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Old 01-20-2012, 05:04 PM
luke strawwalker's Avatar
luke strawwalker luke strawwalker is offline
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"Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...

Hi all...

Here's a link to my build thread of the Dr. Zooch "Friendship 7" Mercury Atlas to commemorate the 50th anniversary of John Glenn's historic first US orbital manned spaceflight, launched on Atlas vehicle 109D from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral on February 20, 1962...

"Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build... - The Rocketry Forum

Not strictly speaking a paper model, but uses many papermodeling techniques and materials... and this is a FLYING rocket... available from Dr. Zooch Rockets... drzooch.com

Here's a few pics of the finished product... The "Flame Fins" seen in some pics are necessary for aerodynamic stability in flight, but are easily removed for display... Enjoy!

OL JR
Attached Thumbnails
"Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-103.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-104.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-105.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-106.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-107.jpg  

"Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-098.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-099.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-100.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-101.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-102.jpg  

"Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-093.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-094.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-095.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-096.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-097.jpg  

"Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-089.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-090.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-091.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-092.jpg  
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Old 01-20-2012, 06:42 PM
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closet astronaut closet astronaut is offline
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What...no pics of the launch? Fire! Smoke!

Nice launch pad, alot better than the plastic tri-pod and metal blast disk. I built one of these years ago, crashed and burned on its maiden flight, it's launch and crash looked just like one of the vintage film footage of one of the Atlas crashes. Here's a link, it's from the movie (The right stuff) the third one in the clip, the atlas goes tial up, this is what mine did.

NASA Failures - YouTube
Attached Thumbnails
"Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-dsc01604.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-dsc01607.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-dsc01608.jpg  
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Old 01-20-2012, 08:17 PM
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Dyna-Soar Dyna-Soar is offline
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Beautiful work! I'm a huge fan of Wes's kits. Also, what is that thing that your launch platform is sitting on?

Last edited by Dyna-Soar; 01-20-2012 at 08:36 PM.
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Old 01-20-2012, 09:36 PM
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luke strawwalker luke strawwalker is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by closet astronaut View Post
What...no pics of the launch? Fire! Smoke!

Nice launch pad, alot better than the plastic tri-pod and metal blast disk. I built one of these years ago, crashed and burned on its maiden flight, it's launch and crash looked just like one of the vintage film footage of one of the Atlas crashes. Here's a link, it's from the movie (The right stuff) the third one in the clip, the atlas goes tial up, this is what mine did.

NASA Failures - YouTube
Nope, no launch today... too windy! Maybe at the club launch next month...

Agree with you on the pad thing... those dinky Estes pads leave a lot to be desired... This is actually a copy of Dr. Zooch's pad that he uses to launch his rockets, built from a 2x12 base, 2x2 "pillars", and a 5/4 deck board piece for the "launch platform deck"... the instructions for it are posted over on TRF... the blast deflector is actually a green bean can with both ends cut out, snipped down one side with tin snips, and screwed down to the base with deck screws, after being dipped in yellow paint and allowed to dry thoroughly. Has an adjustable "lever" to hold the launch rod that allows it to be swung closer or further away from the "flame hole" in the deck, depending on the size of the rocket...

Looks like the Estes Mercury Atlas you have there... about 3 inches in diameter... This one is based on the BT-60 tube, which is 1.637 in diameter, so quite a bit smaller... Dr. Zooch also has a "Freedom 7" Mercury Redstone based on the BT-50 tube (0.976 inch diameter) which is in identical scale with this one...

That's still a nice Atlas you have there... you should fix it up and fly it again! (Build a new tower out of paper, wood, or wire... )

Later and thanks!
OL JR
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Old 01-20-2012, 09:37 PM
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luke strawwalker luke strawwalker is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dyna-Soar View Post
Beautiful work! I'm a huge fan of Wes's kits. Also, what is that thing that your launch platform is sitting on?
That's my crawler transporter... LOL

Seriously it's a plastic "BBQ cart" my wife picked up at a yard sale... makes it MUCH easier to take the photos, having the rocket well up off the ground... heck as it is to get the upward shots I still have to kneel and squint into the viewfinder to get the effect... LOL

Thanks for the compliment... I have a TON of build threads over there... I do beta builds for Wes whenever he asks... just finished the EFT-1 (Orion Flight Test One, to be flown in a year or two on Delta IV Heavy, and the new SLS model he just came out with awhile back... plus a bunch of others... )

Later! OL JR
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Old 01-21-2012, 06:33 PM
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You sound like you have extensive experiance in launchable rockets. I have a question. My step mom's father and his boys did quite abit of rocketing years ago, they used to tell stories of a sat v they launched that used smaller engines and could make the rocket come off the pad slow like the real thing. Now in all the years of launching model rockest I've never duplicated this or seen or heard of anyone doing this. I'm wondering if this would even be possible, using a large rocket with mutiple engines say three or four, the only problem I can see would be getting all of them to lite at the exact same time. I think this would be the ultimate launch, lots of smoke and a slow steady lift off.

On you'r Atlas I noticed no stablizer fins, mybe because of the smaller size? Mine has stablizers that slide into the outer engine bells with the engine mounted in the center. The cause of the bad flight was that the engine pushed it's mount up into the main body and threw of the trajectory, it parcially melted the center engine bell. It hit the ground before the cone ejector detinated, there was some tube crushing also.

And yea this is the estes, it's three and a half diameter and about thirty six inches length from engine bell to tip of the LET.

Ok ..I went back and looked at you'r pics again, the flames are the stableizers, I thought at first they were just for a realizm effect. I like those much better than what came with the estes.
Attached Thumbnails
"Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-img_0454.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-img_0456.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-img_0457.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-img_0458.jpg   "Friendship 7" 50th Anniversary Dr. Zooch Mercury Atlas build...-img_0459.jpg  

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Old 01-23-2012, 04:05 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by closet astronaut View Post
You sound like you have extensive experiance in launchable rockets. I have a question. My step mom's father and his boys did quite abit of rocketing years ago, they used to tell stories of a sat v they launched that used smaller engines and could make the rocket come off the pad slow like the real thing. Now in all the years of launching model rockest I've never duplicated this or seen or heard of anyone doing this. I'm wondering if this would even be possible, using a large rocket with mutiple engines say three or four, the only problem I can see would be getting all of them to lite at the exact same time. I think this would be the ultimate launch, lots of smoke and a slow steady lift off.

On you'r Atlas I noticed no stablizer fins, mybe because of the smaller size? Mine has stablizers that slide into the outer engine bells with the engine mounted in the center. The cause of the bad flight was that the engine pushed it's mount up into the main body and threw of the trajectory, it parcially melted the center engine bell. It hit the ground before the cone ejector detinated, there was some tube crushing also.

And yea this is the estes, it's three and a half diameter and about thirty six inches length from engine bell to tip of the LET.

Ok ..I went back and looked at you'r pics again, the flames are the stableizers, I thought at first they were just for a realizm effect. I like those much better than what came with the estes.
Hi... try to answer some of your questions...

I have some experience launching rockets... I was in it from about 85 to about 91, dropped out of it for awhile, and started back up again about 6 years or so ago... pretty fun. I enjoy building as much if not more than flying, actually. I've picked up a lot of neat tricks from the Dr. Zooch Rockets kits, and the papermodeling techniques he uses inspired me to get interested in paper modeling too... LOTS of absolutely MIND BLOWING projects over here!

I'm not sure I know what Saturn V you're talking about. Basically, AFAIK, there have only been two basic sizes of Saturn V's produced in large numbers for any length of time... The Estes 1/100 scale Saturn V (with almost a 4 inch diameter main body tube) and the BT-60 "sport flier" version Estes produced a little later on (1.637 diameter, which works out to about 1/242 scale). It is this smaller version (BT-60 tube) that Dr. Zooch replicates and improved upon for his Saturn V kit. I have one and it's a nice kit, flies well, but only uses a single black powder Estes rocket motor. Now, in the 1/100 scale, Estes and Centuri both produced kits in this scale, and so did Cox IIRC. The only other "variants" of the Saturn V are the Apogee Components 1/70th scale (using high power rocket motors due to it's LARGE size) and the Quest Micro-maxx plastic version, made for 1/8A rocket motors (about 3-4 inches tall at most!)

The 1/100 Saturn V is a popular kit for clustering (installing multiple Estes black powder rocket motors ignited simultaneously at liftoff). There are even some commercially produced motor mounts designed for it, though making one yourself isn't particularly hard. The usual choices for motors typically use 13mm diameter or 18mm diameter A, B, or C class booster motors with a cental 24mm diameter "D" motor in the central motor tube that does most of the rocket propulsion, slightly augmented by the outer motors, and which also provides the time delay and ejection charge to deploy the parachutes. Of course it's ESSENTIAL that this motor is ignited (and of course highly desirable that they all ignite) and this factor has been greatly simplified by the release of the Quest Q2G2 low-current rocket ignitors, which are a quantum leap above the older Estes style nichrome and pyrogen ignitors that require between 1 and 2 amps to ignite... the Q2G2's only require about 150 milliamps to ignite! Plus they have extended multistrand insulated wire leads that make wiring them together into parallel circuit clusters for igniting multiple motors a snap!

The MAIN issue with "slow steady liftoffs" is that model rockets, unlike their larger NASA bretheren, are stabilized passively by aerodynamic means... without sufficient airspeed, the fins do not generate enough force to keep the rocket travelling vertically upward. IOW, it 'keels over" and hits the ground. A typical thrust/weight ratio for a model rocket is in the 5:1 range, at a minimum, whereas of course NASA rockets are typically in the thrust/weight at liftoff range of about 1.1:1 or so... so naturally the NASA rockets lift off MUCH slower... This can be partially overcome by using LONG launch rods or rails to allow the rocket more time to accelerate while guided by the rod, until it's gained sufficient airspeed by the time it flies off the end of the launch rod to ensure aerodynamic stability.

If you're really interested, there's TONS of good information on all this over on The Rocketry Forum , Ye Olde Rocket Forum - powered by vBulletin , or Rocketry Planet which I'm sure could better answer your question than I, in greater detail...

That's a shame about your Atlas... That's the nice things about the forums-- lots of tips/n/tricks that can make the difference between having problems like you mentioned and having a successful flight. And, of course when something DOES happen, tips on repairing it... You say the engine slid forward under thrust?? Was it a failure of the centering rings or the motor retaining hook??? This could easily have been prevented with a motor block, in the event it was a hook failure... Dr. Zooch has instituted "beefing up" procedures in all his instructions to strengthen the motor mounts to prevent such problems. Tube damage on an uncommon size tube (Estes didn't use that size tube on any other rocket that I know of, with the possible exception of the "Big Daddy" kit, which could be used for parts if it IS the same tube size!) Of course there are ways of MAKING a repair tube... the easiest being to get a BT-101 tube (4 inch tube from the Estes Saturn V, available from Semroc Astronautics company in North Carolina, offering their own wide selection of rocket kits and parts BTW). The 4 inch tube can have a "slice" taken out of it vertically along the long axis of the tube of sufficient width to reduce the tube diameter (circumference) to the size of the Atlas tube... this "slice" or strip can then be easily used for a "glue tab" and used to rejoin the two edges of the tube so they're flush with one another... This is the easiest method of obtaining "irregular sizes" of paper tubes.

The augmentation fins you mentioned were used on several Estes kits, most notably the Atlas, Space Shuttle, and Titan IV. Of course none of the REAL rockets (prototypes) had fins, requiring the use of augmentation fins installed in the boosters to create aerodynamic stability. Dr. Zooch's early kits used similar looking augment fins, but soon folks started painting them with a 'fade' paint job (sorta like mine on the Atlas above) and so he started experimenting with changing the shape and size of the fins to appear more like "flames" coming out the back of the rocket... once flight testing proved the concept, he patented it and sells them in his kits as "Flame Fins"... a novel approach to creating aerodynamic stability on rockets whose prototypes had active guidance and therefore no or undersize fins, while using readily available rocket materials (paper tubes and balsa wood) using standard adhesives (yellow wood glue and white glue). The other commonly used method is clear plastic fins-- some kits come with pre-cast plastic fin units that install in/over the rocket to provide clear fins, and many scratchbuilders use CD jewel case covers or lexan from the lumberyard cut to make clear fins... I've been tinkering with the idea of using slide-in fin units like the Dr. Zooch flame fins, only utilizing a clear plastic tube with clear lexan fins glued to it... so they're not as noticeable in flight... but I havne't tried it yet...

Later and thanks for your interest! OL JR
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Old 01-23-2012, 05:27 PM
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Thanks for all the info. There seems to be alot more to the hobby than gluing some fins to a tube and stuffing an engine in the end of it. Sound like it could get to be quite an expensive hobby.

I've gotten the itch, I grow tired of having great looking static mods sitting around on shelves. I've been reading Yogi's threads on stomp rockets and all the enjoyment he's had with the kids building and launching them. I wasn't real inpressed at first but I've done some reading on the subject and recieved some education, some of the hights achievable are impressive and the rockets available now are quite impressive, I went on E-card models site last nite and bought the advanced kit with four rockets and a missle with two different graffics. For less than twenty bucks you can have several launch vehicles and launch system, rocket engines weren't cheap ten years ago I can imagine what they cost now.

I thought my daughters would get a real thrill out of it, I took them both to cape kennedy summer before last and my youngest was trippin on the whole thing, it's something I think we can both enjoy and spend some quality time together, it's hard to find things a father can do with a daughter unless you want to play with dolls or with the doll house.

Any way...thanks again for taking the time to give an education.
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Old 01-23-2012, 07:34 PM
rmks2000 rmks2000 is offline
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Just wanted to comment that the original Saturn V did have the option to launch via a single rocket or cluster, but it may have been the Centuri version. It was one of those coveted kits that I never got. You could probably check the JimZ site to see if the original plans are there. I currently have the the Estes kit reissue (still unbuilt).
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Old 01-23-2012, 08:16 PM
The-EDSEL The-EDSEL is offline
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I have the "Semi-Scale" Saturn-V from Estes (The Smaller one)
I also remember the Larger kit having the Option of a Larger Single D engine or a Cluster of 3 B or C engines
Later re-issues omitted the Cluster option.

I have several Built Estes & Centuri Rockets.
Scout Italia, Mercury Redstone, Bomark, Nike Ajax (or smoke need to look at it again)
Honest John, "Scissor Wing", Screaming Eagle, Orbital Transport (Has glider tag-along)
Bandit (the one with Exhaust ducting), Space Shuttle
R2-D2, Buck Rodgers Thunder Fighter, USS Enterprise & Klingon
Colonial Viper(TOS),
I lost a Space 1999 Eagle due to Crash landing using a
Longer coast/exhaust delay than called for
Unbuilt/unfinished TIE Fighter (body tube crushed in the bag when I bought it)
I have several unbuilt that I got clearanced from a store dumping all kits!!

I think I still have Estes & Centuri catalogs from 75-80+ somewhere too.
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