Here’s a tiny rocket that I took an unconscionably long time to build. So I’ll say it up front: I am not a fan of Hobby Lobby. I am a fan of religious freedom, but I am also aware that no rights are absolute. There always are limits. And when the religious views of a…
I don’t seem to be under a curse any more. This morning it was chilly. There were reports of frost to the north, the first since last spring. Not that cold where we were but mid 30s °F. But the sky was clear and the wind was light, and by late morning it’d warmed up…
Did I offend some god of rockets or what? It wasn’t a god of weather. We had clear skies, almost no wind, temperature peaking about 80°F. I’ll take it. I started off with Bohica’s Dead Ringer, on a B6-4. Have I flown this rocket before? Yes. On B6? Yes. How many times? Six. Was it…
Sign this petition. [My comment: “Model rocketry is a fun, safe, and educational hobby. Launches conducted according to the National Association of Rocketry’s safety code and the National Fire Protection Association’s model fire code have a 60 year track record of greater safety than many activities such as sports. Kids doing model rocketry learn about…
I have a Coleman 10′ x 10′ canopy, model number 2000012704, a few years old. At July’s launch my son was taking it down when one of the lower peak truss bars bent at the hinge and broke. After some googling I found there’s a vendor on Amazon, Coleman Replacement Parts, that sells, well, what…
There are great launches and less than great launches, and yesterday’s was not in the great category. Not terrible, but not great. Let’s start with this, which you can take as a tip for the next launch you go to: It helps if you bring your rocket motors. Failing that, it helps if you, like…
As for the top plate: Glue it on, or no? If glued, that would have to be after installing the LED rings, which would have to be after painting. And then there would be no way to change out a ring whose batteries have run down. (The rings aren’t built for battery changes. You’d have…
Our club does a night launch every year in August (except we skipped last year), and there’s night launches at NYPower which I’ve gotten to, uh, once I think, and yet I’ve only ever flown two different rockets at them: my Loadstar II with LEDs in the clear payload section, and my Big Blinka. Nothing…
When I left the club launch today at about 1:30, it was about 89°F, heat index about 101°F, both still rising. I was hearing thunder. If it’d been up to me the launch would’ve been postponed, but it wasn’t, and if it weren’t the Apollo 11 anniversary and if I hadn’t committed to being there…
The Liberty Bell 7 capsule went together mostly per the model instructions, but of course I left off the heat shield and retro rockets. Instead I made a shoulder out of a strip of cardstock. If you’ve ever wondered what a Mercury capsule with a service module would have looked like, wonder no more. I…
Next, the fins. Here’s a Rocksim file for an Estes Mercury-Redstone model rocket. If the dimensions therein are correct, it would appear the fins on that model are about 15% wider than scale. My hope was the CP estimated by Rocksim and OpenRocket, scaled to the body diameter, would be roughly correct if I used…
The July launch theme for our club isn’t just Apollo 11 or Saturn V but US Manned [sic] Space Flight, so I decided to put together something that’s been in my build pile for quite some time. Delta 7 Studios, evidently the nom de commerce of one D. H. T. Shippey, has been in business…
I claimed I would not fly the Saturn V again after its unstable flight in May, but maybe I will, with some modification. I built it pretty much according to the instructions, the biggest change (and potentially quite significant, I guess) being substitution of epoxy putty for funky glue putty in the engines. And perhaps…
No build thread here, just the finished product. I won this kit in a club raffle. Probably not one I ever would have bought, but I had no objection to building it once I had it. Other than rail buttons it’s pretty much stock.
So that took a while. I bought the Semroc 18mm V-2 kit in August 2013. Bought decals for the White Sands No. 3 from Excelsior in September 2013. I started building in January 2014. I did a bad job of it and abandoned the build in July 2014. I learned in February 2016 that Semroc…
Rich's Rockets 