Warren B. Musselman

Our approved altimeter list is the Tripoli altimeter list. I’m not sure if they are still maintaining one, but at one point they had one and I know Adrian submitted the Parrot and probably the Raven. Last I looked the…   Read more»

Firstly, I would consider a “burst disk” instead of a valve. They are available in precisely calibrated pressure ratings and were extensively used in Apollo and in other expendables for a wide variety of purposes.A resistive heater would probably be…   Read more»

While it is difficult sometimes to know exactly where private land and public land boundaries are, it is pretty critical to make the effort to contact nearby ranchers before going onto land you’re not sure about. Consideration and politeness towards…   Read more»

Nose cone – 1/3 of shock cord – chute – 2/3 of shock cord, rocket… works for me every time so long as I have enough charge to push things out with a little authority and the chute is fluffed…   Read more»

By the way Tony, great video and great explanation of laying up tubing. Haven’t seen the nose cone vid yet. I guess I’m lazy. After making several airframe tubes I decided I could buy better than I could make myself…   Read more»

Speaking of which, when is BALLS this year? I’ll have my 98mm MD project ready and also semi-solid plans for a trip up the California and Oregon coast late in September sometime and it might just be possible to make…   Read more»

Mine isn’t staged, it’s just a bare-assed absolutely minimum diameter, minimum length M project on an M795 moonburner. RASAero sims it to somewhere in the vicinity of 46K. It is essentially a test flight of a longer version designed to…   Read more»

Great idea for a contest, but since I utterly refuse to go to any launch with that many people, its not likely I would go to any LDRS in order to fly it. I’ve got the project for it, but…   Read more»

How many times did you try it before you realized it was a video trick?

I saw Apollo 11 from the beach with the clock (not sure where it is, but close – near VIP stands).Saw Apollo 17 from Titusville – a shopping center parking lot. Saw the first Shuttle from the causeway. Those are…   Read more»

Sparkfun has a 9DOF board – 3axis accelerometer, 3 axis rate gyros and 3 axis Magnetic (compass). That plus an Arduino or other small micro-controller and servo-controlled fin tabs might make a dandy little project. The only weakness is the…   Read more»

I’ve flown 1/8″ honeycomb fins on my L2 cert bird – standard trapezoidal planform ala Nike Smoke. Has something like 10 flights K and L on it and has fallen from 2K with an incomplete main deployment and bounced. No…   Read more»

One thing about Nomex honeycomb panel. Weight depends a LOT on how it was made. If epoxy from the layup process fills some or all of the cells, it weighs a lot more than if it was properly laid up….   Read more»

Balsa end-grain is almost as light and considerably stronger from my understanding.Another option to consider is foam-core fins. I built a fin can for someone a couple years ago made up of a skeleton-frame of foam-core board (cheap) with 2-part…   Read more»

I’ve worked with the stuff and plan on an M-powered bird that will fly with 1/8″ Nomex honeycomb fin cores. Unfortunately I don’t have a weight for you. I plan on putting beveled G10 strips for leading and trailing edges…   Read more»

I will add one thing here. Making plate stock for fins or building integral fin cans isn’t difficult. Both can be done without v-bagging or other fancy techniques of any kind. For most sport rocketry purposes, v-bagging is overkill and…   Read more»

I might add that Adrian’s comments are good – particularly for smaller jobs. My first v-bag project was a 24mm altitude bird and was done with a shop vac, plastic garbage bag and duct tape with a kludged vacuum fitting…   Read more»

Right now I’m waiting on some Nomex honeycomb fin cores from Giant Leap. When those turn up and I get the airframe slotted, and then post a Saturday date for doing a v-bagged layup. I’ll be happy to have a…   Read more»

Given the amount of interest in this the last year or so, I should probably do another class.I have a vacuum pump I bought reconditioned from Aircraft Spruce for $150 that will pull 25-28″ of Mercury – depending on the…   Read more»

Actually one of each would suffice as would a 9″ coupler although the 12″ would be better as I need a 2nd short piece of coupler and figured to cut it from a longer chunk. I definitely one piece 48″…   Read more»