I’m about out of time. I’ve been doing some thinking and coming to the conclusion I’m not going to finish the electronics for TRDRM by Saturday, not unless it’s at the expense of something higher priority. So I’ve decided just to focus on getting it, and the Bad Cholesterol, ready for day launch. I can use the Loadstar again for the night launch, and assuming TRDRM survives its first flight, I’ll plan on finishing up the electronics later and night flying it next year.
Meanwhile I’ve been working on the Bad Cholesterol and it’s about ready. Not that it needed repair or anything, but my intention is to modify it for use as my entry (however pathetic) in this month’s contest, which is TARC Rules. To get a score that’s not quite as pathetic as it might be it needs to come down fairly fast, so the larger, more padded, and of course heavier of the two egg capsules I made is preferred. That just needed some paint.
For the altimeter there needs to be a payload section, so I built one. It’s a piece of BT-60 with a balsa plug to couple it to the rocket body. In the end of the plug I drilled a hole; I glued a piece of dowel into the hole, and then put a screw eye into the dowel. There’s a vent hole in the tube, and a sheet metal screw holding the payload section to the egg capsule coupler. That also needed paint.
Finally, I decided to swap out the launch lugs for larger ones. And that’s it: Bad Cholesterol Block II:
Of course I can switch easily between this and the Block I configuration, if I want.
Rich's Rockets 