mbauer
05-22-2010, 03:49 PM
Hi,
Since I don’t have all of my model airplanes with me at this time, I decided on a new project/model type.
The original plan was to make a small bellows to power the “Blow Rockets” that Phil designed and posted on the Z forum.
Searching for a “Paper Bellows” and then browsing to the different links, showed a couple of designs. One was really small the other was a big surprise!
The surprise was it had already been done, the bellows and rocket link went to a free downloadable rocket and bellows. After posting the link here on PM, another very exciting and pleasant surprise arrived!
Retired_For_Now sent me a link for a “Stomp” Rocket launcher. Also included was a “Straw” launcher system.
The last few days, most of the computer time spent has been drawing rockets to market for this great designed launcher! The launcher can be found in a couple of spots, after PMing, permission was given to post a link to the launcher at http://jleslie48.com/chronlist.html (http://jleslie48.com/chronlist.html) . Look for the Ares Stomp Rocket 7/07/2009 link.
The Ares that comes with the launcher is a simple, easy to build great design!
But, I still wanted my own rockets.
Something that has been planned since 2002, but because of model airplane designing, these projects were put on hold. Moving around found the desktop with all of the airplane models in Idaho, when, in a big rush, Idaho was departed to arrive in Alaska for a job interview.
Bought a laptop and then started loading in my CD roms with the airplanes on them. That is when the unpleasant surprise verified that none of the models on the Cds, had the newest upgrades.
That left two choices, redoing about 3-months of work, or starting the rockets. Tried to get my brother to send the autocad drawings to me, but he is clueless about computers.
Anyway here are some photos of the rockets and one of my F16 flying models redone to fit the launcher. As you can see on the F16, I didn’t catch all of the old issues until after it had been printed, since this was just a quick test to see if would launch, went ahead with the build. Red line, black areas are the issues.
Will be listing them on eBay soon as a CD rom for 6-rockets with the Honest John missile as a bonus. Price hasn’t been decided on yet, but should be at or around $10 to cover ebay/paypal fees and shipping too.
When considering the cost now of launching Estes rockets, the Stomp Launcher is a great/cheap easy to do project! Less than the cost of 3-Estes D12-3 engines.
Ok, now for the rest of the story.
After building the first stomp launcher and asking questions, it was mentioned that possibly a ˝” size conduit might work better. So, for less than $10 the parts were purchased.
Yes, the ˝” version seems to work better. Besides finding that out, other testing followed with the following results:
-A wrap of duct tape helps seal the bottle to the launcher.
-1/2” conduit slides inside the soda bottle with a good fit, duct tape seals the gap.
-Used a small diameter cardstock plug to plug the crosslegs of the launcher. Superglued the plugs to the end of conduit, where they insert into the 4-way cross piece.
-The soda bottle is good for several stomps, if you make sure to stomp on the [U]middle and not the end!
-Paper bellows has been drawn to fit the launcher as well as the rockets. Plan is for more volume than the 2-litre soda bottle. Updated one will be twice as big as one in photos.
-When creating bigger rockets (large diameter) the best option is to create an internal “pressure” tube. This keeps the volume (limited by the 2-litre bottle size) of air compressed enough to lift the rocket. The size of the tube needs to be 0.892” I.D.. This allows a seal, but doesn’t create excess friction. The psi tube needs to be as long as possible. The reason is the longer it is, the more it is in contact with the “pulse of air” that sends the rocket skyward. Once the rocket clears the conduit, it starts to slow down.
-Using a handheld Anemometer shows 11 mph wind speed from launcher assembly.
-A simple streamer recovery system was made for the 28” tall (39gm) Saturn V.
How to make streamer:
Use a super small lead fishing weight, shave it down until it just barely counters the weight of the plastic grocery bag streamer. A small wire loop is glued inside of psi tube at the capsule/plug end. A short piece of lightweight fishing leader (2lb test) was superglued to the weight and streamer. The leader allows the weight to reach the bottom of the rocket. The streamer is cut so that it sticks about an inch from the tube.
How it works:
When ascending, the weight is at the rear, but after apogee the weight falls forward and rests on the plug, allowing the streamer to deploy out the rear of psi tube.
This has been an incredibly fun project! The rockets fly great and the Redstone reaches about 40ft AGL. The streamer isn’t really needed just yet, but after installing the newest bellows this could change (I hope).
Will be posting a link to youtube for some short videos, once they are loaded.
Rocket specs:
-Saturn V is 28” long, weighs 39 gm
-Sat 1B is 17.5” long, wt = 18.6gm
-Gemini Titan is 17.5” long, wt = 14.06 gm
-Mercury Atlas is 16” long, wt = 15.86 gm
-Mercury Jupiter is 12.5” long, wt = 11.32 gm
-Mercury Redstone is 13.5” long, wt = 7.6gm
-Honest John is 1” = 1ft, 27” long, wt = 33.42gm
F16 Specs;
-30” long, 17.75” wingspan, wt = 3.2oz before weight/balance (model was finished 3-minutes ago, glue is drying before weight/balance test flying).
There are build photos, which will be added to this thread, eventually. Need to edit pictures and do the write-up first.
Best regards,
Mike Bauer
Since I don’t have all of my model airplanes with me at this time, I decided on a new project/model type.
The original plan was to make a small bellows to power the “Blow Rockets” that Phil designed and posted on the Z forum.
Searching for a “Paper Bellows” and then browsing to the different links, showed a couple of designs. One was really small the other was a big surprise!
The surprise was it had already been done, the bellows and rocket link went to a free downloadable rocket and bellows. After posting the link here on PM, another very exciting and pleasant surprise arrived!
Retired_For_Now sent me a link for a “Stomp” Rocket launcher. Also included was a “Straw” launcher system.
The last few days, most of the computer time spent has been drawing rockets to market for this great designed launcher! The launcher can be found in a couple of spots, after PMing, permission was given to post a link to the launcher at http://jleslie48.com/chronlist.html (http://jleslie48.com/chronlist.html) . Look for the Ares Stomp Rocket 7/07/2009 link.
The Ares that comes with the launcher is a simple, easy to build great design!
But, I still wanted my own rockets.
Something that has been planned since 2002, but because of model airplane designing, these projects were put on hold. Moving around found the desktop with all of the airplane models in Idaho, when, in a big rush, Idaho was departed to arrive in Alaska for a job interview.
Bought a laptop and then started loading in my CD roms with the airplanes on them. That is when the unpleasant surprise verified that none of the models on the Cds, had the newest upgrades.
That left two choices, redoing about 3-months of work, or starting the rockets. Tried to get my brother to send the autocad drawings to me, but he is clueless about computers.
Anyway here are some photos of the rockets and one of my F16 flying models redone to fit the launcher. As you can see on the F16, I didn’t catch all of the old issues until after it had been printed, since this was just a quick test to see if would launch, went ahead with the build. Red line, black areas are the issues.
Will be listing them on eBay soon as a CD rom for 6-rockets with the Honest John missile as a bonus. Price hasn’t been decided on yet, but should be at or around $10 to cover ebay/paypal fees and shipping too.
When considering the cost now of launching Estes rockets, the Stomp Launcher is a great/cheap easy to do project! Less than the cost of 3-Estes D12-3 engines.
Ok, now for the rest of the story.
After building the first stomp launcher and asking questions, it was mentioned that possibly a ˝” size conduit might work better. So, for less than $10 the parts were purchased.
Yes, the ˝” version seems to work better. Besides finding that out, other testing followed with the following results:
-A wrap of duct tape helps seal the bottle to the launcher.
-1/2” conduit slides inside the soda bottle with a good fit, duct tape seals the gap.
-Used a small diameter cardstock plug to plug the crosslegs of the launcher. Superglued the plugs to the end of conduit, where they insert into the 4-way cross piece.
-The soda bottle is good for several stomps, if you make sure to stomp on the [U]middle and not the end!
-Paper bellows has been drawn to fit the launcher as well as the rockets. Plan is for more volume than the 2-litre soda bottle. Updated one will be twice as big as one in photos.
-When creating bigger rockets (large diameter) the best option is to create an internal “pressure” tube. This keeps the volume (limited by the 2-litre bottle size) of air compressed enough to lift the rocket. The size of the tube needs to be 0.892” I.D.. This allows a seal, but doesn’t create excess friction. The psi tube needs to be as long as possible. The reason is the longer it is, the more it is in contact with the “pulse of air” that sends the rocket skyward. Once the rocket clears the conduit, it starts to slow down.
-Using a handheld Anemometer shows 11 mph wind speed from launcher assembly.
-A simple streamer recovery system was made for the 28” tall (39gm) Saturn V.
How to make streamer:
Use a super small lead fishing weight, shave it down until it just barely counters the weight of the plastic grocery bag streamer. A small wire loop is glued inside of psi tube at the capsule/plug end. A short piece of lightweight fishing leader (2lb test) was superglued to the weight and streamer. The leader allows the weight to reach the bottom of the rocket. The streamer is cut so that it sticks about an inch from the tube.
How it works:
When ascending, the weight is at the rear, but after apogee the weight falls forward and rests on the plug, allowing the streamer to deploy out the rear of psi tube.
This has been an incredibly fun project! The rockets fly great and the Redstone reaches about 40ft AGL. The streamer isn’t really needed just yet, but after installing the newest bellows this could change (I hope).
Will be posting a link to youtube for some short videos, once they are loaded.
Rocket specs:
-Saturn V is 28” long, weighs 39 gm
-Sat 1B is 17.5” long, wt = 18.6gm
-Gemini Titan is 17.5” long, wt = 14.06 gm
-Mercury Atlas is 16” long, wt = 15.86 gm
-Mercury Jupiter is 12.5” long, wt = 11.32 gm
-Mercury Redstone is 13.5” long, wt = 7.6gm
-Honest John is 1” = 1ft, 27” long, wt = 33.42gm
F16 Specs;
-30” long, 17.75” wingspan, wt = 3.2oz before weight/balance (model was finished 3-minutes ago, glue is drying before weight/balance test flying).
There are build photos, which will be added to this thread, eventually. Need to edit pictures and do the write-up first.
Best regards,
Mike Bauer