Flare / Bell Bottom Build, Part 1 Design Process

Drawing up a shroud can be tough, if you are off by the slightest bit the fit will be poor.
I use the shroud tool on www.payloadbay.com for a start.
But, the shroud will have to be printed later with more than one shroud per sheet of card stock.

The shroud was dropped into Corel Draw and redrawn.
Three shrouds were made, one slightly larger another a bit larger.
One of the three should give a friction fit over the BT-5 body.

The lug hole is pre-punched and will be in the kit.
That small hole is hard to cut out after the shroud is formed. By pre-punching the lug hole I'll have a perfectly round top to the lug recess hole.

After the shroud is glued up, the straight vertical lines in the lug slot are cut with scissors.
This keeps the shroud stiffer when forming and gluing. If the lug slot were completely cut out (before forming the shroud) it is harder to get it round on the narrow end.

FLARE Flight Test

The Powered FLIC replacement model got a first flight test on August 28 at the schoolyard soccer field on August 28, 2014.

The "FLARE" was very stable with the 1/2A3-4t engine, no wiggle or coning.
The engine ejected but the nose cone came off so it didn't come in ballistic.
No damage, the card stock tail cone was just a little wet from the grass.

Little Green Men SOLD OUT!

JonRocket.com sold out of the Little Green Man kits in two days!
More L.G.M. and Pigasus kits are on the way to
http://www.apogeerockets.com

Time to order more nose cones . . .

What Makes A Better LPR Parachute? Part 2

Some vendor parachutes have paper reinforcement rings. Those can easily tear. The rings included in the Odd'l parachutes are plastic.

The red and white colors are highly visible from the ground.
The scalloped gore design looks great on sport and scale models.

Why didn't I go with a 24" parachute?
What was the last model you made using a 24" parachute?
The 18" parachute is the best selling size. You can still make one 12", 15" or 18" from one chute kit.
Have a model that needs something bigger? Simply tie on two parachutes and have them recover side by side.

The new parachutes are included in the Pigasus and Little Green Man kits.
DFR Tech kits use the new chutes in their kits.
They are available for sale from JonRocket.com (with the JonRocket logo in the center) and Balsa Machining Service (generic, no logo)

More Kits!

It seems like all I bag up now are Pigs and Martians!
These two have been very popular so far, 75 Pigasus kits have gone out since last April.
I know, that doesn't sound like a lot. It's quite a bit for a one man operation.

JonRocket.com got more Pigasus and Little Green Men kits yesterday.
www.apogeerockets.com will get a litter of pigs and a batch of Martians in the mail tomorrow, the first time they will be listing the L.G.M. rockets!

What Makes A Better LPR Parachute? Part 1

Last September I started drawing what I hoped would be a better LPR parachute. It turned out to be a bigger task than expected.
Printing on poly sheeting is not the same as printing on paper.
Flexible, rubber plates are used and the graphics are handled differently.

The parachute has a historic look. It resembles the recovery parachutes from the Apollo missions.
The NASA parachutes had 64 gores, this parachute has only 32. When looking at a 18" parachute with 64 gores it can mess with your eyes and become an optical illusion.

The parachute can be made as a 12", 15" or 18" size. Shroud lines to make the 18" chute are included, you simply cut shorter lines for a smaller parachute.
Three different spill holes are indicated, a 3", 4" and 5".

The reinforcement ring locations are set farther to the outside edge of the parachute. Some vendor parachutes have the ring locations too far away from the edges.
The dashed cut lines are thinner, the cut lines shouldn't detract from the looks of the parachute.

Some LPR parachutes seem thin at 1 mil or one thousandth inch thick. I wanted something stronger and decided on a 1.5 mil poly sheet.

See next post for Part 2

Little Green Man Parts!

In today's mail I got laser cut fins and centering rings for the LGM and Pigasus kits!

More kits to bag up!