Stormy Saturday with the Cubs...

The day starts clear at the Space Camp field (Click to enlarge).

I normally hate getting up early on Saturday, but yesterday I started the morning with some level of enthusiasm; it was launch day with the cub scouts, and no rocketeer can resist being excited about the prospect of attending a morning AND an afternoon launch. Double headers are a good thing!

Some cubs in Pack 351 hold aloft their rockets (Click to enlarge).

First up was Pack 351, at the Space Camp launch field on the grounds of the Space and Rocket Center. It was clear when Chuck and I arrived - soon to be joined by John and Duane - but the clouds gradually increased, heralding approaching storms. Fortunately, the weather stayed away long enough for the cub scouts to launch their rockets (some multiple times) - about 40 took to the air, with only 2 lost to the rocket eating trees on the field's northern boundary. We had brought the HARA trailer, but did not have to use our equipment, as the scout leaders had arranged with Space Camp to use the camp pads and controllers. This reduced our job to just helping the scouts load the rack - enabling me to enjoy the flights and to take plenty of pictures.

One of the Space Camp launch controllers (Click to enlarge).

John makes the final ignitor hook up (Click to enlarge).

A rack of Cub rockets (Click to enlarge).

A cub gets ready to launch his bird after donning the
required Space Camp regalia (Click to enlarge).

Spaceship 1 heads skyward (Click to enlarge).

You never know what is going to show up at a Pack 351 launch. There were plenty of Estes RTF Sizzlers (apparently some freebies acquired by the pack) along with the usual Code Reds, Skywriters, Dragonites, and Shuttle Express. Saturday's launch also saw an Estes Spaceship 1 (which actually put in a stable flight), a 1980's style Scrambler, and Estes SkyTrax with a Lego Stormtrooper as a passenger in the clear payload section. I was intrigued by the stormtrooper, as he looked as if he were bent over in pain or fear - probably the latter. The surprise of the launch was a scratch built Batroc, with a Batman head for a nose cone and fins shaped like bat wings. This superb creation was severely underpowered on an A8-3, and Batman almost ended up with a nose full of dirt. Fortunately, the parachute popped about 10 feet off the ground, much to the relief of the spectators.

Stormtrooper passenger (Click to enlarge).

The stormtrooper starts his journey (Click to enlarge).

Scratch Batroc on the pad (Click to enlarge).

The Batroc struggles to gain altitude (Click to enlarge).

The pack's motors were mostly gone by 10:30, and we all beat a hasty retreat to our homes, as the approaching storms were looking pretty ugly on weather radar. Things had settled out a bit by 2 PM, so Duane and I trekked down to Holy Spirit Church to help Pack 361 with their launch. Another member of our club, Fletcher Cannon, was running this launch and we arrived just in time to assist the scouts in building their rockets. Duane was especially welcome, as he brought some much needed super glue; fortunately there were no stuck-together fingers or other mishaps during the build session, which didn't take long at all. Fletcher had a wooden Tilt-A-Pad clone built by Duane, an Estes Porta Pad, and two Estes controllers, which proved more than adequate for the 8 or so rockets that were launched. The cubs even managed to get a respectable drag race between two of the rockets, which was pretty neat given the difficulties with the low voltage/low current Estes controllers. The church field, though a bit damp, proved to be more than adequate for the 13 mm powered rockets, with no rocket casualties recorded. We were not able to launch more than a few minutes, as storms were once again closing on Huntsville. Even so, the scouts had fun launching their rockets, which is the goal.

Pack 361 working on their rockets (Click to enlarge).

A newly-built rocket gets moving (Click to enlarge).

Drag race between 2 cub rockets (Click to enlarge).

Looking forward to doing this again next year!

A good piece of mail...

The Longshots (Click to enlarge)

The US Postal Service never ceases to amaze me - I can get a rocket part order from Ohio and Nevada in just 2 days, and sometimes it can take forever for a card to arrive from my sister in Chattanooga. A few days back, I received an envelope postmarked 4 weeks ago from here in Huntsville. Inside was a photo of the Saint John Paul II Longshots TARC team (shown above), and a card addressed to me. For those of you who don't remember, the Longshots were the only TARC team from Huntsville to make the TARC Finals back in May (see my April 8 post). Once there, they did well in the first round, placing 12th out of the 100 teams competing and advancing to the second round of flights. Unfortunately, they didn't do so well in the second round, missing the altitude goal by over 100 feet. Even though they didn't make it into the top 10, the Longshots put in a fabulous performance for a first year team, especially a team of freshmen.

So here is the card I received - things like this make me glad I'm involved with TARC!

You did indeed do us proud - Looking forward to seeing you on the field in the coming season!

Building the Shrox Sniple - Part 3, Paint and Decals

The gray primer was allowed to dry for several days - This being the humid South, it takes longer for primer/paint to dry, and I am not fond of gummed up sandpaper. I then sanded off the primer with 320 grit sandpaper, and applied a coat of white primer, which was also allowed to dry for a long time.  This coat was sanded smooth with 400 grit, after which 2 coats of Krylon glossy white were sprayed on. This being done, I proceeded to masking the model for the gray paint.

Masking is a necessity if you are going to build rockets, and it is very important to pick the right tape to use. Some folks like Chris Michielssen are possessed of a magical ability to get very nice mask lines using scotch or cellophane tape; alas I have no such ability, as evidenced by my long ago fiascos involving these tape types. I rapidly migrated to Tamiya masking tape, which is much more expensive, but has the advantage in that it consistently yields sharp masking lines (no bleeds) with very little effort. In my opinion, it's well worth the expense; you can buy it at local hobby stores or online from numerous vendors.

Sniple masked and ready for the gray paint (Click to enlarge).

After letting the base coat dry overnight, I masked off the areas of the body tube that needed to remain white with the Tamiya tape, and shot the unmasked regions with 2 coats of Krylon Smoke Gray. I would have preferred a lighter shade, but this was the only can I had in my stash and I just went with it. Krylon dries quickly, so I peeled off the tape after about 30 minutes and set the model aside to dry overnight. While it was drying, I printed the decals using my ink jet printer, waited 30 minutes, and sprayed 3 light coats of Krylon Acrylic Clear on the decal sheet. I cut out the decals the next day and applied them to the model, soaking each in warm water for about a minute. I wish I could say this part went smoothly, but I had difficulty with the Chinese red star and bars. These 2 decals cracked in the middle during application, forcing me to use a red marker to hide the cracks after they dried. I am probably going to remove these and apply new ones the next time I print a sheet of decals - the marker red is a little off.

Here is the finished Sniple, ready for its first flight:

Shrox Sniple (Click to enlarge).

One other thing went wrong during this build... In order to improve the stability margin, I decided to play safe and put 20 grams of clay (originally I was going with 10) into the nose cone. 20 grams is a surprisingly big amount of clay, and I cracked the lower part of the nose cone while packing it in. This was fixed by an application of Plastic Weld to the cracked area, a little sanding, a bit of Squadron Putty, and a little more sanding. I will be more careful with Apogee nose cones in the future, as some of them are more fragile than those made by Estes.