rocket: 25% scale Aerobee

[JohnCoker]

My hobby is rocketry and we use lots of plywood, aluminum and composites, all of which I've cut with my Desktop in the process of building a 25% scale Aerobee (http://jcrocket.com/aerobee.shtml).

[steve_g]

A very interesting read!
Thanks for posting.
SG

[myxpykalix]

Those ain't your daddy's rockets...:eek::rolleyes:

[scottp55]

So THAT'S what you've been doing :) Nice job and article. Very Nice!

[ssflyer]

Way cool - a far cry from the Estes and Centurion rockets I played with as a kid!

[Ajcoholic]

Sweet! I am an RC plane guy. But those high power rockets really look awesome.

7000' altitude? How you ever get it back I wonder? Like Ron, I used to fly a lot of Estes rockets as a kid in the late 70's and 80's - and managed to always lose a lot of them even though I was probably 1000' or less most of the time.

[JohnCoker]

7000' altitude? How you ever get it back I wonder?
We fly GPS units with Telemetry for higher altitudes, but 7000' is low (you can see the entire flight). I've flown to 44,000' personally and been part of a project that went to 105,000' (those are considered high altitudes).

[garyr6]

I seem to remember water rockets......fill with water, pump'em up and wooosh.
Good memories. Yours look to be a bit more than that. Good work, have fun, life is short be good to yourself.

[myxpykalix]

I remember my water rocket. It had a white air pump with a white body and a red top. We would pump that sucker up and pull back on that lever and usually get a face full of water but that was fun!!!:D

[Ajcoholic]

We fly GPS units with Telemetry for higher altitudes, but 7000' is low (you can see the entire flight). I've flown to 44,000' personally and been part of a project that went to 105,000' (those are considered high altitudes).

Wow, that is literally unbelieveable. Yes, I can see how you can visually track to 7000' in perfect conditions but that still doesnt tell me how youy can make sure to get it back - I am assuming you fly in very open areas. Not much of that up here in the Canadian wilderness.

105K feet? That is awesome, but I cant get my head around that height. Mind boggling that you can send something that high you build in your home. Wild!:eek:

Id love to see that stuff. I myself fly turbine powered model jets (since 2002) but they are cool, but nothing like the thought of a rocket going that high.

[myxpykalix]

A dumb question...what is the point of shooting a rocket 40-50-100 thousand feet into the sky? Once it is out of sight don't you lose the fun of shooting the rocket?
I have seen very small cameras like for a pen, so if you could incorporate something like that, then i could understand it, or something that would give you some type of readings, ect. would be neat. Either way i think it's cool, i was just a little confused:confused:

[Simops]

We fly GPS units with Telemetry for higher altitudes, but 7000' is low (you can see the entire flight). I've flown to 44,000' personally and been part of a project that went to 105,000' (those are considered high altitudes).

How do you get around regulatory airspace requirements? Do you have to apply for an area to be NOTAM'd? Co-ordinate with ATC?

As Jack says....would be interesting to put a camera onto it......

Have fun...

Cheers

[JohnCoker]

Our group (http://aeropac.org/) flies at the Black Rock desert in Northern Nevada. Indeed, there is extensive work to get land use and airspace use permits.

What's the point? Well, there are lots of challenges possible in every hobby and flying to that altitude and recovering successfully is a big one in rocketry. And yes, getting a "black sky" picture from a rocket flight is part of the goal.

Personally, I enjoy building the rockets most of all, and particularly building scale rockets.

[Ajcoholic]

Well I can certainly see why you do this - just to see if you can do it! I have built my own miniature turbine, several model aircraft engines from scratch, etc all because I just wanted to see if I could do it.

I think that is ultra cool. 100,000 feet still boggles my mind. I think the highest rocket I sent up was a two stager That used C size Estes engines... was supposed to hit maybe 2,000 on a good day.

If you have any video of your stuff I'd love to see it.

AJC

[JohnCoker]

If you have any video of your stuff I'd love to see it.
My personal web site (http://jcrocket.com/) has pictures and video of my projects. The group site (http://aeropac100k.insaneprojects.com/Team_AeroPac_2012_100k_Project/100k_Project.html) has pictures and video of the 100k' flight.