 at a
time. Too, I had several spare battery holders handy. I
frosted the windows so you can't see in, and it simulates
window fogging on a cold day.
I modified the track in the photo to be a grade crossing.
The wood strips hide some superfluous toy crap underneath.
The wood is aged with grey art markers and detailed with
a fine Sharpie pen.
After the crummy, I refinished the boxcar and gondola that
I have. Next will be the loco and tender, ugh. When I start
on the tender, I intend to get lettering and logos for
everything.

I decided to leave my christmas tree mummified in a closet
this year, but the xmas train is coming out tonight. I found
some tiny plastic wreaths to put on each end of the train,
and some snow covered pine trees to put along the track.

~Merry Christmas Y'all!~

Atlas? 5

2009-11-30T21:23:00.004-06:00

I was surfing for the X37B and landed on the Atlas 5 which
is going to be the X37's launch vehicle soon. I didn't know
much about the Atlas 5 and admittedly, I still don't know
enough. Research will continue though. I have a few
points to make in this post, more may arise in the future.

As near as I can tell, this is practically a new vehicle, it
bears so little commonality with the Atlas that I know,
it hardly deserves the name. Atlas always had 3 liquid
rocket motors in a stage and a half arrangement. It took
off on 3 motors, then later drops the outer pair,
continueing on the center motor alone. A sweet solution.
This new bird has only 2 liquid motors.
More important than the name, L-M adds the older Atlas
launch success rate in with the new one, claiming over 600
successful launches. Most of those flights were made by
the original Convair later renamed General Dynamics.
Marketing hype that doesn't fool anybody who cares.

The pics above are from the recent launch of the Intelsat
14 satelite. Reading about the flight, I found that it used
3 strap-on motors. Scrolling through the roll-out pics, I
was struck by the sight of 2 of the strap-ons side by side.
Typically 3 strap-ons would be attached equidistant around
the booster. Further through the pics I find the third strap-
on on the other side next to an empty mounting pad for a
fourth. The Atlas 5 is outfitted for only 4 strap-ons mounted
in 2 opposite pairs. I would've designed the booster with 6
mounting pads, which would allow any balanced combo of
2,3,4, or 6. It's a pure guess on my part that they didn't
want to rebuild the launch pad. The umbilical tower is a
bit too close to allow strap-ons on that side.

These days, strap-on motors are about as likely to have
inward canted nose cones as traditional concentric cones.
The Atlas 5 strap-ons have a cone style I've never seen
before. They are canted inward but the tip is full width
and flattened next to the main booster.
Wonder what they call it?

French Rubber

2009-11-18T21:18:00.005-06:00

pics by KeithAlanK

This is a Coupe deHiver called the Coupe deVille
Coupe deHiver is French for Winter Cup. We all know that
a Coupe deVille is, or was, a top end 2 door Cadillac.

In rubber power competition the king of competition categories is
Wakefield It's been around since the 1930's or longer, and as a
consequence, is packed with rules and dominated by guys who've
been flying them for decades, or the occasional young aerospace
engineer who still has the ability to innovate after 6-8 years of
college. Coupe deHiver has been around since the 1950's or so,
and while it has some tight rules of it's own, they still fit on one page.
After going to a few contests, I knew the event I wanted. I bought a
2nd rate kit called Slats and set it on a shelf straightaway. Not long
after, Blue Ridge Models introduced the Coupe deVille and I was
hooked. A truly great kit for it's day. All the rib sets were milled,
the propellor blades preformed, and all the wood was 1st rate and
appropriate to the task. Another nice feature is that with a couple
quick adjustments it can be loaded with as much rubberas desired
and flown in Unlimited event as well. I built it immediately during
July-August 1977. I finished the decorations the night before the first
day of my senior year. Too nervous to sleep, I stayed up finishing it
by about 3am. The name and shark mouth are all cut tissue, both
based on my own sketches. The color on the tail used to be a very
nice royal blue.

I had started collecting all the support equipment back when I bought
the Slat kit, so I was ready. I took it out a few times that fall and it
flew great. A real pleasure to watch. In October I got my own car,
and it and girls, pushed everything else out of the picture. Occasional
flying still took place now and then, but years of steady construction
projects was at an end.
When I moved back to Texas in 1981. the Coupe deVille made the
trip, but the box full of ground support equipment and supplies didn't.
By then I was a mad biker, and flying was even farther from my mind.
I thought about getting the ground suport together but it didn't happen
soon enough. By 1990 the tissue covering was already too old and
brittle. It's made 6 moves over the years, and hung from a lot of walls
and ceilings, but this is the end of the line. Now that it's finally digitized,
it's headed to a viking funeral.
Like most rockets, the build time exceeded the total airtime. This model
may have as many as 35 hours construction time, another 15 hours for
the ground support. At most, the Coupe deVille probably amassed no
more than 20 minutes in the air. 20 minutes of pure magic to watch
though.

Sidewinder on Steroids

2009-10-31T15:21:00.005-05:00

Here's yet another gem I found at China Lake Alumni.
1970 gallery. It's called the HAP Sidewinder. HAP
stands for High Altitude Project. The limited research
I found indicates that it was created by combining a
Sparrow rocket motor with the front end of an AIM-9L.
Some test flights were performed, but the project was
soon cancelled.

I've never been a big Sidewinder fan and the
proliferation of variants has always made the study of
them a bit bewildering. Having admitted that, I must
say; I LIKE THIS!

I can look up the 2 diameters and easily scale a drawing
from there.I have an Estes Python nosecone which will
serve for the Sidewinder seeker section, or I can turn
one, as well as turning the transition section.
Sigh... just add it to an already long list of unstarted
and semi-started projects

Playing with a Stubby Euphemism

2009-10-26T18:02:00.007-05:00

3d by Dick Stafford

Photo KeithAlanK

Photo KeithAlanK

Photo John Lee

I can appreciate a clever euphemism.
The USAF nuclear arsenal is typically modular in nature. A sensible
approach when technology is progressing rapidly. The nuclear
explosive is a seperable unit from it's carrier body, either a
missile or a gravity bomb. In the case of a gravity bomb, the
body is referred to as a drop-shape.   Cute, I like that.

This it the DS-3r; Drop Shape, 3"dia, rear ejection. This is also
the 3rd DS that I've built over the years. Won't be the last either.
I had been sketching and dreaming this particular design for a
couple years already, and when Giant Leap introduced it's 3", 5:1
plastic nosecone, I knew the time had come. I turned an upscale
Cherokee cone for a rocket buddy in trade for the Giant Leap
cone.

I always thought the slo-mo vidclips of gravity bombs with retard
packages looked cool. The small close coupled chute ejecting out
the rear to slow the bombs down. For a low altitude drop, this
gives the aircraft a lead over the slowing bombs so that they
don't explode directly under the aircraft. Nukes often are
configured the same way for the same reason, despite much
higher release altitudes. The DS-3r has the internal space to do
this well. The motor mount tube extends well into the nose. The
ejection gasses must 1st go forward, then return through the
baffled centering rings to eject the tail cap and the chute which
is packed around the motor. This utilizes the entire internal
volume of cool air to push the chute out before any hot gasses
can even reach it. Another trick I pulled is that by removing the
nose cone, the entire motor mount/baffle assembly slides right
out for servicing or for chute replacement.

When the DS-3r was nearing completion, I decided that It
needed to be run through RocSim. I've used it a time or two,
but don't have it. I still use Barrowman CP calc on paper, and
did it this time, though knowing that it has trouble with rockets
this stubby.  I contacted Dick Stafford of Dick's Rocket Dungeon
fame and he helped me out. After tweaking the mass and balance
in line with the the real model, he found that only one ounce of
nose weight would be required, I added 1 1/2oz. RocSim
Barrowman CP agreed with paper Barrowman CP, and RocSim CP
was indeed a bit further back. The wedge airfoil fins [which
RocSim as yet doesn't handle] actually moves the CP still further
back a bit. The performance sim crosses Estes motors and the
24mm Blackjacks right off the list, too slow off the rail. E18W is
good for 800ft, the F39T goes to 1200ft. Just about perfect
upper range, and I may work my way down the motor list over
time.  That new Aerotech E20W looks nice too.

China Lake YouFoe Quiz

2009-10-13T19:11:00.003-05:00

Here's another pic I found at China Lake Alumni.
The very first pic in the 1962 gallery.
I haven't seen one of these in at least 20 years.
I do know what it is.
Do you?

Mystery Mono at China Lake

2009-10-11T17:26:00.005-05:00

Sometimes it pays to repeat a search from time to time.
Previously, when I Googled Monocopter I'd get some of the
usual scattering of model vidclips and discussion, and a whole
lot of that Euro turbofan jetpak, which may be mono, but
aint no copter. This time around the photo below popped
out at me. Quite a find.
It was at the China Lake Alumni website, in the photo gallery
page for 1963. China Lake is home to the US Navy weapons
test facilities. The site search engine, unfortunately, yielded
no other photos or info. I kept the original file name on the pic;
Monocopter perch 16AUG63 CLK SL-027985

I am able to infer a few things from the pic. Foremost is that
the protuberance on the far side of the hub is not the same as
the wing on this side, so I believe this really is a monocopter.
The wing is mounted to the hub at the center of lift, therefore
is probably capable of changing pitch in flight, likely in response
to control inputs to the elevon at the wingtip. If the hub isn't
made from actual truck hubcaps I'll be surprised as hell. If it's
heavy enough the disk hub will stabilize a rotor despite the lack
of a proper flybar. I had already designed a monocopter using
a ring shaped hub, although the ring on mine is proportionately
larger in relation to the wing since it'll have no extra internal mass.

Two things are puzzling.
Obviously; what is the powerplant?
The other is the source of the 1/2 round shadow directly below
the hub? You can see that the sun is to the left and the shadows
are stretching to the right, therefore the hub's actual shadow is
to the right as well.

If anyone knows ANYTHING further, PLEASE comment!

Low Flight 2, The Heli Version

2009-10-10T19:48:00.005-05:00

Today, while surfing the web for something completely different,
I ran across another version of Low Flight, this time written by
and for helicopter pilots. I previously posted the original High Flight,
and then Low Flight written for Phantom II crews earlier this year.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Low Flight

Oh, I've slipped the surly bonds of earth
And hovered out of ground effect on semi-rigid blades;
Earthward I've auto'ed and met the rising brush of non-paved terrain
And done a thousand things you would never care to
Skidded and dropped and flared
Low in the heat soaked roar.
Confined there, I've chased the earthbound traffic
And lost the race to insignificant headwinds;
Forward and up a little in ground effect
I've topped the General's hedge with drooping turns
Where never Skyhawk or even Phantom flew.
Shaking and pulling collective,
I've lumbered the low untresspassed halls of victor airways,
Put out my hand and touched a tree.

-Anonymous

Campitch 1 Monocopter Pt2

2009-09-29T17:00:00.009-05:00

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?

Campitch 1 Monocopter Pt1

2009-09-27T23:15:00.005-05:00

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.

It was a Gorey Show [sorry]

2009-09-21T20:33:00.005-05:00

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.

Flying a better Mousetrap

2009-09-13T00:37:00.005-05:00

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.

The 1st flight video was posted by friend John Lee at the time.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23694991@N03/2953720670/

Welcome to the Pirate Art Institute

2009-08-31T14:53:00.006-05:00

"Aaarh, Ye be welcome to the Pirate Art Institute"
How many ways can you COPY this pirate? When we
were kids we would see this art school ad in the back
of magazines. "Can you draw this pirate?" or some other
bit of cutesy art. "Then enroll today and have a future as
a commercial artist, bla-bla-bla..."

When my brother and I had a print shop back in the late
'80's, it became a running joke early on. Customers would
bring us totally crappedout art, or ask for art that we didn't
have, or to infringe on copyrights in a questionable manner.
The Pirate Art Institute to the rescue!
We would clip, photocopy, photograph, trace, or redraw,
then shoot a transparency, use it to expose a screen, and
finally silkscreen print it in [hopefully] vast quantities.
Whatever it took to make a buck.

Anything but FAX!
We refused to install fax service because at least 1
customer a week would want to fax their art to us.
No, nope, nu-uh, don't do it. Most fax looked
terrible on a good day. Imagine what it would do
to the aforementioned already crapped out art.

What a Bomb

2009-08-27T17:35:00.003-05:00

As I perused online photo albums from NARAM-51, I saw
another rocket worthy of note amongst the scale and fantasy
scale models. Fantasy scale designs are rockets and spacecraft
that are serious designs that were never built, or designs that
are entirely fictional in nature. This is a very nice model of
the Alpha Omega Bomb, the doomsday missile that radiation
fried mutant humans worshipped in the movie, Beneath the
Planet of the Apes. I didn't quite have a primal moment when
I recognized the model, but the apes in the movie sure did.
Reading up on the history of the movie, it was Charlton
Hestons idea to set off the bomb at the end of the movie.
He rather hoped that would be the end of the series.
No such luck.

All the models entered in competition at NARAM have to fly,
but I doubt the Omega Bomb flew as is. It only has 2 fins.
No doubt the model has a set of removable clear plastic fins
that are added to make it flyable. Unfortunately, I have no
info at this time on the owner builder, or the photographer.

Quest for New Designs?

2009-08-20T21:38:00.006-05:00

When I first saw a pic of what I take to be Quest
Aerospace's dealer table at NARAM 51 I had a primal
moment. I curled my lips back and hooted a few
times while slapping my head. A quick check of the
Quest web site confirmed that what I spotted in the
pic was one of Quest's new kits, the Striker AGM.
Well there's new and then there's new. I've seen that
design before and it takes an old rocketeer to know
where.
Way back when, some of the movers and shakers of
model rocketry got together to create a truly cutting
edge company called Enertek. To make a long and
mostly unknown story short, Enertek failed to make it
into production. Gary Rosenfield and/or his company
Aerotech was a major participant, others participants
went on to form Quest. A lot of Enertek tooling had
already been done and this formed the core of
Aerotech's kit line. The Mantis launch pad, the Initiater,
Strong Arm, and Arcas kits. All underwent some changes
minor or major, but there they were. Enertek was
where C-slot motors and Copperhead igniters [called
Top Shot Igniters then] gestated as well.

A close look at the Astra 2000 will cause a lot of fellow
rocketeers to have a primal reaction themselves, the
critter is obviously based on major components from
a Black Brant II. Nose cone, boattail, and the narrow
waist ring [the white section below the upper fins].
Quest naturally used what was at hand and used a Nike
Smoke nosecone.

I always wanted to build a clone-rok of the Astra 2000,
but being a difficult person, I wanted to stage it and
that upper fin set is dreadfully small. I have cloned a
couple other Enertek vapor-roks over the years, but
that's a story for another day.

Kaman's Kooler K-Max

2009-08-18T00:18:00.004-05:00

Enter the Kaman K-Max.
This is a pure work helicopter employed to transport and set
bulky and heavy objects. It's got a centerline winch and the
fuselage is extra narrow so that the pilot can stick his head out
the sides to look down. The K-Max has a long tailboom so it
doesn't need as much fin area as the Huskie has, but like the
Huskie it doesn't need a tailrotor either. As a direct
consequence, a lot more horsepower is available for lifting.
In fact, 6000lb at sea level, impressive for a 5100lb helicopter.

Another neat design feature shared by all Kaman helicopters,
eggbeater and conventional alike, is the blade control flap.
On other helicopters, the blade pitch is controlled by pitching
it directly at the hub. This requires hydraulic controls on any
helicopter of size. With the blade control flap, the flap is
actuated in the opposite direction and this causes the blade to
twist in the desired direction, Just like the elevator on a
conventional airplane. This means the control input required is
much lighter, [no horsepower robbing hydraulic pump needed]
and because the blade is being controlled out where lift is
created instead of at the hub, the blade trim is more precise
and reactive to the airflow around it on a per blade basis.
This spells greater efficiency and reduced vibration. The
simplified rotor hub also reduces mechanical friction losses,
and reduced aerodynamic drag in forward flight.

Kaman has utilized the K-Max's light and easy main rotor
control and the lack of a squirrely tail rotor to produce a
dual function version that can be remotely controlled as well
as piloted. As far as I know, this is the first full size
helicopter to be flown unmanned. The fact that it can still
be flown manned as well makes it quite versatile.

Kaman has partnered with Lockheed Martin, called Team
K-Max to modify and demonstrate the UAV K-Max for military
operational testing. These modifications are at least the minimum
needed to turn a civilian bush aircraft into one that's integrated
with the 21st century US Navy and Marines.

Kaman Cooltech Heli's Pt1

2009-08-04T14:59:00.008-05:00

As kids we lived on and around Randolph AFB, Texas back in
the '60's, Randolph had a squadron [well at least 2 anyway] of
Search and Rescue [SAR] helicopters stationed there. A bravo
idea. At a training base accidents do happen. Back then, the
helicopters they used were the HH43 Kaman Huskie. Along
with patrolling the local flight paths and training areas off
base, they would take part in practice crash rescues and fire
suppression. There were a couple wrecked airframes on the
east side of the base and once a week or so they'd light one
on fire, then scramble a Huskie and the base firetrucks to
come in and put the fire out. Top entertainment for a kid,
a bit nerve wracking for pilot's wives.

As helicopters go, I ALWAYS thought the Kaman Huskie was
the coolest. A stubby little glass box with a whole bunch of tail
fins and those eggbeater twin rotors counter-rotating overhead.
A unique look and a unique sound. At least till recently.

I onced swapped a few beers with a heli pilot who flew USAF
SAR Huskies in Thailand during the "Police Action". He loved the
Huskie, but he said they had one major drawback at the time.
The rotor blades were made of Spruce wood. After a rain or
even a heavy dewfall, the wet blades would sag far enough to
risk a strike during startup. The blades had to be dry before
takeoff. No doubt modern composite blades have little or no
trouble with this.

1000 Visits, No Steenking Carbon Credits Required!

2009-07-23T17:12:00.005-05:00

Wahoo!
ZZakk's Lab passed the 1000 visitor mark today.
Not bad for a blog that's only 5 months old, with 34 posts.
I swear, I accounted for no more than 200 of them myself.
250 tops. By May the count had crept up to 138 for the
month. June practically exploded with 345 visitors. July
may edge that out by a few. According to the average visit
duration, most visitors are even staying long enough to read
something.
Thank you everybody.

Such a great idea...

2009-07-22T22:29:00.004-05:00

Such a great idea, yet even Estes doesn't seem to
want to build one. WTF?
In the 1997 Estes catalog there was a kit that never
reached production. It was a model of a fly-back booster
called Star Booster. It's based on descriptions in Buzz
Aldrin's sci-fi book; Encounter with Tiber. copyright 1996
Great book by the way. I dug it up for this post and then
read it all again.

In the book, the Star Booster is built by Boeing to take
a slide-in Zenit motor/tank assembly, built under license,
in the USA. One or two of them would be attached to a
core vehicle as a strap-on like an SRB is. After using up
it's propellants, the Star Booster would seperate from the
core vehicle then glides back to an automated runway
landing near the launch site. After each flight, the Zenit
is removed for seperate servicing. When the airframe is
ready, the next available Zenit gets installed for a quick
turn-around.
BTW; Boeing really is building licensed Zenits for the
Sea Launch commercial launch program.

The Estes Star Booster model was going to be 18" long,
with a 9.5" wingspan, parachute recovery, C motors only.
By the looks, I expected it to have a cast styrofoam
fuselage over a cardboard core tube, just like the large
Shuttle Orbiter kit of the same time period.

I've been looking at the Estes Star Booster recently with
ideas for reproducing it. I have hot-wire foam cutting
equipment, so it's not a big stretch for me to model it at
the original size or larger. The difficult part is that not
only do I want it to glide, I want it to glide with an unfair
chunk of reload casing inside it. In short, a realistic mission
as afly-back strap-on, boosting a level 2 size rocket. For
the sake of balance it needs a long thin motor case. Either
a 29/360 or 38/480+ sized case, probably EX and burning
sugar. The big trade-off [ya can't design anything without
trade-offs] is, to maintain balance, the bigger the model,
the longer the motor case needs to be, and vice-versa.
Of course, it'll glide like a brick!

For more info see; Fly-Back Boosters, Reprised
right here at ZZakk's Lab on Monday, May 18, 2009
These 2 posts [of 3 before long] were supposed to coincide
more closely, but I'm easily distracted.

Uncle Walt Believed

2009-07-17T22:37:00.003-05:00

Early today I read that NASA released some early photos
from the LRO, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, showing
most of the Apollo landing sites on the moon.
Curmudgeons Corner, the blog that clued me in,  said that
the conspiracy nuts are now invited to apologize and then
shut up.   My first thought was that this is a NASA
spacecraft and therefore not independant coroboration.

Bah!
I didn't bother leaving a comment, let alone feeling the
need to compose this post.

On the evening news I found out that Walter Cronkite
passed away today. I grew up watching Uncle Walt on
the news. He was a great great man, and a first rate
journalist. He was also a staunch supporter of the space
program, but no wide eyed fool. So, here's my answer to
all the lunar landing hoax theorists;

Walter Cronkite believed!

Goodbye Walt, you'll be missed. 11/4/16-7/17/09

MLAS of the Future

2009-07-13T15:59:00.005-05:00

The illustrations above show what the MLAS shroud
will look like in the near future, more or less.

Obviously it was drawn when the number of motors
were to be as many as six, the version just flown
is designed to use only four motors. The folding grid
fins are shown though, and four is the number since
no matter what, one side is reserved for crew
access. Once the MLAS gains it's grid fins, the boost
test vehicle will lose it's coast skirt and associated
upper finset. Depending on the nature [flight
envelope] of the future tests, the test booster will
mutate further still. MLAS's current good looks are
probably a one shot deal.

Before a live MLAS shroud abort flight can take
place, the motor manifold connecting the four
shroud motors around the apex will have to be
ground tested. That'll be an event to look for in
future NASA news releases.

The Block I & II Ares LAS uses a single abort
motor that is mounted upside down, with the exhaust
flowing through a hot manifold to turn it around
approxx 135deg in order to exit the nozzles, this
constitues a large weight and performance penalty.
Scary hot too.
With the MLAS motor system there are multiple
motors which all must ignite. Of course, the motors
and ignition systems are very reliable, but just in
case, the motors will be interconnected with a
manifold at the top end. This allows exhaust gasses
from the other three to ignite the stubborn one.
Since gas cross flow will be minimal once all motors
are lit, the MLAS manifold will run a lot cooler and
can therefore be made a bit lighter than on the LAS.

BTW; Rumor has it, Quest is fast tracking an
MLAS modroc kit.

MLAS takes to the Air!

2009-07-08T10:36:00.009-05:00

Wahoo! Look at that gooneybird go!

After several delays in June, I found yesterday that the
MLAS was scheduled to fly this morning 7/8/09. Well
it took off at 6:25AM ET, which is soon after the launch
window opened, so it seems the countdown went well.

There are only a few sparce articles out so far, but that
should grow, shortly. I've seen 2 ascent pics so far.
Despite the massive base drag, I was hoping to see the
individual flames of the severely canted boost motors,
however you can seethe lobes they create in the smoke
column.
Now that the MLAS has made it's 1st successful flight,
it paves the way for the rest of the MLAS test program.
It also takes it from an interesting sport modroc and turns
it into a legal NAR scale subject.

The 2nd pic above is NASA's picture of the day today.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/iotd.html

The Orion Abort Test Booster, Almost.

2009-07-06T15:24:00.003-05:00

I Found it! Almost.
This info is less than a year old, so it's practically current.
This hasn't been an easy search, I had to buildup a string of
clues. I knew the test flights would occur at White Sands Missile
Range. I more or less trolled through the NASA facilities until
I found that NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards
AFB has the project. Dryden is responsible for vehicle integrations
and ops.

The linked Dryden document below is a treasure trove.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/NewsReleases/2009/09-08.html

I found that Orbital Sciences Corporation, Chandler, Ariz. is
constructing the Abort Test Booster. Thus the all important
acronym; ATB. For a successful technical search, having the
correct acronym for a keyword can be crucial. Even when I
went to the Orbital Sciences website it took a bit of searching,
I had to use their search box, but "ATB" gave up a bunch of
documents. Unfortunately for me, the 4.1MB PDF fact sheet
wouldn't open once I downloaded it. My PC OS is too old.
So far, all I've found are illustrations, and not photographs,
thus the "Almost" in the title. But good illustrations they are,
with versions for both Block I and Block II LAS's

Motive power is going to come from surplus Peacekeeper ICBM
1st stage motors. Given the current lack of fins, no doubt the ATB
will use the stock Peacekeeper thrust vector system. The flight
control system will probably be based on the same modular system
that Orbital Sciences developed for their other programs. Orbital's
new Minotaur IV & V already uses Peacekeeper motors, so that
should be a slam-dunk.

http://www.orbital.com/

Ares Launch Abort Systems Block I & II

2009-07-03T12:04:00.004-05:00

The above NASA document shows the difference
between the Block I, called PA-1 here [Pad Abort],
and the Block II design with the curvy bullet shaped
fairing.

The Mercury capsule flew with the abort tower
attached directly to the capsule. With Apollo, the
designers added the BPS, Boost Protective Shroud.
I've seen it called BPC, Boost Protective Cover too.
This was a large metal conical cover over the capsule.
The BPSserved double duty; as extra protection for
the capsuleduring an emergency seperation [possibly
allowing a reduction in capsule weight], and the BPS
acts as a stabilizer when the tower motors are fired.

When NASA designed the Launch Abort System for
the Orion capsule, they logically started with the
Apollo system, with a few changes to make it more
compact. Compact usually translates to weight savings.
The obvious change was the deletion of the open struts
that seperate the abort motor nozzles from the BPS.
In the Orion system this space is taken up by the
seperation motor itself, which is mounted upside down.
More about that little kluge at a later date.

This all sounds fine and dandy so far.
The other pic is a wind tunnel model of the Ares 1
with visible shock waves. This is a common wind tunnel
technique for researching different designs. As you
can plainly see the biggest shock wave is generated by
the Orion BPC. NASA says they have no problem with
controlling the Ares 1, but any hobby rocketeer can
tell that aint very stable. Not stable at all.
Saturn Apollo didn't have this problem. The Apollo
capsule and BPS were much smaller than Orion and, as
I recall, the biggest shock wave producer on the Saturn
was the reducer, between the 2nd and 3rd stage, which
is further back on the airframe. OTOH; the 1st stage of
the Ares 1 is smaller in diameter than the 2nd stage and
capsule, making the situation even worse. Natural
stability is no big requirement for modern rocket systems
with computer guidance systems and gimballing nozzles,
but the Big Stick is pushing the envelope here.

Enter the Block II BPS.
The modern BPS's are made of composites instead of
metal, which is sensible, but the Block II will certainly
weigh a fair bit more than the Block I. With it's bullet
shape, the Block II drag reduction will be huge and
therefore controllability margins will be enhanced.

Ares 1X, the 1st test flight of the Ares 1 stack will
use a Block 1 BPS. Hopefully later tests will include
Block II or even MLAS.

The search for Little Joe III goes on.

2009-06-29T22:35:00.006-05:00

Dick Stafford of Dick's Rocket Dungeon linked me to
this illustration he posted a couple years ago.
Is this the shape of Little Joe III?
The search goes on.
It's certainly conjecture in the illustration since it shows
3 possible versions, and it shows a generic Apollo style
escape tower on the cone.
I would discount the 2 segment SRB version outright.
Even if ATK had already developed it, it would be
expensive, and offer only one performance profile.
Version 2 with the 2 surplus Minuteman 1st stages
would be neat, and answers the above problems a
bit better. Now version 3 with the GEM-60's, that's
the ticket! Load'er up with however many strap-on's
needed for a particular test, and let'er rip!
Quantity discounts when ordering by the truckload.

BTW: Dick ran a stability sim on a 3"dia modroc of
the MLAS in my previous post.
Check it at: http://rocketdungeon.blogspot.com/

And I thought Little Joe's were cute!

2009-06-28T10:11:00.006-05:00

The Mercury program had Little Joe.
Apollo had Little Joe II.
They were built for inflight testing of the escape towers
under multiple flight conditions, in order to man-rate
them as crew launch abort systems in the event of post
launch emergency. Ares-IX is currently configured with
a LAS tower with a conical capsule shroud. NASA is
working on a block II version with a bulkier but
aerodynamically much better ogive shroud.
I spent over a day searching and reading what I could
find, but I couldn't find much of anything on the Ares I
LAS tower testing. Some pics of motor ground testing,
and a couple vague references to pad abort testing, but
no Little Joe III so far.

Now enter the MLAS, The Max Launch Abort System.
BTW; Max doesn't stand for maximum but for Maxime
Faget, a Mercury program engineer and patent holder
on the Mercury escape tower.
With the improved aerodynamics and the rocket motors
imbedded in the shroud itself, this is touted as being
much lighter, and I daresay, simpler too.
Call it an Ares I LAS Block III I guess.

And the MLAS test vehicle?
Wahoo! I want to build one!
The MLAS test vehicle is currently awaiting it's 1st
flight on a pad at Wallops Island VA having sat through
several weather delays throughout June.
The C of O chart above illustrates the first flight profile,
just high enough [1 mile] to test launch, stability,
separation, the recovery system and Dataq..
Later tests would use live abort motors at various
speeds and altitudes, both higher and lower.

If Plan B shuttle, in the post below, ever gets flown
with an Orion capsule on board, this'll be the LAS
needed for the job.

I wonder if the Soviets ever had any LAS test vehicles?

NASA's Grand Plan B

2009-06-26T01:43:00.005-05:00

NASA's future manned spaceflight programs are under review by
the Catherine Commision. There are development issues with the
current Ares1/Ares5 systems. Perhaps, the most important of which
is the large time gap between retirement of the shuttle and scheduled
1st flight of the Ares 1 to the space station. Of course this time gap
could easily grow larger.

So NOW NASA unveils a stopgap measure based on shuttle
hardware. It looks a lot like the Shuttle-C which gets mentioned.
I consider the timing just a bit creepy, since I've heard nothing of
Shuttle-C in the last 10 years, except my own post, a week before
this hits the news.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/06/24/side-mount-shuttle.html

I'm not going to go over the whole system, since this article link is
fresh. Just a few interesting points. Unlike Shuttle-C, NASA is
proposing this as a manned system as well, with the new Orion
capsule riding inside the fairing, which consequently would look a
bit different from the picture above. The comment about cost
savings from reusable main motors being a myth is quite interesting.
I'll need to digest that one further before emmiting a response.
Of course, this system fits my vision of modularity that I expounded
upon in my previous post. Finally, as I said then, this sort of thing
could've been flying years ago, saving the orbiters for the missions
that really needed them. I don't mean to sound bitchy, I like it
better than the Ares 1 system.

6/28/09--Update; After a lot of googleing, I found multiple
references to Shuttle-C and Plan B, mostly dating from around '05.
That's still damn recent in shuttle years, but near the infancy of the
Constellation program.
[Dog years are 7:1, Shuttle years are about 5:1, therefore the
shuttles are not dogs.]

Shuttle Kvetch

2009-06-18T12:21:00.005-05:00

Two possible versions of Shuttle-C.

Anyone who knows me, or who's read this blog, should
know that I love anything that flies, from paper
airplanes and match rockets to the Voyager probes
currently coasting in intersellar space.
I don't hate NASA, or the Shuttle. As those of us who
know anything about it know, the blame isn't all on
NASA's shoulders. For the sake of brevity [too late]
NASA will do for now.
Part of this first rant is going to spill onto the
International Space Station as well. More on the ISS
in the next installment.

I am mad at NASA for the way they screwed up the
shuttle program nearly every step of the way, until
it's admittedly too late to do anything about it.
What angers me most is that it's an obviously modular
system, and yet this is the most underutilized
feature of the system.

Ok class... who here knows that the original strap-on
boosters were supposed to be hybrid motors?
Huh, what happened? I admit I'm a hybrid proponent,
bigtime, but that floored me when I found out.
Hybrid motors are great because they are a lot simpler
and cheaper than liquid fuel boosters, and broadly
speaking, a LOT safer than liquid OR solid boosters. A
hybrid is vastly simplier than a bi-liquid system and
doesn't carry all that liquid kerosene or hydrogen that
makes such a pretty fireball. While a hybrid is more
complicated and heavier than an all solid rocket motor,
it's still safer because, if there's a problem, you can
shut them off.
Unfortumately, Hybrid tech was still very immature at
the time, it would still be a few years before AMROC
tested their big ones, and those weren't big enough.
However, there was no reason the shuttle couldn't fly
on solids initially, while Hybrid R&D was fast tracked.
Modular remember? The Hybrid strap-on boosters might've
been flying in time to avert the Challenger disaster.

After Challenger, NASA and Rockwell put heads together
and decided what improvements to make before building
a replacement orbiter. Bravo!
Of course having a large inventory of huge orbiter
components in storage helped speed construction. Endeavor
really is a B model orbiter. The other 3 orbiters received
the same upgrades wherever possible. After Endeavor flew,
and the fleet upgrades were finished, they should've sat
down AGAIN and planned an even better orbiter. Not just a
Challenger replacement, or 2nd Endeavor, but an eventual
fleet replacement, or supplement. Maybe a real departure
from the earlier orbiters, certainly more maintainable.
Modular!! As these new orbiters came on line, the older
units could be retired to museums. Read COLUMBIA!!!
If NASA had done this, the fleet would still be modern,
if not cutting edge, today. Hell, this still could've
[should've] been done when the SSTO initiative fell through.

At some time NASA had plans for Shuttle C. This would've
been an unmanned wingless cargo version. Little more than
a cargo bay with motors and guidance. Three reasons for
building it were to be able to fly heavier or larger loads
when needed, like station segments, and to reduce man hours
in space when not needed. Third would be hazardous payloads.
After Challenger, liquid fueled payload boosters were
outlawed for the shuttle for crew safety reasons, reducing
the types of missions STS could support.
Using Shuttle-C, station segments would be released in orbit
near the station, then crews would retrieve them for
assembly. Before the station was manned, they would've placed
2-3 modules in orbit, then sent up a manned orbiter, with
supplies and other components, to do assembly. Of course,
today the segments might be docked autonomously.
I always thought you could make even bigger station segments,
and attach the guidance/thruster package, and motor pack to
the segment couplers at each end, then fly it in place of an
orbiter. The flight components would be removed and saved,
eventually flying home in an orbiter cargo bay for reuse.
Of course either scenario assumes you want the STS system
involved in boosting the major station components anyway.
Read Saturn!!
The shuttle bay is dinky compared to a Skylab, and Skylab
was no strain on the Saturn V. I do not advocate resurrecting
the Saturns after all this time, they really are dinosaurs now.
I am saying we should never have fully retired them.
Incremental improvements have kept Atlas, Delta and Titan in
the air longer than Saturn's been on paper.

Plenty of folks like to second guess NASA and I'm genuinely
sorry to be lumped in with them. However I've had these opinions
for years, and even shared them with a few NASA engineers, who
happened to agree. Not just because I'm a size 2 1/2 biker
maniac either. It feels good to finally write and post this.

I'm sure this post could still use more editing, but if I held
onto it any longer it would turn into a book.

Blue Tube Advancing the Rocket Hobby

2009-06-10T22:55:00.005-05:00

The Blue Phenix 4.0

In a recent post to an EX rocket group I belong to,
Randall J. Ejma of Always Ready Rocketry,
www.alwaysreadyrocketry.com made the following
announcements; [somewhat edited.]

Due to amazing demand and positive feedback, ARR has
drastically reduced pricing for Blue Tube! These are
NOT sale prices; these are the new regular pricing!
Check out your nearest dealer first at;
www.whatstyourrocketmadeof.com
Or order directly from ARR. New pricing takes effect
immediately and is almost 40% less expensive!

Also, ARR has recently released;
Six Electronics bays from 38mm to 6 inch, and four new kits
making 5 total.

The moment Randall announced Blue Tube on our group, in
March, I had to post back about whether it would make a
good liner for EX motor making.

The following is the recent post of his test results.
[again, some editing]

Hey guys,
I know a number of you have been asking.
We've gotten some 54mm and 75mm casting tube and liner
sets w/Blue Tube as the liner. We've static fired 2 motors
and flown 1 so far and it has proven to be a far less expensive
alternative to convolute phenolic, it just needs to be thicker
for it to workin a motor design where spiral wound phenolic
isn't good enough. It just gets too toasty for it.
As a replacement for spiral wound, it seems to work so far,
but when you throw lots of Al and unusually high pressures,
the chance of burn through is fairly high. It would probably
need to be thicker.
I fired a K-550W clone in a Loki case and I could stand on the
liner after firing and it held me up. Worked perfectly.
But, another test w/a high isp, high pressure, high temp
design that normally only workes w/a convolute liner,
burned through Blue Tube.
Randall

That's a pretty good description of Blue Tube's limits inside a
motor. It appears to fall between the capabilites of spiral
phenolic and convolute phenolic.
I'm curious enough to try some in a couple of my motors
when the sizes I need become available.

One final update; Balsa Machining Service has joined the growing
list of Blue Tube dealers, and is offering laser cut tube slotting of
Blue Tube.

Great Rocket Photos

2009-06-06T16:07:00.009-05:00

I first got the link here at Dick's Rocket Dungeon.
http://scienceblogs.com/photosynthesis/2009/06/video_rockets.php
I was enjoying the Hell out of it when I realized that the current
display is time sensitive so I thought I'd better share it while I can.
Photo Synthesis is dedicated to science protography and
photographers, so before long the feature will change. This is not
Steve Jurvetson's or Alex Wild's site. I'm looking forward to
whatever Photo Synthesis features next though. In the meantime,
the pics and vids of successfull flights are great, the unsuccessful
ones are awesome. Some of it's real pyro porn.

Buzzard, Buzzards, & more Buzzards

2009-05-30T20:57:00.008-05:00

This is the cover of Bill Dean's Book of Balsa Models.
The plane on the cover is called the Buzzard.
I fell in love with the Buzzard from the magazine ads. for this
book long before I ever ordered it. I modified many, many
North Pacific Sleek Streaks into Buzzards over the years.
And yes, they flew better than stock Sleeks.
After I got the book, I built two accurate to plan Buzzards,
then a somewhat larger one. Finally, my flying partner Steve G.
and I were getting ready for a big free flight contest, hosted by
the Brooklyn Skyscrapers at an abandoned WWII airfield in
New Paltz, New York, on 4th of July weekend 1976. We got
dropped off, and camped the three days by ourselves, right on
the runway. That was one of the best weekends of my childhood.
Anyway, we wanted something extra to compete with and didn't
have a lot of time, so we decided on Unlimited Rubber [not many
rules] and upscaled the Buzzard to around a 4ft wingspan, but still
using a lot of the same techniques. No landing gear though, since
we'd be flying in tall grass, and the rubber, once unwound, sagged
over a foot below the plane anyway. It flew great! Unfortunately,
on the 3rd test flight or so, we stuck it in a very tall pine tree.
Oh well, no time to build another. Too bad too, it would've got
us a trophy in our age class for sure.

Here's the real kicker to this story.
Our Grandmother Nana unloaded her 8mm home movies on us
when she moved south. Eventually we went through those old films
and ran across a family reunion/thanksgiving? from around 1964 or
'65. There in Nana's backyard, is my cousin Charlie and myself,
both around 4-5, chasing after Charlie's dad, Uncle David while
he's flying a Buzzard!
Haw! No wonder I was so attracted to the design.
I have vague recollections of that get together, but that ain't it. I
never got to ask Uncle David about it 'cause he lived in Chile.

The book was published in the USA by ARCO publishing which
appears to be out of business. A quick online search shows that it
can still be found, as well as the original British version, which is
called Eagle's Book of Balsa Models. I don't know of any
differences between the 2 editions. Look for it [them] on Amazon.
There are a bunch of cool models in it, including 4 Jetex vehicles
and a sailboat. If you have kids you want to introduce to real model
building, or if you're still a kid at heart, this is a fun book.

Oh yeah, check the typo on the cover. That's supposed to be
Skyray, not Skyway. A profile model of the Douglas jet fighter.
Another great model plan we built several of.

A Really Big Pair

2009-05-23T01:50:00.008-05:00

I finished making these 2 nozzles for longtime rocket buddy, Don C.,
a few days ago. They aren't the biggest nozzles I've worked on,
I once helped design and produce a 2 piece nozzle that was 8" dia.,
but these are the biggest that I've CAD designed myself and turned
on my own lathe.
Eureka! ZZakk's Lab has produced monsters! Bwa-ha-ha-haaa!!!
Ahem, in the lower pic they're posed with one of the Cesaroni Pro98
motor cases that they were made for, and the fabulously expensive
spanner tool that Cesaroni now sells for installing the retainer rings.
Actually, just about anything you need or want for 4" rocket motors
is fabulously expensive. The Cesaroni cases are designed and
licensed [fabu dinero,I'm sure] to operate with Aerotech reloads as
well as Cesaroni reloads. This is a good thing since it increases the
versatility of the hardware. My friend however, is currently making
his own Moonburn reloads for the cases, and using RCS/Aerotech
supplies in the process. The RCS 98mm nozzles are $44 each for a
single use, and in the case of the 5/8" throat on the right, would still
need to be custom bored anyway. My graphite nozzles are completely
reusable, and if need be, I can remachine the throats later if they get
too crusty, chipped, or a larger throat is desired.  Some internal fuel
volume is sacrificed, but I added a much better expansion ratio,
between 5:1 & 6:1 instead of only 2:1.

Last year, I looked long and hard at the costs of larger motors. I
decided to go with 3" hardware since it costs less than 4" every step
of the way, despite the longer length needed for the same power.
Plus, being a hybrid flyer, a 3" combustion chamber is plenty big enough
AND, I'm already used to building rockets to take relatively long motors.

More recently, I rescued a belled 3" case from another friends recycling
pile. Thanks RK!   I trimmed the ends off, but still need to cut new
snap-ring grooves. It's kinda short, but I'm on my way.
When I get around to buying new 3" motor cases, I'm gonna give the
Cesaroni hardware another good look.

Fly-Back Boosters, Reprised

2009-05-18T23:42:00.007-05:00

Last week, the USAF released study information concerning
lower cost, shorter lead time, access to space. I think
it's funny that the USAF was studying similar proposals
back in 1988. Amongst more familiar designs were the first
drawings I'd seen of fly-back booster systems. They add
a lot to the liftoff weight, but reusability is greatly
enhanced by not dipping the booster in salt water, like the
shuttle strap-ons. Other typical features include motor
commonality, where possible, and limited reusability.
An example would be; useing the motor[s] X number of
times in the fly-back booster, then transferring them to
the disposable core stage[s] for one last trip.

I am by no means bitching. I like these systems. However
it is somewhat amusing how history repeats itself, only at
twice the price now. There are no technical hurdles to
overcome now, and there really weren't any then either.
The Air Force isn't asking for peak performance. Larger
base capacity makes up for moderate performance coupled
with higher reliability. The difference between pro-stock
class and top-fuel dragsters or funny cars at the drag strip.

The big difference between the old fly-back system and the
new, is that with the old, it was primarily a very heavy lift
system [105,000-160,000 LB/LEO], while the new approach
is part of a fully rounded low to heavy capacity [peak 64.000
Lb/LEO] program. I like modular systems, especially when
there are enough modules to fully utilize the concept.

Stay tuned for some modular space system gripes, coming soon.

Not so Awesome Blossom

2009-05-11T22:44:00.003-05:00

I built the Awesome Blossom a few months ago.
Due to the drought and county burn bans and such
I didn't get to try it till last weekend. It's the
smallest monocopter I've built to date and was
meant to be powered by a ground blossom firework
which is installed in the picture. I got the idea
for the tubular hub from Art Applewhite's Helix
copters. When I found a tube that's a perfect
fit for a ground blossom, it just had to be done.
The wing is 7"span x 2"chord. It doesn't look it in
the pic, but the wing has about 8 deg of up pitch.
The flybar is a bamboo skewer.

Well, it didn't work.
It spun on the launch pin for about 5 seconds, but
never developed the speed it needed to takeoff.

A ground blossom normally gets lit and is set on the
ground, it then spins madly in a more or less
spherical pattern while the flame changes colors. As
fast as it spins by itself, I had high hopes for it
pushing a small monocopter, but no joy.

I've already built a new T-shaped 13mm motor mount
to plug in to the existing hub tube so that it'll
use modroc motors now, and still have an adjustable
motor pitch capability.

Big News From Adept Rocketry

2009-05-07T13:18:00.005-05:00

Adept Rocketry is celebrating its' 20th anniversery in
business. 20 good years IMO, I've been a customer since
the beginning.
Adept, while not the first producer of rocket electronics,
including altimeters, really set the benchmark for the
hobby, both then and now.
Tommy Billings, the owner, has also announced that he
has aquired some production and testing equipment. With
this enhanced in-house production capabilities, Tommy has
been able to reduce some prices, and is going to start
releaseing upgraded versions of his older, out of
production electronic products.

Wahoo!
While I do have a few products from other manufacturers,
I have always been an Adept supporter, so I'm quite pleased,
and look forward to the re-release of a couple items I have
not been able to find adequate substitutes for.

http://www.adeptrocketry.com/

The Barking Pumpkin

2009-04-29T21:51:00.004-05:00

Ace was a kit [plus occasional motors] manufacturer from
sometime in the '70's through the '80's. Ace was owned by
Korey Kline who is better known these days for pioneering
the Hypertek hobby hybrid motors and the Hyperion hybrid
sounding rocket flights at Wallops Island.

The ACE 4" 4:1 nose cone was the first plastic hipower nose
cone available, and has been used by many kit makers and
custom builders, and is doubtless still being produced.

The Ace Sonic, of course, uses 2 of these cones to make a
very streamlined 4" rocket under 3 feet long. The stock kit
had a 29mm motor mount, I built mine with a 38mm motor
mount so it's a bit shorter, and a lot faster. It also means that
it has a tendency to whip a 1/4" launch rod hard, then
thunder off on a random vector. What Fun!!

Over the years I've' flown it on exotics and extremes like;
G210, G300, H242, I250, I357 and G160 & H220 black
powder Silver Streaks as shown above, plus many others.
In order to accomodate the longer motors, the motor mount
tube extends up to the back of the nose cone. The recovery
system packs around it.

Due to it's compact yet visible design it has traveled to [and
returned from] more flying sites than any other single hi-pwr
rocket I own. This includes 2 trips in private aircraft and twice
on my motorcycle. I'm pleased to say that it's rod whipping
days are over. It took a wee bit of enginuity, but it's now
equiped with rail buttons instead of a lug. The front button is
attached to the nosecone just above the shoulder, the rear is
at the bottom of the parachute well, half way down the
airframe, with a standoff. It would've been nice to keep the
launch lug for versatility, but low-drag philosophy will out.

2 Steampunk Novellas

2009-04-21T22:10:00.008-05:00

The above pic is from The Brass Griffin.

I just finished reading; The Flight of the Calliope! by W.D.Nagel.
I'm also in the middle of the 2nd story from; Tales of the Brass
Griffin by C.B.Ash. These are online Steampunk novellas.
They're both full of airships, steam power, odd uses for electricity,
strange weapons, monsters, air pirates, and the occasional robot
by any other name. In The Flight of the Calliope! they're collectively
called Brassbugs.
I don't much like the idea of reading books online. I spend way too
much time in front of the computer as it is, and I still prefer paper
reading materials that I can carry around and fold the page to save
my place.
It was nice being able to edit the occasional annoying typo though.

http://flightofthecalliope.wordpress.com/

http://www.brassgriffin.net/

BTW; I haven't been suffering from writers block lately, it's actually
posters block. I have plenty of material typed, I'm just having trouble
declaring stuff finished, and deciding what order to post it in.

Talkin' 'bout the Midnight Special

2009-04-07T17:40:00.005-05:00

It was a week after I posted High Flight, about 1 or 2am
as usual, and an info-mercial comes on. Yawn. It starts off
with something like ;"Do you remember when your TV did
this after midnight?" and the TV shows the American flag
and starts up the National Anthem. I'm weirding out by then.
It goes on to say; "Then on bla/bla/1972 it did this!"
Scenes start scrolling from Midnight Special. Wow Man,
I was there. Serious, I saw the 1st show, and a bunch
more after. It was a turning point for broadcast TV and
the night-owls amongst us.

That's right, they're selling DVDs of Midnight Special.
It's a subscription service not a library, and the types
of music are mixed together like the original shows.
There's extra unbroadcast footage too. The live shows
had some of the great comedians of the day in between the
music acts. These were'nt part of the TV shows but are
included on the DVDs. Some good news, some not as good
some great! I wish it was an archive where I could order my
choices and they'd burn me a DVD and send it.
You hear that MTV?
Where's my credit card?

www.midnightspecial.com

Low Flight

2009-04-02T00:59:00.003-05:00

This is Low Flight. A poem written by pilots
or flight crews unknown, of the F4 Phantom II.
during the Vietnam War. I love pilot humor, I
grew up with it. Dry wit, best served with a
tall cold one, or three.
This is not parody, it was not written to mock
High Flight. I don't believe any pilot would.
Of course, they would mock their own aircraft,
other aircraft, or the pilots of other aircraft.
Most Air Force songs [or poems] are written to
existing music. The original words often provide
inspiration for the new.
Why does the Phantom have a flat belly?

Low Flight

Oh, I have slipped through swirling clouds of dust,
a few feet from the dirt.
I've flown the F4 low enough,
to make my bottom hurt.
I've flown in the desert, hills and valleys,
mountains too.
Frolicked in the trees,
where only flying squirrels flew.

Chased the frightened cows along,
disturbed the ram and ewe,
and done a hundred other things,
that you'd not care to do.
I've smacked the tiny sparrow,
bluebird, robin, all the rest.
I've ingested baby eagles,
simply sucked them from their nest.

I've streaked through total darkness,
just the other guys and me,
and spent the night in terror of
things I could not see.
I turned my eyes to heaven,
as I sweated through the flight,
put out my hand and touched,
the Fire Warning Light.

High Flight

2009-03-28T22:45:00.002-05:00

Remember when there wasn't cable?
Remember when there weren't all night
info-mercials? At some apointed time
of night, the local broadcast station
would call it a day and shut-down the
station and let the tubes cool, or go
to a test pattern. I've always been a
night owl, even as a kid. I saw this
moment quite a bit. Most stations would
play a vid of the national anthem at
sign-off. Sometimes, one of the other
patriotic songs. If I was very lucky,
they would do the poem; High Flight,
with scenes of an F104 Starfighter
flying through the clouds. It was
always a patrio-ligeos moment for me.
I found this copy of High Flight in my
dad's papers long ago, and hung it on
the wall. Now that I've scanned it for
this post, it's going back on the wall
for the first time in years.

Reinventing The Wheel

2009-03-25T22:53:00.003-05:00

There's a great little article in the March '09
Air & Space magazine called; Hot Commodity
printed in the recurring section called; In the
Nuseum. I was able to access the photo online,
but not the text. Good luck if you can.
www.airspacemag.com

The NASA and contractor engineers charged with
designing the heat shield for the new NASA Orion
crew capsule found they had a problem. AVCO, the
contractor that made the original Apollo heat
shields was long gone, along with all their files.
Meanwhile, all the existing capsules are on display
and off-limits. Look but don't touch. OFFICIAL
National Treasures. I like that. It was looking
like they'd have to reinvent this wheel from scratch
though.

The right question in the right ear led to the Paul
E. Garber storage facility, owned by the National
Air & Space Museum. It's a really cool warehouse
packed with the greatest stuff. They had 5 crates
of new and used heatshield parts and samples tucked
away. The story goes on to say that the gathering
of happy scientists looked like kids on christmas
morning. Current ideas verified, impressive old
materials tech, fastening methods revealed...
A happy story as far as it goes.

I really don't mind that NASA is engaged in retro
rocket science, if it were up to me, they'd be
resurrecting the entire Saturn lift capability.
I just hope I'm not there, years from now, when
NASA is trying to relearn how to build and fly a
spaceplane.

What's In Zzakk's Garage Today?

2009-03-23T22:31:00.003-05:00

For my first post on this joint-effort website (really it's all about Ken) I thought I would introduce myself and then get right down to business.
I'm the younger Zzakk, and one of my blogs is the enormously popular to ignore Zzakk's Garage where I post snapshots which four people on the planet think are funny.
Sometimes.
Then I write stuff using swear words to go with the pics.

Around here I'm pretty much just your host's site admin and go-to photographer, so I hope you'll forgive the occasional distracting post from me.

Let's take a look at What's In Zzakk's Garage Today?

Hey look! Wheel chocks (to secure my band's equipment trailer) are inside my garage.

They look just like USAF chocks I remember from ages ago.
And it appears that they have been dragged across the tarmac for decades judging by the rounded ends.

Wood and rope--so simple yet so important.

When dropped-off with the trailer I asked "So these are old enough to have been used on T38s and even T37s"?
The answer was affirmative but I also heard a hint of duh in his voice.

While pondering this matter I was thinking aloud and made some cracks about USAF procurement and billing, such as "Do you think they replaced the ropes every two years or only after they failed?" but got kneecapped by my girlfriend's response along the lines that the chocks were finally ready to be given to the Navy.

Ouch!

Advertising That Swings

2009-03-20T21:24:00.004-05:00

Blue Tube may well be the next new thing for
rocketry. The fact that it was engineered as a
liner inside artillery shells already lends it a
major cool factor. Beating it with a golf club
makes a pretty powerful statement.
This pic shows the worst damage to the Blue
Tube of the 3 pics on the website.
Check out; http://www.alwaysreadyrocketry.com/
Makes me wish some mishap would overtake
my current tubing inventory.

LDRS-6 & the Black Brant II

2009-03-15T01:13:00.001-05:00

This is a pic taken of me at LDRS-6 in August of 1987.
Hartsell Colorado. The launch site was 8800ft ASL.
Jogging is NOT recommended.
We saw a number of rockets, that were said to be
perfectly stable at home fields, go unstable in flight
due to the thinner air.
Of course, this being LDRS, a lot of rockets had bigger
motors in them than ever flown at home. Please take
no notice at this time of how the motor protrudes
from my rocket.

I'm holding my FSI Black Brant II. A fine kit for it's day
and an excellent flier. I did a great job on it, and it
drew a lot of compliments, though I left off the myriad
screw head details. Each fin was composed of 7 pieces;
a 1/32"ply core with airframe tongues, a tapered
hardwood spar on each side, for the airfoil highpoint,
then 4 pieces of sheet balsa to complete the structure.
This was a lot of work, but it made it a lot easier to
sand an accurate airfoil, and made for a much sturdier
fin and mounting than the stock 1/4" balsa.

In 1987; Reloads didn't exist, Glassing was rare, and I
know of only one altimeter flown at the entire launch.

The too long motor is an Aerotek G25. One of the great
moonburners of the past. 4.7 second burn! I had signed-up
to have Chuck Rogers do altitude tracking but the LCO
launched me early by mistake. Too bad, 'cause it was
really up there!
I finally lost the Black Brant years later in a
ridiculously small patch of woods a very short distance
from my house. I looked many times, it just vanished.

I was 27 when this pic was taken, not a grey hair to be
seen. The antique safety glasses I'm wearing were given
to me by a friend. I had the stock green torch lenses
replaced with blue-block lenses which are great for
rocket tracking. Any paint with red or orange pigment
stands out big-time. Those glasses were so ME, long, long
before steam got riveted to punk.
One Saturday morning, I dragged my butt to work after a
vile night of debauchery. I turned to a co-worker, tapped
on the glasses and said; "I'm wearing these glasses for
your safety, not mine."

Rotary Space Ship, Totally Cool Toy

2009-03-08T11:06:00.001-05:00

This is a monocopter. Monocopters are flyng devices or
helicopter rotor heads that have only one wing or blade
and are typically counterbalanced by one or more sources
of thrust, like a propeller drive, jet, or rocket motor.

I found this pic on Dick's Rocket Dungeon a few months ago..
http://rocketdungeon.blogspot.com/
Dick Stafford and I searched the web extensively in hopes of
finding a better pic and/or more info. It's called; Rotary Space
Ship and was made by Brown Mfg. Co. of Clinton MO. It was
probably produced in the 1950's or very early '60's. It's
certainly not the first monocopter, since Pappin did build his
monster, but it may well be the 1st rocket powered monocopter.
My research turned up a few pertinent facts. #1; Brown Mfg had
a sister company called Zenith Fireworks. Brown Mfg is long gone,
but Zenith Specialties is still in business today. #2; Orville Carlisle
[the inventor of Model Rocketry] contracted Brown/Zenith to
make the first mass-produced model rocket motors for a while.
When Dick and I first discussed it, he thought the RSS might be
powered by fireworks rockets with the fins or sticks removed.
That may well be the case depending on time of manufacture,
but I rather think that it was powered by either Carlisle's
Roc-a-Chute model rocket motors, or a custom motor made for
the job. Given the relatively high weight, and a crap airfoil, the
RSS probably needed a fair bit of power. This would be a perfect
use for a classic Moonburner rocket motor.

Except for the wooden wheels the RSS appears to be all metal. I
think the wing really is made out of a BBQ spatula. Sure looks it.
Obviously it was meant to rise off the ground, and in a spacious
parking lot, it will make a nice landing too. It has a centrifigal wing
pitch mechanism with spring return. As rpm increases during takeoff,
centrifigal force makes the wing slide outward, causing it to rotate
into up pitch for ascent. Later, as the rpm slows, the spring retracts
the wing, causing it to rotate back into descent pitch for a smooth
transition to autorotation for a gentle landing.

Judging from the size of the box, I'll betcha the axle mount is meant
to pivot so the assembled toy fits back in the box for storage and
safe transport. It may not be a kit at all, considering the construction
methods.

One last thing; if this were produced today, the CPSC would have
a bigger cow than the NAR. Lack of takeoff guidance is one thing,
metal parts are another, but if that wing were to hit somebody...

Sugar Motor Data II

2009-03-03T22:47:00.000-06:00

Today, we're looking at the data for the second
motor tested last month. This one is 538-M2.
The M in the designation stands for Moonburn.
In the lower illustration, you can see that the
motors core is offset to one side, instead of in
the center. As the motor burns, consuming
the propellant, the remaining propellant looks
like a waning crescent moon.
I about fell in love with moonburners back in the
'80's, when there were a number of them available
to choose from. Later they all but disappeared
from the market. This was a major prod for me to
start making my own motors. BTW; Publishing
these motor graphs was the final prod to start this
blog. By nature, a classic moonburner is typically
slow to reach maximum thrust, so I wasn't going to
fly this motor design until I saw a thrust graph.
I intend to test a couple more to be sure, but in my
motor, the thrust does rise quickly, so it looks like
I have a great sport motor here. I'll fly them as such
soon, but I was originally trying to make a clustered
airstart motor. I still want a somewhat slower thrust
ramp up, to avoid disturbing the rocket's trajectory
if the motors in the cluster lights unevenly.

Sugar Motor Data

2009-02-28T22:33:00.000-06:00

  This is the test data for the motor used in
the RU-486, discussed in the previous post.
I thought about posting a pic of the actual
motor, but to a non-rocketeer, it looks like
a boring aluminum tube. To a rocketeer it
looks like an aluminum rocket motor that's
boring because it's not lit.
  I've been into making sugar motors for
about 8 years now on an unsteady basis. I
started developing this Bates grain motor
right after my initial successes with small
disposable motors. Initial ground tests of
all motors were done with a peak reading
pressure guage in order to dial in the correct
nozzle size. I flew the 4th and 6th motors,
the 6th being the RU-486 flight. This is the
first time I've gotten to test these motors
on a proper motor test stand, unfortunately,
the pressure transducer had a broken wire,
so there is no chamber pressure graph.
  We believe that the strain guage was not
properly calibrated and the unexpectedly high
ISP number bears this out. There is no doubt
though, this is an extreme motor.
  I recently adjusted my motor labelling
nomenclature. 638-B7 means, Cooking batch
#6 for any 38mm motors, B for Bates geometry,
7th bates motor produced. Labels packed with
the reloads hold additional data, but this is
enough to I.D. the motor when referring back
to my notes.

Sweet Flight, Sudden Ending!

2009-02-26T09:48:00.001-06:00

This is the 2nd, and last, flight of the RU-486.
Yes, I named it after the "Morning After Pill".
Just the thing for a Saturday or Sunday morning.
The 1st flight the day before was on an Aerotek
I161 motor, this flight is on an experimental I947
motor burning Sorbitol diet sugar and Potassium
Nitrate.
The launch was on 7/8/07 deep in the heart of
Pecos County, Texas. Courtesy of WestTex Tripoli.
The photographer was lucky to catch it, it was
already hauling ass. In fact, the acceleration
was so high that the control altimeter shifted
backwards causing the contact pins to pull out of
the connector body on the wireing harness. Pulling
one contact with pliers is tough, pulling all 4 at
once is impressive. Of course, with the altimeter
disconnected, the rocket ended up in a hole. A
deep one. I had to borrow a shovel.
Basic Specs: 5ft tall, 2 1/4"dia., ACME Fincan,
38mm motormount, Adept ALT-S2 altimeter,
rigged for single chute recovery.
I gave it a lot of thought before posting an
unsuccesful flight as the first rocket pic on here,
but it's important to remember that one usually
learns more from failure than success. This is a
great pic anyway, and it makes a flashy intro to
my sugar motor research which will be expanded
upon in the next couple posts.

Welcome to Retropolis

2009-02-23T11:00:00.001-06:00

I'm not a MAD scientist, sometimes I'm not
even grumpy, sometimes. Man, those may look
like jumper cables, but they've got the potential
to jump start an elephant.
  If you have a taste for the classic Buck Rogers
vision of the future; zap guns, mad scientists,
robot sidekicks, and rocket ships with open
cockpits [so that everyone can see YOU styling]
Retropolis Transit Authority is the place for you.
   I'd rather reveal my sources after I'd already
bought some shirts for myself, but money is tight
and this site is too cool not to support one way
or another. Check the links there too, the artist;
Bradley W. Schenck has several sites to look at.
Go to; http://www.printfection.com/retro-future

ZZakk's Origin

2009-02-17T00:32:00.000-06:00

This is the original ZZakk's Garage sign. It still hangs in my
workshop. A while back I got a quote of $500 to have it
done in neon. Maybe someday. The following is what my
brother Keith wrote about the sign when he started ZZakk's
Garage blog.

The Origin Of Zzakk's Garage

In 1980 I made this little sign and put it up in my apartment
in Clifton Park, New York. I was visiting Texas while my
brother worked on his Triumph Bonneville motorcycle in
my kitchen.
After we both moved back here it went up in our garage,
where he pursued his various hobbies while I practiced
new songs for my band, late into the night. Many cold
beers and stuff were enjoyed, and our guests always had
fun and maybe learned a thing or two.
He kept the sign all these years, and I named this site in
honor of those days gone by.
Posted by KeithAlanK Friday, September 30, 2005

I had an upstairs apt at the time, and the apt security
would get on you if you did more than check the oil
in the parking lot. The snow was deep that winter too.
OTOH- Keith & Zard had a ground level apt with a
big patio door to roll through. Maaan, the place stank
of gasoline and rancid motor oil for months, a change
from college dude dirty laundry, but the job got done,
and I was in the wind come springtime.
My 1st motor rebuild, I learned a lot.
Thanks guys, I'm still grateful to this day.

I always liked the tagline; "Don't ask us to borrow tools!"
Sounds a little confusing, but; "Neither a borrower,
nor a lender be."

Welcome to ZZakks Laboratory

2009-02-15T23:38:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the first entry at ZZakks Lab.
Please bear with me as I learn my way around
the place, and get this carny act up and moving.
   If you're not yet familiar with ZZakks Garage
blog, you should be. The Garage is one of my
brother Keith's several blogs and is well worth a look
on a routine basis. This would've been the Garage
but he used it first [more about that later].
   In any case, I'm definitely the mad scientist type
so the Lab fits me well. As time goes by, you'll see
many of my science experiments, hobby projects,
sketchpad scans, pirated art, blather, vitriol, and
rare insights, very rare.