May 21, 2011

NASA phone call today

FYI for everyone who may check in daily, I had a nice phone call from Mr. Chris Rink today.  He is the NASA public relations contact at the Hampton, VA. Base.  He was at the MLAS launch in 2008, which is cool.

He was very interested in the MLAS project and will be keeping tabs on us.  I for one am thrilled at the amount of exposure the project is getting.  He expressed his support and said there were some people that might be of service to us.  He is going to ask around and get back to me sometime next week.

There has been other company's interested in the project, for teaching purposes, which is one of the reasons we are working so hard on the details.

As I explained to Chris, the plan is to duplicate all the events as they happened on the flight.  From the boost skirt drag separation to the re-orientation chutes and the CM separation.  Although I think the timing on the Shroud- CM separation will be shorter than the original.

As many of you know Team ARC flew the 8" model this past Saturday with success.

We are working on the boost and coast skirts this weekend and are trying to get the 2ft model ready for NSL in a few weeks??  We will keep pictures and postings coming regulary, along with as much information as possible.

I will be posting notes from this week’s round table.  Also I will be adding pictures of the construction of the shroud.   We are starting that tomorrow.

Thanks for all the visits to the blog, it is getting more traffic than I imagined.

Also please feel free to follow by clicking the follow button on the top of the home page,


GO BIG OR GO HOME

Rick "Scratch" McKee
Nar 87253 L3
SSS # 506

May 16, 2011

New building tips

 For more modeling tips visit the website below, this guy has skills.


http://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com/

Rick

Project update as of May 16th, 2011



  Well we are back on the web,  I guess they got all the bugs out.
to start we have completed the CM  and applied a coat of wood filler to it.
  We also started on the coast skirt construction, we have made the fin templet and cut one for mock up, to this we also cut the slots for the drag platesand inserted them for a test fit.

These drag plates are made out of the 3/8 honeycomb material we have. This material will also serve as the motor cage base. Usin this honeycomb material will help keep the skirt true ( ROUND).

The motors will be 20 degrees off center and canted towards the center, just like the real one.  We feel the HCM  will be adequate for the power we are using.

Update #2
We flew the 8inch version this Saturday, it flew very well, I will post pictures later tonight. But wew have a youtube video you can view.http://www.youyube.com/watch?v=WC2mZaaMfx&feature=youtube gdata player
As you can see in the video it flew well, the skirts came off as expected. I know the shroud was not to scale. But we are making a new one as I write this. The new one will be closer to scale, with the two different angles on the lower portion of the shroud.


Other progress has been with the smaller model  we have added more nose weight and will fly it again soon.

On the 2 ft model we plan on a k motor total impulse weight will be the factor. 

These are pictures that I have right now.  Please keep looking for more.


More later

Rick  "SCRTACH" McKee

These are a fev more pictures showing the material we have. This is Very strong and light
A 6"X 6" piece weighs less than 50 grams

This is a picture of one of the drag plates installed

The layout of the boost skirt with the hooneycomb material

                                         
This is showing the thickness of the hooneycomd 3/8 "