Back up and running

  Well as many of you know the ARC has been stagent for a year,  life,  but I am back and have started working on the 8 inch MLAS rocket again.  Today I cleaned the small area I now have to work in. It is very efficent but smaller.  I have mounted the motor cage to the boost skirt, trying to keep with the origional design.  I feel that this best represents what I am trying to acclomplish. 

  We here at ARC have kinda gone in different directions, Myself, I have been trying to keep a steady job. It seems that it isn't like it used to be.  Shon has enlisted in the Air Force, this is to help him with college.
Tom has been working all the time and is on the other side of the city , so getting together is tough. 

I will be back to posting the progress as I can,  the pictures I have today are from the stuff I did over the past few months.. The temp in the garage is over 100 so I can only work in the am when the sun is on the east side of the house..

Connecting points

This is looking from below. yes
I canted the motors.

I started ading the boost skirt drag plates today



Add caption



Shon fabricated this last year  NICE  looks like the real one 

 We plan on launching this vehicle in October at the GHS launch.  Hopefully we will have this one completed.  I am also working on the 24 inch vehicle and plan on having it on site in October.

I hope all are well and I look forward to posting more daily, keeping you all up to date..

Happy New Year 2012

I just wanted to wish everyone out in rocket land a happy new year.  Alot has happened this past year, this year looks to be the best yet.  Team MLAS will be working on the MLAS project and trying to get it to the state fair in October.

Thanks for all the support
Rick "Scratch" McKee
Nar # 87253 L3

ARC Store for the new year

  Yes we at the ARC are going to be opening an online store for the new year.  Please feel free to come and see the products that we have.  It we don't have something you are looking for please feel free to contact us.

  Scratch

Rocket building notes

 Here are some cool tips again.   I love these  they are very helpful helphttp://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com/2011/07/quest-as-1-escort-build-part-3-engine.html

Rick

Back up and Running

To those of you who follow the ARC I apologize for not posting more of the current build.  We have had to move and rebuild the shop in a smaller area, (.e garage).  Thanks to the generosity of my wife, Karen.

 Currently we are in the process of painting the 8 inch version MLAS and finishing the upper shroud section of the 2 foot boiler plate. This has proved a difficult process due to the three different angles on the shroud.  I would like to give credit to Gordy Agnello at Excelsior Rocketry, for providing the scale drawings for us to follow; he made it easier to construct the pattern.  I would like to also thank Tim Wilson for his input.

As many of you know we are designing the rocket with the original 20 degree canted motors CRAZY I know, but why not. In doing this we have had to solve many problems, one being how to attach the motor tubes to the cage without adding a whole lot of extra weight.

Solution: We have designed a honeycomb structure in the boost skirt. This design has held a 225 lb man on it. This structure only added a few lbs and gave us the strength we needed, it also allowed us to cant the motors like the original.  It also made everything removable and repairable, which is needed in a scale like this one.  I will go more into this shortly, with pictures describing the design.

The parts we need are being designed and produced in house, we have a lot of blue DuPont foam lying around. So we use the extra pieces to form the plug we need for parts. Then we vacuum bag the fiberglass and modify the parts as needed. This seems to be the cheapest way to make what we need. I will also describe this process later this weekend.

 We have had people donate money toward the build, the plan is to have a shirt made with the information and a picture for people to purchase, and this will help support the launch of the half scale version. 

Some more new Stuff

 Here is another post
Enjoy

http://rocketdungeon.blogspot.com/2011/06/stuff-thats-on-my-mind-satellites.html

Rick

New Stuff from the Rocket Dungeon

I have been very busy moving into the new house. Sorry for the lag on the blog. We will be back at it next week 

http://rocketdungeon.blogspot.com/2011/06/never-say-never.html

ISS Tour

    Thank you Mark W, for this post, this is a 6 min tour of the ISS. This is real cool to me because the ISS flys over Phoenix on a regular basis, just last night 6/15/2011 it was above us for about 4 min.
These viewings are because of Moe Bs postings on the SSS groups website.  but anyone can go to the NASA website and check for the location of the space station,

 ISS tour  enjoy http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=H8rHarp1GEE
Thanks again
Mark W

New tips

This is old but new. Please read the tips from this and all the other post, they really help with building great rockets.



http://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com/2011/06/old-centuri-baffle-patent.html

Rocksim 9 8" MLAS file

    Ok so I spent most of yesterday working of school stuff. But everyone needs a break right.  So seeing that I have the latest and greatest rocksim from Apogee, I spent some time designing /redesigning the MLAS. 
I found out something out about this model. You have to design it from the rear and move foward.  Rocksim doesn't like this MLAS, once you get the CP/CG relation reversed it is hard to fix.

But I goter  done and ran the sims.   
( NOTE HERE)   the motors are not canted like ours so the true flight is still a best guess.  
But we managed to get ours to fly so it can't be to bad.  Im trying to import the file to my page but I can't seem to ge it done??
I will try to post it today.  oh yea almost forgot,  sims out at 652 ft with four single use 24 mm  Areotech motors
Later
Rick

Maxx launch video

      Please look at the third video down on the left, it is the video of the 8' mlas flight ( A good flight ) a few weeks ago. We are in the process of construction a new one, painted and with all the bells ahd whistles.

I have many more build pictures on the site.

Thanks for viewing

Rick  "SCRATCH" McKee


   

Saturn V build Completed

Here is the finished Rocket  VERY NICE
http://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com/2011/06/estes-saturn-v-build-finished.html

Rick McKee

Arizona Rocket Consortium.org: Magazine Article

Arizona Rocket Consortium.org: Magazine Article: "Author: Adam Klawonn PRINT Issue: May, 2011, Page 128

Photos by Harrison Hurwitz
The space race may be over, but one group of V..."

More tips and video

  These are good for schools to watch and learn from

http://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com/2011/05/launch-schoolyard-may-25-
lhttp://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com/2011/06/launch-schoolyard-june-6-2011.html

Rick

Mlas update 6-7-2-11

  Well here I am finally updating the progress of the half scale MLAS project.

To start I would like to give a shout out to Gordy from Roachworks Machinery, he quickly rendered me a scale pdf for the shroud.  Thank you Gordy for your help with our project.

To start we have completed the CM areas, and are currently working on producing clamps from the glass and screen we have in the shop. We have made a few clamps.

Here in the process

1.      We start with a heave glass matt and a blue foam form or plug.

2.      To this we spray glue to the blue foam and add wax paper

3.      We then mix up some epoxy from Sticky Stuff here in Phoenix, Az.

4.      This is structural epoxy with a 90 minute cure time

5.      We then sandwich a layer of wire mesh in between the two layers of matt.

6.      We then vacuum bag all this and let set of a day.

7.      Remove and trim

8.      Drill the needed holes and you are ready for assembly

9.      The mold is at a 70 degree angle for our build

10.  We then test fit all the parts and save a pieces for testing.

As many of you know we have been working on this project for about a year, we have been in touch with NASA, McDonald Douglas, Lockheed Martian, Go Daddy, and others. We have had a huge amount of help on this project, to all who have helped,   

I say thank you.

            Shon brought the model to the SSS social this past weekend, but there were only three members at this meeting, it seems to me more has to be done to get the membership involved. The membership needs something to make them want to attend the monthly socials. Maybe a contest, Craftsmanship, or scale, a list of parts that can only be used  with a time period, Something that everyone can afford to do.     

We also have been busy melting billets of lead for the weight needed in the nose. This part sucks but it has to happen.  As with the 8 inch model we had to add a far amount of nose weight to make things work like they are intended too.

This flight will be no different, we plan on four K-550s for the two ft model, and these will be canted at the realistic 20 degrees from centerline. Also we plan on having electronics in this flight, controlling the chutes to the shroud and CM parachutes. Guy also has timers we will be using for the coast skirt separation sequence and chute deployment.  

Now that we have the designs from Gordy we will detail the Shroud and get it ready for paint.  The one thing we are making sure of is that we get this project as close to the original as possible. Being that this rocket has only flown once before we feel it is only right to make this as close as we can. 

I also have plans for the new launch pad that we will be using.  these will be in the next updates later this week.

Again, thanks too all who read this

Rick M

MLAS update

I will have all the latess news later tonight

sorry for the delay

Rick

http://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com/

Here are some more tips from Chris


http://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com/

Enjoy

Rick

TIPS

Here are more tips for all to read, and pick up some new or old tricks

Thanks Chris
http://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com/2011/05/estes-saturn-v-build-part-41-parachutes.html

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

New building tips

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


http://modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com/

Rick