What a Bomb

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?

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.

MLAS takes to the Air!

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