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| Quote of the Moment |
| Mo' Skeeter | October 26, 2008 |
| I'm starting another one... in fact, it's darn near done already: Mo' Skeeter, a 320% upscale of the classic Estes Mosquito. I'm building it as a rear-ejection model so I can avoid the visible nose cone line that most Mosquito upscales suffer from. That, and I want to test this type of rear ejection before I build a replacement for my lost Dawn Star. |
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| SPARC Launch | September 28, 2008 |
| Some time back (like, last year), Troy (akpilot) issued an open invitation to me to attend one of his club's launches. I finally got the chance yesterday. |
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| Celestial Navigator | September 3, 2008 |
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This will be my first truly homebrew design. I've always been a
kitbasher; even my beautiful (and sadly missing) Dawn Star was bashed from a
Patriot and a Baby Bertha. About the only original rocket in my fleet is my
Phoenix, which was more an accident than a planned design.
That ends now. I've just received notice that my parts order has shipped from Semroc, including two 9.5" ST-10 tubes, an 18" ST-7 tube, an 18mm engine mount for the ST-10, appropriate centering rings to allow me to mate the ST-7 to the two ST-10's, and a medium-length ogive cone to cap it off. |
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| A Perfect Day | September 7, 2008 |
| The weather this morning was beautiful, and the weather forecast was for more of the same all day long. Partly cloudy, temperature in the 70's and 5-10MPH breezes all day. I knew better than to believe that last... I've learned that, in Missouri, you prep your rockets when there is a breeze, and often there will be none when you start to actually launch; but start prepping when there is no breeze, and a stiff one will blow up on you. But this is a good thing, I thought, as I wandered out into the light breeze. |
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| Labor Day | September 1, 2008 |
My daughter Taylor and I launched a very few rockets in the back yard tonight, starting around 7:30pm; thus, we had about half an hour of useful daylight left. Mainly, I wanted to test my new miniature X-24 Bug (3/4 scale, 13mm power, all paper except for the bulkhead) and try out my over 20 year old Centuri Flying Saucer. I also launched Taylor's Gauchito. Rather than dragging out the four-way stand, I used an Estes stand (modded with a ceramic tile launch deflector) and my wooden launch controller. It was about 85°F and apparently windless.
... click here to read more ...
| Sunday Evening Rocketry | July 13, 2008 |
| After waiting seemingly forever for (a) decent weather and (b) all the hay and wheat to be mowed, we finally got our chance. Taylor, Justin, Jaclyn, and I all got in some launches, and for the most part we were very satisfied. All of my rockets which got launched had never been launched before. |
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| New Centurion -- Completed! | July 7, 2008 |
| I have built a rocket which I call the "New Centurion." It's inspired by the classic Centuri Centurion, which had an innovative (for the time) ejection baffle system. My New Centurion has an offset-tube baffle, breaks at the midline (just above the baffle), and features three interchangeable engine mounts (1x18mm, 2x18mm, 1x24mm D/E). |
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| Launch Stand |
| Well, it's done! Today I took five pieces of 2x6 lumber scrap, ripped them down to 2x4, then cut the four leg pieces to 30" length. The top board happened to be just under 53" long, and I left it that length; with a bit more than 5" on each end to hold the leg brackets, I was able to space the tilt and swivels 14" apart. Click here to read more... |
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| Pharos I: Fantasy Scale Rocket | February 7, 2008 |
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Here's my latest creation: Pharos I, a "fantasy scale" rocket. |
| Cyclone -- Assembly Complete | January 17, 2007 |
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Tonight I finished assembling my Cyclone, and I'm quite happy with it
despite one glaring error.
Click here to read more... |
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| My Old Photos Now Online | August 21, 2007 |
Well, here they are... the pictures that, had I any sense, I'd never allow to be seen. The pictures that graced the pages of my last 4-H Model Rocketry project book.
... click here to read more ...
| Cloudy But Calm | August 19, 2007 |
This afternoon was cloudy but fairly calm, with breezes of around 5 MPH or so. Justin and I decided to launch a few of our rockets, including some of mine that had never been launched as well as a few that hadn't been up recently.
... click here to read more ...
| New Online Tool -- Centering Ring Generator | May 25, 2007 |
| I've created an online centering ring generator tool. It creates 150 dpi PNG images, which can be downloaded and printed. Click here to try it out. |
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| Download Statistics |
| Visitor Locations |
This is an experiment, for sure. I'm using ipligence.com's IP Geolocation map, below. If I discover they are evil, I'll drop them... so please, email me if you believe they've sent you popups or any nonsense like that.
| Comments |
| Last Updated 10/27/2008 |