Obituary for Joe Egan

The whole rocketry community was saddened to hear of Joe's passing last Wednesday. Today, Rocketry Planet has posted his obituary from the NYT. I learned that Joe was, aside from being TRA/NAR's lead in our legal efforts, a nuclear engineer-turned-lawyer who led Nevada’s legal campaign to block a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. He was a very dedicated individual, arranging for his ashes to be spread at site he worked with the words “radwaste buried here only over my dead body.”

The DC Pod Racer, remembered

Earlier this evening, I ran across the remains of the DC Pod Racer, which lawn darted last year. It placed in r.m.r. Descon 10 (Gemini DC kitbash) yielding a set of surplus 'chutes from Aerocon. Here's a set of photos from the EMRR archive (see 1st link). R.I.P.

Single Malt update

Here are a couple of photos showing the fore body and nose cone progress. I decided that I wanted a smoother transition between these parts, hence the section cut out of the 3" tube. I'm going to cover this with a piece of 3/16" Gatorflex^® foam board left over from my Art Applewhite 38mm Delta Saucer. It turned out the gaping hole made the attachment of the two body sections a lot easier.

Next steps:

• Add the Gatorflex^® plate.
• More sanding/filling of the cone.
• Decide whether I should glass the foam cone. The obvious answer should be 'yes', but I'm not sure.
  
• Mount a smaller tube on the bottom of the 3" tube.
  

Sport Rocketry, May/June 2008

This was a pretty good issue. It has a detailed build article on the Semroc Mars Lander and a good article on building various baffle designs. A group of middle-schoolers offer a well presented research report on parachutes and there is an article on how to introduce youngsters to the sport.

Finally, "The Cato Chronicles" offers a humorous list of rocket definitions.

Shred: The amount of dignity the author [Leslie Houk] will have left after it is printed.

Don't worry Leslie, dignity is over rated :)

Striped icebergs

This was forwarded to me by a friend.

Icebergs in the Antarctic area sometimes have stripes , formed by layers of snow that react to different conditions. Blue stripes are often created when a crevice in the ice sheet fills up with meltwater and freezes so quickly that no bubbles form. When an iceberg falls into the sea , a layer of salty seawater can freeze to the underside . If this is rich in algae , it can form a green stripe. Brown, black and yellow lines are caused by sediment , picked up when the ice sheet grinds downhill towards the sea.

21st Annual Houston Art Car Parade

This year's parade was this past Saturday. I always enjoy checking out the odd creations from this event. Here's the link the main site and the first gallery page. Check put more photos on Flickr. The attached photo isn't the oddest entry, but is sorta on-topic for this blog (from Boptimist).

Dragonfly Monocopter build complete

Here are two photos of the finished product. I decided to keep it nekkid, so I shot 2 coats of Helmsman Spar Urethane (the only clearcoat that I had).

It should fly along with it's big brother next week. As Art finalizes that kit, I'll post something on it too.

Man from UNCLE toy nostalgia

Searching for something totally unrelated, I came across this image. I had the item pictured at the top (item #1) - The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Gun. At the time, I thought this was just the coolest toy. As the originator annotated, "That was how I saw myself. The reality was quite different..." It was cap gun with removable silencer, scope, tripod and shoulder stock. I would never have guessed that it was under 4 bucks, as I remember saving up for it. Times are so different.

Thanks to AeroTech

Today, my replacement F24-7 reload kit arrived. It took about three weeks total. The ground shipping via USPS took almost 2 weeks, but was unavoidable. Thus far, I'm 3 for 3 with AeroTech service. Thanks to Mark at AeroTech for his prompt, courteous service!

Another shot of my favorite road sign

More on the Daisetta sink hole

Chron.com has an updated article, including a video (which I went ahead and embedded below). I guess that's what you get when you inject a salt dome formation with as much as 1.8 million barrels of saltwater a year over 40 years.

Boomershoot 2008 recap

Although I haven't as much as plinked at cans, plastic bottle and old bowling pins for around three years (since my last visit to EP), I do enjoy the photos and videos from Boomershoot. Joe Huffman has a list of blog posts and pictures from this years event. The coolest, and possibly the most ineffective, piece of hardware I spotted was what looked like a WWI vintage submachine gun, converted to semi-auto. This years special event seems to have been an toilet packed with 4 lbs of Joe's explosives and some gasoline.

TSA p0rn

The Evolution of Security talks about the millimeter wave imaging that is being implemented at Phoenix, Baltimore, LAX and JFK. Interesting points:

• Facial features will be blurred by the system, as shown above
• Images are not stored or transmitted
• The image viewer will be in a separate private room and will communicate with the screening station by radio

As long as it doesn't cause cancer or other health issues, I'm OK with it. I haven't heard anything about health effects, but I am paranoid about such things.

Single Malt fore body concept finalized

I have decided on a design for the fore body. I'd been floundering then - poof- if all came together. I'll use a 3" mailing tuber, or part thereof. It will be offset on the rear body rather than centered and will be bonded to both the cap and the BT-60 that extend through the cap. I'll have to plug the half moon shaped gap in the lower rear of the tube. The details of the attachment may change.

The 'eureka' moment was when I realized that if I flipped my cockpit-style nose cone over and tilted it down, it looked exactly like what I wanted! I slipped it over some 3" coupler and twisted the coupler so it dug into the foam just a bit. I'll take a photo later. It's currently in the Dungeon with glue and filler drying.

Convair XFY-1 Pogo 1/48 PMC

Just ordered one of these from Historic Aviation. I hope it's really available. I plant to PMC it. My first decision point will be the MMT size: 18mm for C6s or 24mm for C11s. I'm worried about the 18mm lifting power once nose weight is added and the 24mm size in the skinny bottom/rear end.

Convair XFY-1 Pogo 1/48 Kit

Replicating the prototype Convair XFY-1 experimental vertical takeoff and landing aircraft of the 1950s, which was intended to be a high-performance fighter aircraft capable of operating from small warships, this 1/48 scale plastic kit features textured surfaces with simulated rivets, a cockpit with a clear canopy, prototypical delta wings and three-bladed contra-rotating propellers, realistic castoring wheels, authentic U.S. Navy markings, a pilot's ladder, and more. 6¾" wingspan; 20+ parts, assembly required.
#0009493

Price: $11.95

Dragonfly build, part 2

As mentioned before, this is a simple build with a mere 9 parts. Heres a summary of the steps:

• Assemble Center
• Add Supports and Balance Beam
• Glue Wing to Center
• Assemble Motor Mount
• Wrap Fiberglass Tape
• Glue Motor Mount to Center
• Drill Launch Rod hole

The completed center section consists of 2 pieces of basswood and the dowels.

I actually built the motor mount in parallel with other components. This consists of a basswood motor mount, the tube, and the drywall tape. The tape is self adhesive to some extent, but wanted to lift when soaked in glue. So, I used some small plastic clamps to hold it where the tube met the motor mount. After about 20 minutes, I removed the clamps and let the glue set the rest of the way.

The support dowels are mounted parallel with the wing. The wing and motor mount are attached with one end over one dowel and under the opposing one. In the absence of a good airfoil and a long burn motor, monocopters need to have the motor mount and wing canted to provide lift. Mounting these items between the dowels provides this angle.

The instructions say to sand the dowels do they mate with the tube. On mine, only the bottom edge touched so a slight nick with a knife did the trick. I dilled the remaining gap with glue.

After all the glue dries I have to drill the launch lug hole and, when the weather clears, either prime or clear coat it. I'm thinking about doing the latter.

(cross posted from Rocketry Planet)

Blogger photo loading slow and/or dead

It appears some of the blogger photo hosting sites (probably not a physically correct term) are acting up. Hopefully, everything will be back to normal before too long. Until then, readers may see occasional floating outlines.

Art Applewhite Dragonfly monocopter

(This is cross-posted from Rocketry Planet and will be used for an EMRR review.)

I just received my kit and will describe it's construction and flight. While fred22's Thunderbird build will be towards the complicated side of mod-rocketry, this will definitely be on the other side of the spectrum. Art's known for simple but elegant kits, and it looks like he stuck with that theme.

The kit consists of the following:

Wing - one basswood strip, 8" x 2"
Balance beam - 1/4" dowel
Support beams - two 3/16" dowels
Center hub - one basswood strip, cut into 3 pieces
Motor mount - LOC BT-20 tubing
Motor mount reinforcement - Fiberglass drywall tape

Tools and materials required: Elmers Glue-All, hobby knife, scissors, ruler

Reading ahead, it looks like besides gluing parts together, all you do is make 4 cuts and drill one hole. This will be a short thread.

I hope to fly it at MDRA two weekends from now.

I also got a beta test version of his 24mm Cyclone monocopter, but won't give any details until he gives the thumbs up.

Single Malt is aging

My last addition may be making this rocket more look like it came out a Roadrunner cartoon than a Star Trek film. I'm referring to the green plastic doohickey. For some reason, I really like that shape and when another made itself available, I decided to add it on. It's mounted on a piece of Lexan, which is sandwiched between two dowels and epoxied to the main wing where it passed through the body. I also added the black nozzles. They are display nozzles from some kit and fit in 13mm tubing centered in the 24mm nacelles.

Next step: figure out the fore body and nose cone.

Problem being faced. The seems to be sufficient fin area when viewed from the side. However, there isn't much when viewed in the other plane. This will have to be corrected somehow.

The Unreasonable Rocketeer reveals his secrets (or at lease a couple of them)

Clark Lindsey passes on an article in the magazine Product Design & Development about Paul Breed and the development of his Unreasonable Rocket lander: A New Breed Headed To The Moon. (For now, Paul will be happy to take-off, hover, and land here on terra firma.) There, he reveals his secret for being able to move along so quickly (aside from being a natural engineer, a jack-of-all-trades, and maybe a bit obsessed):

“I’ll sketch out a part in Rhinoceros, export it and cut it out {on his new Tormach PCNC 1100} through SheetCAM and bolt it on. And then go on to the next piece.”

As Clark points out, this article is a skosh latent - as you'd expect, Paul has made a lot of progress during the editorial process!

Analysis of the near catastrophic Soyuz reentry

I don't know how I missed this one since it's been reported by all the major space news sources (not to mention the source site). I must have been snoozing! Anyway, in case you haven't heard, IEEE Spectrum has a lengthy article on the recent and nearly fatal reentry of the Soyuz capsule. Author James Oberg did his homework on this one. The results are still preliminary, but I suspect the big picture is pretty much there.

Total disaster was avoided not by any real-time actions of the crew or ground teams but instead by the ingenious design and robust construction of the spacecraft.

You call that a sinkhole? Now, THIS is a sinkhole! (update #2)

Last night, a water main broke in Chevy Chase, MD. This break caused a sinkhole that partially swallowed a small 2 lane road.

Today, chron.com reports on a yet another mega-hole forming in Texas. This one, near Daisetta, is 200 yards wide, 100 feet deep, and is still growing. There's a slideshow on khou.com (photo below is from that slideshow). I guess everything IS bigger in Texas.


Update #1: A reader emailed me about 7 amazing holes that trump the one in Texas.

Update #2: As of ~7 PM EST on the 8th, the hole has grown to 900 feet across and 260 feet deep. Still growing.

NAR/TRA lead counselor Joseph R. Egan passes away

This sad news was just reported on Rocketry Planet. Here's just a short excerpt:

A long time supporter and friend of hobby rocketry, Egan's courtroom performances were lauded by many as stellar any time he took the floor. A supporter of both the Tripoli Rocketry Association and the National Association of Rocketry, he was committed to seeing the lawsuit through to its finality. The protracted length of time the lawsuit has taken to resolve, currently stalemated awaiting a decision from Judge Reggie B. Walton, proved too long for Egan's worsening condition.

My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.

CERN's Large Hadron Collider is ginormous

Dark Roasted Blend has an cool gallery showing just how big that sucker is. I now can see why some kooks think it might create quantum stranglets that will destroy the world. They also have a video courtesy of the Bad Astronomer.

Yes, yes there were rockets at the Maker Faire

The Maker Faire, that is. Photo by Steve Jurvetson. The copy on his Flick'r gallery is annotated to describe the rockets/components shown.

Red Glare IV photo galleries

Rockets Magazine's RD4 photo galleries are up. Too many excellent photos to list. The is even one shot of my Upscale (Estes) Cluster Bomb. In this line up, the word upscale doesn't really apply!

And don't forget MDRA's gallery, taken by the peanut gallery, including yours truly.

Best of the Rocket Girls Series

Since I have no new material for this week, I thought I'd pick favorites...