Haley and her Comet

When we moved to Dallas in 1998, we were expecting. Haley was born that Mother's Day, and came into the world with severely turned feet, club feet. We got her in a special program at Dallas' Scottish Rite Hospital. They used athletic training and therapy methods instead of the usual plaster casts to attempt to straighten her feet. Each day she would receive multiple massage and stretching sessions on her feet, ankles and calves, hoping to stretch and develop the muscles allowing her feet to straighten.

After each session, her ankles would be taped much like a trainer tapes an athlete's ankles before a game. In Haley's case, the tape pattern attempted to turn her feet outward. And the tape was a special stretchy kind from Band-Aid®. It came in a paper can. At the time, we were collecting paper tubes with the idea in mind that some of them could be used as rocket air frames.

That didn't pan out. Many of the tubes had such poor paper that they were more trouble than they were worth. But the Band-Aid® can was good stuff, and we used it to make a ring finned rocket.

We call it Haley's Comet. Decorations are soon forthcoming. It uses the same interchangeable motor mounts as our Better Bertha and Tangent . Download plans (pdf) for this rocket.

Haley has turned out to be a special gift from God. We feel so very blessed to have her and her siblings. They bring us great happiness. And as you can see below, she's a great kid

Feb-13-2005

Here's Haley several years ago, around age 6.

The blue teeth are from Easter candy.

4-19-2004

Here's a closer look at the ring fin.

May 31, 2004. National Sport Launch. Hearne, TX.

Haley successfully flew and recovered her Comet on a D12-7. Here's a great shot of the liftoff, courtesy of Tim Sapp.

Haley poses next to her rocket.
3-6-2005

A little older, Haley smiles for the camera, 5-19-2007.

Launch pic from 1-17-2009.

Haley, now 12, poses with her Comet and her Full Moon, 7-17-2010.

Launch pic from 7-17-2010.

This was not a great outing. The shock cord parted and the rocket came down without the chute, but suffered minimal damage.

The nosecone and parachute, much lighter without the rocket, drifted a long time, finally coming to rest far away

They were recovered after a good walk.

The parted shock cord (below)
My current recovery harness topology consists of a kevlar cord from the motor mount, then a ribbon through the body tube opening and then more kevlar to the nose cone. In this case, the ribbon was a synthetic fabric, nylon I think. It appears the heat got to it and it finally failed, having several flights on it.

This is one example of many where I've experimented with different materials trying to find a suitable ribbon to place in the shock cord to guard against zippers. This one has since been replaced with a nomex ribbon which should last a long time.

Nomex ribbon (below)
In the pic below, the ribbon has been replaced, this one being nomex, which is much more tolerant of the heat of ejection charges.

You can also see two loops formed in the kevlar string and wrapped with masking tape. These are my shock absorbers, and, since the ribbon broke, these were never stressed and thus remained intact. Which means they won't need to be re-taped for the next launch

The key benefit of the tape loops is that, at ejection, if the chute jerks hard on the rocket, perhaps due to an early or late deployment while the rocket is moving fast, the tape loops will be torn thus dampening the jerk on the rocket and helping to prevent damage such as a zipper, shredded chute or broken shock cord.

Below is a pic looking into the body tube. You can see the kevlar leader coming up from the motor mount and mating to the nomex fabric.

I also include this pic of the nosecone base. It's been bored out and a 10-32 threaded insert mounted in place into which the screw eye is anchored. This can be easily removed in order to add or subtract nose weight (washers) as necessary for different sized motors.

After repair, liftoff shot from 8-21-2010.

8-29-2010