Completed, and Launched

July 9, 2009

At our 4-H Club Launch on the 9th of July, I got to launch the Mo' Skeeter for the first (and presently only) time. It flew well and recovered nicely, albeit on the roof of the landowner's machine shed. Thankfully, we were able to recover it in good shape. Click here for the fleet page entry for this rocket.

Project Begins

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. I've used a Baby Bertha cone (does that make it a Goony?), 6" of BT-60, 6" of BT-20, two 20-60 centering rings, a thrust ring, engine hook, and retaining ring, and a launch lug and a Kevlar leader so far; I'll be adding a Semroc chute and a length of elastic shock cord (and probably a snap swivel) to finish it up. The fins are 3/32" balsa, cut using a 320% upscale of the standard template downloaded from JimZ's site. I cut the pointed part and attachment lug from the nose cone, bored a new hole to attach the Kevlar, and epoxied the cone in place on the BT-60 tube. I came to regret that decision a bit later. After notching the centering rings (inside for the engine hook on the rear ring, outside for the shock cord for the forward ring), I installed the thrust ring, engine hook, and retaining ring into the BT-20. I still had some epoxy mixed up, so I used that to secure all these parts. After gluing the aft centering ring in place using yellow glue, I put the forward ring on the tube and inserted it into the body tube, pushing it in until the aft ring was just inside the BT-60 tube. Doing this pushed the upper ring into the exact position it needed to be in. I pulled the inner tube out and applied yellow glue to secure it. Next, I glued the fins in place using yellow glue and the usual "stick it on, pull it off, let it dry a bit, glue it on for good" method. Here's where I regretted gluing the nose cone on first... I had to hold the rocket for probably twenty minutes before I was sure the glue was solid enough to stand the rocket on its fins. This was all done last night. This morning and afternoon, I applied several fillets of white glue (less shrinkage than yellow) then attached the launch lug with yellow glue. I'm not fond of orange, so I'll probably paint this rocket yellow overall, then paint one fin black.

Comments