2inch DIAMETER EXPERIMENTAL BUILT BY DAVE THOMSON ROCKET CONSTRUCTION This rocket is designed to fly single stage on a Aerotech single use G40W motor. This would give a good flight to around 2500 feet. BODY TUBE This is made from 2inch diameter lightweight drainpipe. It is easy and cheap to buy (B&Q) and does not weigh much more than the cardboard postal tubes. The main advantages over cardboard are         a) Easier and quicker to prepare and get a much                     better finish         b) Stronger for more powerful motors         c) More durable than cardboard (especially if it gets               wet in grass etc.)        d) More easily repaired if damaged (shock tends to                stay around the damaged area and not be                            transmitted through the whole body. i.e. Spiral tubes            collapse) I have now been using this material for a number of years and made numerous rockets out of it. You can use epoxy, cyno and PVA glues to build them. Neater edges can be made so long as you use sharp instruments. The most difficult part with this material is cutting the slots for the through the wall fins. A combination of Solar-Trim and painting was done to decorate the model. The rocket was base coated in silver. The black portions are Solar-Trim. This material is easy and quick to work with (No mess and masking). It also gives a great finish. Weight is around 22oz without motor. NOSECONE The nose cone is home-made and turned on a Black and Decker drill from solid balsa. This is glued to a section of tubing making the nose cone and payload section around 14inches long. The nosecone is smoothed on the drill with fine sandpaper and then sealed with PVA glue before final coating/filling etc. Done carefully no balsa grain is visible. FINS Fins are made from 2mm stiff plastic. Not perspex. This material is a bit more flexible but not brittle. So less chance of damage when landing. Fins are through the wall onto the motor mount tube. MOTOR MOUNT The motor mount is 32mm high temperature waste pipe available from B&Q. A hole cutter is used for the centreing rings and the assemble well glued into the base of the rocket with epoxy. The 32mm waste pipe is a little loose for a 29mm motor but it only takes a few turns of the masking take to build up the motor diameter to a goof fit! I have used this method now for quite a while and it works well. It does not deform under the hot temperature of the spent motor casing also. RECOVERY SYSTEM I use a 24inch diameter home-made parachute made of red ripstop nylon. RECOVERY BEEPER I had lost a few of my rockets at the 1997 UKRA meeting at GARLANDS home of THRUST. This was mainly due to the high altitude and drift of the rocket taking them into high corn fields. But I would have had more chance of finding them if they had had a beeper. I had seen different examples over the years and decided to build my own. A personal attack beeper from TANDY (Radio Shack) could be easily butchered and adapted to fit into the nose cone payload section. These are cheap and always available. The system could be triggered by a micro switch when the nose cone was blown off. A slight risk is involved in that the mircoswitch may be accidentally depressed on lading by touching something on the ground at rest but I had decided that this would be remote. The system works well and is VERY noisy and can be heard when on the ground in grass a few hundred yards away. My intention is to replace the micro switch with a none mechanical system that will reduce the system being de-armed when lying on the ground. Another source of a beeper is an old house Fire alarm. FLIGHT First flight was at the Largs IRW in 1997. The motor was an Areotech G40-7W. The flight was straight and impressive. Many more flights have been achived and all have been successful. Next modification will be to convert two a two stage system. The payload has plentl of space for the timer and the first stage will be 'butted up' to the second. A small streamer will be used to recover the first stage. RETURN TO THE MEMBERS ROCKET PAGE RETURN TO THE MAIN HOME PAGE