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After seeing Dave Schaefer fly his 6-motor
cluster/ stager, I decided I needed to build one myself. Then I built two more  At left is my original Thridget on the pad for its maiden flight which went very well. |
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| Here's an aft view. The aft thrust rings in each booster section are visible. |
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| I
flew the rocket at LDRS in 2006. In this pic, the Thridget70 is
weathercocking very badly while Dave Schaefer's Double Jeopardy climbs
upward. It turned out that one booster didn't light. Apparently, the ignitor pulled loose. The result was pretty bad. There wasn't enough thrust which made the rocket susceptible to weathercocking, and once it started curving, gravity made it worse. And, since one booster didn't light, its section stayed attached and was scorched by the two sustainers which did light. The rocket crashed hard. It broke two fins and destroyed the forward airframe. |  |
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In a humorous sidenote to the
wreck, I needed a standoff for the rocket on the pad. There
weren't any clothespins, so I made do with some debris from the
ground. A bit of tape held it to the rod. |
After the rocket was launched,
Tim Sapp got this shot of the "standoff" smoldering on the pad.
It turns out, the "debris" I had picked up was a piece of dried cow
patty, and the rocket exhaust had set it afire  |
 Photo courtesy of Tim Sapp
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After getting the rocket
repaired, I took it out for more flying. It got in a couple of
successful flights. Here it is on the pad for a flight in 2007. With its fresh paint, it looks great. |
| Here's a liftoff shot on one of its better flights. |
 Photo courtesy of Tim Sapp
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| At
the November 2008 DARS launch, I flew the Thridget70 again. This
time, one booster didn't light, and the result was predictable. |
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Franken-Midget |
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Having wrecked - for the
second time - my 2.2x upscale Midget, I set
about repairing it this week. When only two out of three boosters
lit,
it made for an unpleasant outcome.
In the pic above, two fins needed repair. The top fin broke in
two places. The circled portion is one of those pieces, and is
only sitting in place; it hasn't been glued back together yet.
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With one piece glued on, the
remainder of the fin was attached. Pieces of craft sticks,
carefully selected for straightness and wrapped in foil to resist being
glued in place, are clamped to the fin to hold it perfectly
straight while the glue sets.
In the bottom of the pic, you can see the remains of the other broken fin. |
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| The last fin had some delamination along
the break, so additional clamping was used to press the layers back
together. |
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With all the clamps removed, the many scars are very apparent. Hence the name Franken-Midget :) |
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| Needing to fill the holes where
the chunks were missing, I decided to take a different tack and run
with the Franken-Midget concept, so I mixed up a batch of home made
filler using sawdust and wood glue, then added a few drops of purple
food coloring. The idea was to emphasize the scars instead of
hiding them. Not sure yet how I like it, but I plan to get it flying sometime this weekend - gotta get back on that horse, right? Doug - November 26, 2007 |
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12-24-2008 |
