Photo courtesy of Tim Sapp
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Back in 2006, the National Association of
Rocketry introduced their program for using out-of-production (OOP)
motors. I built this rocket as a sacrificial mule to use with
some of the old motors I had collected.
The rocket was built with minimal investment of time with the
expectation that it might indeed be destroyed by one of the old
motors. It uses ST-20 tubing (~2") with a balsa nosecone from my
lathe.
Given the possibly destructive outcome, the fins and body tube got only
a cursory finishing effort with little more than primer, sand and paint.
It still turned out quite nice, although after a few days, the gold
paint began to turn a bit green in spots as can be seen in the
pic. I've not seen this type of discoloration before, but
metallic paints can be finicky, so I didn't worry about it too much,
especially since the rocket was expected to be a throw-away bird anyway.
In this shot, the rocket is on its checkout flight on a D12-0 to D12-5.
It later flew its intended mission successfully with an
out-of-production AVI brand E11.8-0 booster motor staged to a C11-7
sustainer.
I have since built another booster for it, this one to take 29mm
motors. Two flights are planned. One will stage a
single-use APCP motor to a black powder sustainer. The other will
use an out-of-production FSI brand E60-0 staged to a common sustainer
(to be determined).
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