@kerryzero@Kidsandliz@ThunderChicken I saw one fall from the sky once. Ok, it probably really came from high ground above the road cut, but it was still impressive.
@blaineg@kerryzero@ThunderChicken When I lived in the UK sheep would get stuck on cliffs and we’d go rescue them so there wasn’t a need for a sign like that… They’d struggle like crazy until you’d get them lofted in the air and their feet were no longer touch anything. If you hit a sheep on the road (they, and cows) often weren’t fenced in in the Lake District) it would cost 50 pounds. They’d (and cows) stand in the road and eat the grass on the edge or sleep in the road.
@blaineg yes and that can fly with a c11 to d12… according to the site. When all they are doing is a scaled design and adding power… Why? It’s not impressive when it’s a known fact it’s just a sad gimmick…
@blaineg it’s impressive. And always fun to fly. Just not quite a rocket engineer when you’re using a known design. Still cool. “Sad gimmick” was a poor choice of words
When I was a kid I couldn’t find one of the fins for my x-wing. https://www.amazon.com/Estes-Complete-Rocket-Starter-Fighter/dp/B0149CHSHM
And I thought the wings would stabalize it. After all they are just large fins… Except they were so large and thin they were flexible on launch which resulted in some impressive acrobatics. Cant remember if it was that one or one of the other that dive bombed us
@blaineg@ELUNO@ThunderChicken@unksol Long ago I built an Estes rocket, I think it was the Interceptor which was plane-like with two different wings, so not an ideal symmetrical fin structure. The day was windy so I tried to aim the launcher a bit into the wind so it would hopefully land in the public park and not in the soggy marsh that was downwind. However, the two larger wings apparently decided to make it more of an airplane that favored horizontal flight, so it flew across the park rather than “up” and crashed in the parking lot of the police station nearby.
BTW site in that link seems to have all the old Estes catalogs digitized. Cool stuff.
@blaineg@ELUNO@pmarin@ThunderChicken
Lol. My sister’s and I had our first real jobs at hobby lobby… I bought my first kit and loaned it to my sister for a school project.
Loved the rocket aisle and employee discount… Still have a half built rocket and and estes atlas 5 kit. And a tackle box full of engines and ignitors and launch pad parts.
Cause it was cool and flew low. Once you stuck a C in a light rocket or did a multi stage. Especially the three stagers. You kind of had to be prepared that you might not have a chance in hell of finding it
You kind of had to be prepared that you might not have a chance in hell of finding it
We’d shoot off rockets on the farm (using the car battery as part of the launch) and while they had parachutes we couldn’t always find them depending on where they came down even with a pile of kids watching and tasked with retrieving them so we could then prep them to shoot off again.
On the first one the ejection charge just dislodged the nosecone, without actually ejecting the parachute. It arced over and came straight back down and impaled the body tube a couple of inches into the ground. Fortunately it was wet grass, so it only scuffed the paint and didn’t crumple the tube.
It was a pretty impressive sight, but at the time I didn’t really appreciate it.
The next time the parachute almost deployed, but my luck held, and it landed in a pumpkin vine, a few inches from a huge rock.
After that, I extended the engine-sized “stuffer tube” way up the rocket, so it was only a few inches from the nose cone. With much less volume to pressurize, the chute started deploying reliably.
I still maintain that Estes screwed up the design by not doing that in the first place.
@ELUNO@Kidsandliz@pmarin@ThunderChicken@unksol One of our funniest goofs was mis-reading the spec and putting a full A engine in the Estes Mosquito, instead of a 1/4 A. It went pretty high, and then leveled out heading north. When the ejection charge fired, it was like a booster, and we last saw it headed NNW, until it vanished from sight.
@blaineg@ELUNO@pmarin@ThunderChicken@unksol So maybe, eventually, someone seeing it on the way down would think it was a UFO. The neighboring farmer didn’t believe men had been to the moon. We’d joke when we’d lose a rocket over on his property somewhere that if he found it maybe he’d think the aliens had landed.
@blaineg@ELUNO@Kidsandliz@pmarin@ThunderChicken lol we launched from the school field across the street. You know when you could go over and play on the playground after hours. They basically had a football field and you prayed you thought it through and it would come down in that space based on wind direction.
There was definitely some fence hopping. And a separate incident throwing things at a tie fighter stuck in a large tree.
@blaineg@ELUNO@pmarin@ThunderChicken@unksol Yeah we had them in trees too. The apple tree we usually could retrieve them.The tall pine trees not so much so. Landed on the roof of the house, cabin or barn more than once too. Oh and also in the pond. Adults got them off the roof of the house and barn, we got them off the cabin roof and out of the pond and trees.
The yard was several soccer fields in size and had relatively few trees but on the edge of that was a major thicket of blackberry bushes along with a zillion trees. They were some sort of pine allegedly for future logging to make money except that never happened. Big open fields wound around those and the stream. We shot them off at one end of the yard near the barn hoping they’d go away from it (also taking wind into consideration).
That’s pretty cool!
you gotta love Gary and those that do stuff like this!
Excellent!
Now an investigation should be conducted to see if cows stand up and talk until a car approaches.
@ThunderChicken lol
@kerryzero @ThunderChicken I cal tell you fair certainty that they won’t move out of the road. Not sure if they talk about it in advance though.
@kerryzero @Kidsandliz @ThunderChicken I saw one fall from the sky once. Ok, it probably really came from high ground above the road cut, but it was still impressive.
I did not, however, see this sign in the area.
@blaineg @kerryzero @ThunderChicken When I lived in the UK sheep would get stuck on cliffs and we’d go rescue them so there wasn’t a need for a sign like that… They’d struggle like crazy until you’d get them lofted in the air and their feet were no longer touch anything. If you hit a sheep on the road (they, and cows) often weren’t fenced in in the Lake District) it would cost 50 pounds. They’d (and cows) stand in the road and eat the grass on the edge or sleep in the road.
@blaineg @kerryzero @Kidsandliz
Turns out it’s a scaled up version of a kit that’s been available for some time.
https://www.fliskits.com/WPRESS/product/acme-spitfire/
@blaineg yes and that can fly with a c11 to d12… according to the site. When all they are doing is a scaled design and adding power… Why? It’s not impressive when it’s a known fact it’s just a sad gimmick…
@unksol I’m a simple fellow, I’m still impressed by big rockets.
@blaineg it’s impressive. And always fun to fly. Just not quite a rocket engineer when you’re using a known design. Still cool. “Sad gimmick” was a poor choice of words
The creator, Claire Lloyd.
Whoosh!
Well, its not rocket surgery. Wait, maybe it is…
The top is not as crooked in the cartoon. They modified it to still be balanced.
@ELUNO And relocated the fins to a closer-to-normal position.
@ELUNO @ThunderChicken Do you want it to fly or not?
@blaineg @ELUNO @ThunderChicken
Do you want it to fly STRAIGHT which with something that large. Yes lol.
When I was a kid I couldn’t find one of the fins for my x-wing.
https://www.amazon.com/Estes-Complete-Rocket-Starter-Fighter/dp/B0149CHSHM
And I thought the wings would stabalize it. After all they are just large fins… Except they were so large and thin they were flexible on launch which resulted in some impressive acrobatics. Cant remember if it was that one or one of the other that dive bombed us
@blaineg @ELUNO @ThunderChicken @unksol Long ago I built an Estes rocket, I think it was the Interceptor which was plane-like with two different wings, so not an ideal symmetrical fin structure. The day was windy so I tried to aim the launcher a bit into the wind so it would hopefully land in the public park and not in the soggy marsh that was downwind. However, the two larger wings apparently decided to make it more of an airplane that favored horizontal flight, so it flew across the park rather than “up” and crashed in the parking lot of the police station nearby.
BTW site in that link seems to have all the old Estes catalogs digitized. Cool stuff.
@blaineg @ELUNO @pmarin @ThunderChicken
Lol. My sister’s and I had our first real jobs at hobby lobby… I bought my first kit and loaned it to my sister for a school project.
Loved the rocket aisle and employee discount… Still have a half built rocket and and estes atlas 5 kit. And a tackle box full of engines and ignitors and launch pad parts.
I remember looking through the estes catalog. I always sort of wanted a big bertha
https://estesrockets.com/product/001948-big-bertha/
Cause it was cool and flew low. Once you stuck a C in a light rocket or did a multi stage. Especially the three stagers. You kind of had to be prepared that you might not have a chance in hell of finding it
@ELUNO @pmarin @ThunderChicken @unksol I built the Interceptor, but I spent so much time on it, I never dared launch it.
Oh, that URL is pretty mangled, try this: http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/catalogs/estes74/74est38.html
@blaineg @ELUNO @pmarin @ThunderChicken @unksol
We’d shoot off rockets on the farm (using the car battery as part of the launch) and while they had parachutes we couldn’t always find them depending on where they came down even with a pile of kids watching and tasked with retrieving them so we could then prep them to shoot off again.
@ELUNO @pmarin @ThunderChicken @unksol I had the Big Bertha, and it failed on the first several launches.
On the first one the ejection charge just dislodged the nosecone, without actually ejecting the parachute. It arced over and came straight back down and impaled the body tube a couple of inches into the ground. Fortunately it was wet grass, so it only scuffed the paint and didn’t crumple the tube.
It was a pretty impressive sight, but at the time I didn’t really appreciate it.
The next time the parachute almost deployed, but my luck held, and it landed in a pumpkin vine, a few inches from a huge rock.
After that, I extended the engine-sized “stuffer tube” way up the rocket, so it was only a few inches from the nose cone. With much less volume to pressurize, the chute started deploying reliably.
I still maintain that Estes screwed up the design by not doing that in the first place.
@ELUNO @Kidsandliz @pmarin @ThunderChicken @unksol One of our funniest goofs was mis-reading the spec and putting a full A engine in the Estes Mosquito, instead of a 1/4 A. It went pretty high, and then leveled out heading north. When the ejection charge fired, it was like a booster, and we last saw it headed NNW, until it vanished from sight.
@blaineg @ELUNO @pmarin @ThunderChicken @unksol So maybe, eventually, someone seeing it on the way down would think it was a UFO. The neighboring farmer didn’t believe men had been to the moon. We’d joke when we’d lose a rocket over on his property somewhere that if he found it maybe he’d think the aliens had landed.
@blaineg @ELUNO @Kidsandliz @pmarin @ThunderChicken lol we launched from the school field across the street. You know when you could go over and play on the playground after hours. They basically had a football field and you prayed you thought it through and it would come down in that space based on wind direction.
There was definitely some fence hopping. And a separate incident throwing things at a tie fighter stuck in a large tree.
@blaineg @ELUNO @pmarin @ThunderChicken
I had a failed ejection charge… Nose cone was gone. Parachute did not deploy. Straight up straight down lol.
Are kids still allowed to have fun today? Haven’t managed to make one but sounds like not
@blaineg @ELUNO @pmarin @ThunderChicken @unksol Yeah we had them in trees too. The apple tree we usually could retrieve them.The tall pine trees not so much so. Landed on the roof of the house, cabin or barn more than once too. Oh and also in the pond. Adults got them off the roof of the house and barn, we got them off the cabin roof and out of the pond and trees.
The yard was several soccer fields in size and had relatively few trees but on the edge of that was a major thicket of blackberry bushes along with a zillion trees. They were some sort of pine allegedly for future logging to make money except that never happened. Big open fields wound around those and the stream. We shot them off at one end of the yard near the barn hoping they’d go away from it (also taking wind into consideration).
@ELUNO @pmarin @ThunderChicken @unksol Well the opportunity for fun is there, at least.
https://estesrockets.com/
The Centuri Vulcan was one of my favorite designs, partly because it didn’t look like a normal rocket.
@blaineg Obviously not Star Trek, but did they steal some inspiration from the IDIC?
Oh, and the X-24, another weirdo.
@blaineg Oh, cool, print your own.
http://www.spacemodeling.org/jimz/centuri/ka-12.pdf