High Power Rocketry Hobby

001 – This shot gives a little scale to the project. The airframe is a 10-inch cardboard tube, covered with 9oz Carbon Fiber Sleeve and Mas Epoxy.

002 – Another scale shot, this includes the Motor Tube. The motor on this project was a 4-inch diameter Hybrid Motor (details available if anyone wants the technical stuff…)

003a – I coated the birch ply fins in MAS Epoxy both for sealing purposes and to add some strength…

004a – A close up of a hatch cover that I build into the airframe. Under this hatch were all my electronics (altimeters for recovery devices)

004b – A shot with the Airframe all assembled, showing the fins, (end of the) motor tube, and lower bulkhead (also birch ply)

005 – A shot of the first launch. The fiberglass nose cone failed during the Ascent phase. Luckily some of the recovery system did deploy and thanx not in a small way to the strength of the airframe/fin section, there was only cosmetic damage to that section.

006 – I decided to make the Nose Cone section bullet proof. The new Nose section was lengthened with an 18-inch section of airframe tube. I attached this to the Nose Cone with a layer of Carbon Sleeve and MAS Epoxy. Due to the curvature of the Nose, this didn’t layup as smooth as the lower section, so I used Phenolic Micro Balloons and epoxy as a filler.

007 – To fit the new section onto the “old”, I needed to construct a bullet proof coupler. I lined the inside of the coupler with Carbon Fiber Sleeve, using a piece of release material and the balloon you see here…

008 – A friend of mine took this “artsy” shot. For the second launch, I was preparing my electronics and recovery system the evening before the planned launch. Jeff took this great shot of me working on the project “under candle light”.

009 – Here is a picture of me next to the completed project… I don’t know if you’ll get a good view of the Paint Job, but the name of the project is “Eggs-streme”…

010 – Here you see the project under chute…