The largest tower we have is the Swing Set which sports a 16' rail. Art launched the Event Horizon from it which had a flight weight of over 300#. I'm not sure what the rail on it is but it's bigger than 1515 rail and I'm pretty sure it's not Unistrut. Art stores this pad and it is not a part of our standard launch trailer load-out so you'd have to make arrangements with Art to use it and figure out transport for it out to the launch site. It cannot be used at the Atlas site because it requires guy wires attached to large stakes and requires bare ground instead of the concrete pad at the Atlas Site.

Next thing down would be the Extreme Pad which can take either 1010 or 1515 rail up to 16'. Rockets of at least 100# can be launched on it but since the rail itself is unsupported along its length, I don't know how much higher I would go above that.

Finally, we usually have Doug Gerard's awesome pad at MHM and Oktoberfest when Doug shows up. That uses 1515 rail. You could certainly launch almost anything that could use that size button.

Warren

The bicycle rim tower is adjustable to accomodate up to a 4 inch diameter bird, I believe, although it is limited to approximately five feet in length. Contact Bob Messner regarding his beautiful piece of furniture tower as I don't know specifics but he's used it for 38 mm minimum diameter shots and it's about the same height as the Carl Battles' designed bike rim tower.

Got a special project in mind?

Warren, I knew about all the rails. Did my L3 with Full Throttle on the Swing set. Ive even flown it off of Dougs. But looking at towers like what Joe is listing. No buttons no rail guides no launch lugs. Just a slide fit. A tower.

Yes Joe, I do have some specific projects in mind, and would still like to test them and work out the bugs here (as well as some others I know would do the same) at our home flying field before taking them to an event like LDRS or BALLS. But with the current stuff we have I would probably not be able to nor would others. I know Wilke had a wooden tower but its getting old and needs work plus it like Bob's is large and heavy. The bicycle ones are just to small.

I am planning some minimum diameter larger rockets in the 75mm and 98mm range for EX altitude attempts and just some good ole fun. Stuff I hope to push to 25 to 40K shots. But again with smaller motors it would be nice to dial in my rockets and my motors here and still keep it under 20K.

I would think one tower thats taller but lighter construction and can handle smaller rockets say from 38 or 54mm up to 4" stuff would be nice. But maybe im all alone in that idea though to. Just a thought.

Conway

Conway,

I obtained some aluminum rings I was going to use to build a tower launcher with and even came up with a cool plan. I haven't built it yet and have lost interest in doing so but I still have some parts if you're interested. It was going to be an 8 foot tower and it could be designed to accommodate a 4" rocket if the fin span was small enough. The rings are 10.5" OD and 8.5" ID and about 3" long. I was going to use 8020 rail for the vertical pieces to bolt the rings to.

Doug

Doug, Had a similar Idea. Would love to see more on what you had in mind. I was looking at using something even lighter weight then the rail. Something like lightweight steel tube for the upward beams and they an be bent at the top outward with a ring around the outer edge to tie them all together. Make some holes to adjust it smaller or even slot the tube. I will see if I can come up with some drawings or pictures of what I had in mind. But I would think somewhere close to a max height around 10 maybe 12 feet tall. My 75mm project will be lucky if its 5 to 6 feet tall. and My 98mm project will be close to 6 to 8 feet tall.

Sorry Conway - you said tower and I immediately thought large rocket needing a rail.

The bicycle tower and Bob Messner's tower aren't big enough to handle a 4" bird even though they'd probably adjust that large. At 4' total guide length wouldn't be able to handle anything that took its time getting up to speed. I'm not sure about Bob's tower (really a piece of fine furniture made of oak), but the club bicycle tower has a fin span limit from centerline of 6" or so.

I have the old PHITS tower in my garage waiting for me to get around to welding a new upper frame and a base assembly for it. This is a 6' long tower that can take 4' extensions (which we don't have) and handle birds up to 6" diameter with a finspan radius of perhaps 11" from the centerline of the bird. (equates to a fin semi-span of 7" to 8" on a 6" diameter bird). There is a fair amount of work to do on it and since no one has flown off it in 5 years or more and no one has asked about it, I've been lame about getting on with the project. I have nothing big enough planned that will need it. If you like, I'll get on with it and have it ready for MHM or June.

Warren

Ya know Warren I forgot all about that tower. I can remember seeing it used by a few folks back in the day of PHITS. I Will have to see if I have an pictures of it from past so I remember what it looked like though. That would be prefect. Even if we needed to manufacture an extension I wouldn't think it to hard. Really the projects I am doing are going to be super light. I would bet the 75mm powered project will be no more then 6 to 8 lbs and the 98mm 8 to 11 lbs. (no motor of course) My fin spans will be no larger then a caliber size of the tube. So 4" or under for the 98mm and 3" or under for the 75mm project.. I cant see that not fitting. Cool I will hook up with you at the meeting and we will discuss it some more. By per chance you have any photos you could take of it?

Thanks

Conway

This tower will be easy then. I just need to fabricate a triangle of square thin wall tubing to hold the top end rigid and perhaps add some eye bolts there for guy lines and it's ready to use. Probably a couple hours on a warm Saturday for me to weld it up in the driveway and we'll be good to go.

Warren

Guys, I own a larger version of the bicycle tower. It is 60" long - designed to fit into the truck I had at the time, which had a 61" long bed. My hunch is that this sucker could be adapted to a longer version, probably by just changing out the channels, which are made from electrical conduit.

That tower would easily handle 4" rockets - from a diameter standpoint. The length just isn't there. This is my personal tower, I traded Carl some stuff for it. I'd be glad to give it to NCR as long as it was kept in good health and not folded, spindled, or mutilated. It does need to be lengthened, though.

This is a bit of a "Catch-22" in that if you make it for 3 or 4 inch rockets, then you are probably going to go over 20K. Until we get a higher waiver, we probably don't need a larger tower. I'd sure like to have one, though - I am going to try an M altitude attempt this year. The fact that I don't have a tower is a major issue :-O

I would personally donate $$ and / or materials if someone would put something together.

JW

Without the needless drag of rail buttons, this is what the club needs for ANY serious altitude attempts at L-M (or N). This is great. Don't we have a call-in 30k waiver, or used to?

The SwingSet actually sports a 19-foot rail at the moment. The rail that is currently on it is not standard 80/20 rail but it is compatible with the larger extreme buttons. I would like to convert it over to some nice shiny new 80/20 rail some day though.

Art

We had a call-in of 30K arranged for MHM and Oktoberfest in 2006, but it didn't get granted for 2007. We're working on something similar this year, but don't have any idea if it will happen. Joe is working on it.

Warren

Curious as to how large of launch towers we have access to. I would have no issues building one but if they exist already.........Whats the largest rockets that can be flown from them.

T-C has a 3 fin and a 4 fin tower that is about 8 ft tall. it is good to about 6in but not for sure, it will at lest handle a 4in AF.

one of these are in the trailer and the other is in Denver.