I was actually thinking you could build for 29 and use an adapter to size down to the 18 and 24 to utilize the possibilities. Not sure if that's allowed - still waiting on rules.

Depending on when Dr. J comes out with the 24 goodies, I'm thinking it would be pretty exciting to fly the 24 stuff. Adrian and I are already drooling over the idea, so I foresee some of them being flown. And, with his new alt, we can get pretty creative.

I've got a very light all-carbon 24mm altitude bird I built years ago to take the F and G records from John Wilke... after several near losses due to the small size and extreme altitudes I was getting on a variety of F's and on G55's, I retired it since I was sick of walking around and looking for it for hours, days in some cases.

IF someone has a decent tracker system, GPS preferred, that will fit 24mm body tubes, I'll gladly put that bird that up against anything anyone in the club can build in 24mm. I've seen the competition and I have no worries.... However, without a 24mm tracker of some sort, I'll gladly stay on the sidelines and watch others lose their rockets. I no longer waste my time looking for small rockets on large prairies.

The BigRedBee Beeline and Adept trackers will both fit into 24mm tubes. It may also be possible to put a Raven altimeter and a beeline side-by-side in a 24mm tube, but I'd have to check on that. I have bench tested a Raven immediately adjacent to a beeline with no interference issues.

If a HAM license is an issue, I can help with that

How light is your 24mm rocket, Warren?

I'm hoping a BRB will be good myself.

Will the Triple Shot contests require a fixed dry weight? I think that would add to the design challenge and possibly make it more fair, but would require a scale or honor system that weights were fixed.

I agree, nothing but the motor should change between flights. Using either honor system or measured weight would be fine by me. I always take my little scale with me to launches, and other people probably do too, so borrowing one probably wouldn't be a problem. It would also be really interesting data to see how different people's mass strategies affected their flights.

By the way, this morning I'm working on a little 29mm av-bay design. It fits a beeline tracker (with USB battery charger), a Raven and a shared little battery all next to each other inside a 29mm blue tube coupler. The bulkhead at one end will be a circuit board that takes care of almost all of the electrical connections, including connecting the altimeter to some 4-40 aluminum all-thread that can be used to connect dual-deploy charges at either end. It will be about 2 inches long, not including the beeline antenna. The whole thing will weight around 30-35 grams, and I'm intending to sell this as a kit.

A Raven, a beeline, and a battery can also fit side-by-side in a 24mm airframe tube, but you have to spread them out a bit more so that the total length is more like 2.7 inches. There's also no room for all-thread, or even a normal sled, so you'd have to get more creative about how to put the av-bay together for minimum length. You could also put the Raven and the beeline+battery end-to-end for a length of about 4."

Both of the Triple Shot Sweepstakes contests are still without any posted rules that everyone is supposed to follow. A Fixed weight is a good suggestion. Is that for a payload or the entire rocket? Motor weight will vary, even among motors of the same impulse class. Does that mean we can't interchange/alter parachutes or streamers?

I am only administrating the Alphabet contest.

I'd suggest that the configuration and weight be kept as close to the same as possible. Just as the rocket airframe is optimized over three impulse classes, so should the payload, recovery, etc. For example, adding weight to the nose allows smaller fins to be used as the motor weight increases. Makes the rocket designer think a little bit more as opposed to having RockSim give all the answers.

That said, I wouldn't want to be a nazi about it so that good people were DQ'd. Perhaps allowable 5% dry weight difference between heaviest and lightest reading? That would allow minor repairs to be made or replacement of a burned parachute while still preventing weight optimization for each motor. The weight would be part of the witnessing, along with checking the motor and reading the altitude, and noted on the flight card.

What do other people think?

If someone will write out the rules as discussed, (I missed some of this), I'll post them on the rules page.

Hey,

Not sure i understand....If you can make a lighter rocket than me, why should we penalize you?

David

Everyone can build to any weight they desire... I was recommending that each person's rocket flies at the same weight for each of the three motors.

The larger motors will have a higher optimal weight, while the smaller motors will have a lower optimal weight. So the builder will have to choose a happy medium that maximized total altitude for all three flights.