This guy gets a launch set with two ready-to-fly rockets. He unboxes them, then goes out to launch.
What an awesome birthday present - and one I'm guessing he wasn't expecting. I love this guy's enthusiasm - and the fact that he follows the directions!
I just love it when someone discovers rocketry for the first time.
Let's assume you've got a rocket. Maybe you built your first Skill Level 1 rocket, like the Big Bertha, or maybe you have a Ready-To-Fly or E2X (Estes' term for "easy to assemble") rocket. In any case, it's time to launch this sucker.
This post will be long, so I'm breaking it into two parts. I don't want you to think it's really complicated, or that launching a rocket takes a long time - it doesn't. But there are some details you need to get right to have a successful, safe, awesome rocket launch, and I don't want to leave anything out.
Rocket Flight
Here's basically what'll happen. You'll load up the rocket, put it on the launch pad, hook up the launch controller, press the launch button, and it should take off into the sky. The motor (or engine) will burn for a second or two (this phase is known as powered flight), and when it stops burning, the rocket will continue to coast upward. You'll see white smoke coming from the back of the rocket for several seconds as it does; this is the delay charge burning. The delay produces no thrust, but it allows the rocket to coast up to its apogee - the uppermost part of its flight. Then, the motor will fire the ejection charge - a tiny explosion that will push the nose cone off and eject the parachute. The parachute should open, and the rocket will drift back to earth.
What are you going to need?
Here are the basics:
A rocket
A launch pad - with a launch rod
A launch controller
Some rocket motors - or, as Estes and many people call them, engines
Some igniters - these usually come with motors or engines, so you shouldn't need to buy any
Some recovery wadding
Something to carry all this stuff
What is this stuff?
Well, as I've recommended in the previous post, you might want to get launch kit. You can get a basic Estes kit - or Quest - which will have the launch pad and rod, the launch controller, and a rocket for less than you'd pay for the pad and controller plus no rocket at all, if you'd bought them separately.
An Estes launch pad - with a round metal
blast deflector and a 33-inch launch rod. The
cap at the top of the rod comes off - it's to prevent you
gouging your eyes out when prepping the rocket!
A launch pad comes with a metal disk called a "blast deflector," and it's not optional! This will deflect the hot gasses and burning propellant away from the ground, and protect the plastic from melting.
The launch rod is usually about 3 feet long. The purpose of the rod has to do with rocket stability. The only thing keeping the rocket going upward instead of straight at the crowd is the fins. And for the fins to work, the rocket has to be moving upward, so there's wind moving past them. The launch rod keeps the rocket moving straight up until it is going fast enough - at least 30 miles per hour - for the fins to do their job. With model rockets, it takes only a fraction of a second to reach that velocity or much higher, so a 3-foot rod is usually plenty.
The Estes rods are 33 inches - close enough - and come in two parts which you have to push together. There's a narrow, curved bit of metal shoulder material in one half of the rod which you push into a hollow onto the other half. I found I had to crimp mine with pliers to get the halves together.
Tap one end of the rod on a concrete surface to get the pieces completely together - but don't try to hammer them. The rod will bend, and if that happens, you need a new rod!
Estes recommends using sand paper to smooth out the joint between the rods. Don't do this. What happened when I did this was that I scuffed the chrome coating off the rod, making it rougher! You could try some steel wool, but honestly, unless the joint is way off, you'll be fine.
The rod gets inserted into a little hole in the top of the launch pad. There's a little safety cap included which you place on top of the rod when you're not actually launching a rocket - this is to prevent you bending over the rod and gouging your eyes out. I've mentioned that rocketry has a great safety record - I read once that the most dangerous thing about launching rockets is that rod!
Arr! Don't be the guy who loses an eye launching rockets!
The launch controller is a plastic box with a button, a light, and a removable "key" - usually a bit of wire or metal with a plastic button on top of it - and a couple of wires coming out one end with little clips on the ends of them. The controller takes batteries, and it ignites the motors electrically. The key is a safety feature. Once you hook the rocket up, you cannot launch it accidentally by hitting the launch button with your thumb, because you have to put the key in the launch controller and press it down before it will work.
The light is known as a continuity light, and when you hook up the rocket igniters to the launch controller, and put in the key, this will light up. It tells you that electricity is flowing through the system, the batteries are good, and the igniters are not broken.
Typical Estes launch controller, from Chris Michielssen's modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com. If you haven't seen his
blog, you need to check it out!
The launch button... uh, launches the rocket.
***I do have to say something important here, in case you are not going strictly the Estes route for your first rocket launch. Currently, Quest motors and igniters are out of stock, but once Quest motors are back out again, this is very important: You cannot use an Estes launch controller with Quest igniters. Quest makes a very sensitive igniter. They require very little current to flow through them to actually cause them to fire - which is a good thing, for certain applications. But an Estes launch controller doesn't have enough resistance in it, and as soon as you put the safety key into the Estes launch controller, instead of just the continuity light coming on, a Quest igniter will get enough juice to fire prematurely. If there's someone at the launch pad making an adjustment, that can be dangerous!***
A rocket motor is a heavy paper cylinder which encases a solid propellant - in this case, black powder. One end has a little hole in it - the nozzle - and the other end has a clay cap in it.
A typical 3-pack of black powder motors - in this case,
Estes B6-4. That's an average thrust of 6 Newtons
and a delay of 4 seconds.
The nozzle end - this sticks out the back of the rocket.
The clay cap end - goes into the rocket pointed toward the nose cone.
In A and B motors, this is further recessed into the motor, because
there's less propellant inside.
(If you don't see a clay cap, and instead see the dark black powder in the non-nozzle end, look at the side of the motor. Is the last number a 0? Then you have a special motor used only for the first stage of multistage rockets. Put that away for now - we'll get to those later. For now, it's definitely not what you need!)
The motor on the left has no clay cap - you can see the black powder propellant. This is
only for multistage rockets. Put that one away for now. We'll do staging later!
Rockets for beginners come in three basic classes - A, B, and C. The basic explanation of this is that each letter class is roughly twice as powerful as the previous one. C is twice as powerful as B, and four times as powerful as A. They are described by a letter and two numbers. The first is average thrust, and the second, after the dash, is the delay time, which is the time between when the motor stops burning propellant and the ejection charge going off. So, a C6-5 motor has an average thrust of 6 Newtons, and a delay time of 5 seconds. A Newton is about 0.225 pounds.
Your first rocket will come with a list of recommended motors to use. Read these. First time I launched the Big Bertha, it was kind of windy, and I didn't want to lose my beautiful new rocket. So, I put an A motor in it.
Problem is, the Bertha is kind of heavy. An A8-3 motor doesn't have enough power to properly lift it. It flew about 30-50 feet into the air, took a nose dive, and straight down for 3 seconds (that was the delay time!). The nose cone ejected about 5 feet from the ground, and the rocket drove itself into the damp earth.
The fancy, homemade launch controller makes me look like an "expert,"
but the crash landing goes to show that I'm still kind of a n00b.
I thought I knew what I was doing, but hadn't realized that the A8-3 is not on the list of recommended motors for this rocket! The weakest motor for the Bertha is a B-something. Oops!
There will be a list of appropriate motors with your rocket. There's usually one with an asterisk (often the least powerful one) that says "first flight." This is so that, if, say, it's windy, you're less likely to lose the rocket when the parachute drifts too far, or if you made some kind of catastrophic error in the construction of your rocket, the damage will be minimal.
The igniter is a little wire thing that comes with the motors. It's usually made of high-resistance nichrome wire. The resistance is important, because when electricity flows through a high-resistance wire, the wire heats up. This happens in an incandescent light bulb, and in the wires of a toaster - which are also made of nichrome. Most Estes igniters are also tipped with a combustible material called pyrogen.
To igniters - you snip these apart before using them.
Motor packs include tiny plastic plugs for
securing igniters into the nozzle of the motor.
You insert the motor into the back of the rocket with the nozzle end - the little hole - pointing out the back of the rocket. Secure the motor with the motor hook (or sometimes you tape it in, if the kit instructions tell you to do that). The motor hook should lock into place once the motor is all the way in. Tug on the motor gently to make sure that when it moves backward, the hook holds it in firmly by the edge.
Now, pull out the nose cone, parachute and shock cord. You need to
protect the parachute from the burning particles of the ejection charge,
or it will melt together and won't open. Into the rocket body, you put
recovery wadding. Tear off individual sheets, and roll them loosely into
little wadded balls of paper - not too tight! The instructions on your
kit will tell you how many pieces you'll need for your particular
rocket. Put them one by one into the body of the rocket, and if you need to, push them
down very gently with a dowel rod.
Next, you need to fold the parachute and insert it and the shock cord into the rocket. There are lots of ways to fold parachutes, but some ways are better than others. Doing it by the instructions in the Estes kits is terrible - mine do not deploy at least 50% of the time when I do it this way. We're going to do it another way.
The Estes "fold over and roll both ends to the center"
technique - terrible. The shroud lines get tangled, and
the chutes often fail to deploy.
Plastic parachutes sometimes have problems deploying. This can be due to static electricity, or cold, or bad folding. In any case, you'll help the parachute properly deploy if you give it a few dashes of talcum powder or baby powder.
I prep my rockets before going to the flying field by laying the parachute open on a table.
The Big Bertha 18-inch parachute ready for prep
I sprinkle a bit of baby powder on the underside of the parachute and lightly spread it around so it coats the whole chute.
Sprinkle a little baby powder or talcum on the chute to aid deployment
Next, fold the chute in half, with two of the corners being at the top of the fold. Now you'll have half a hexagon, with four corners showing - two at the top and two at the bottom.
Take one of the top corners and fold it down to the bottom corner on the opposite side. Then do the same for the other top corner. You now have a triangle, with all the shroud lines - the strings on the parachute - coming off the two corners at the bottom.
Fold one of the top corners down to the opposite bottom corner - in this case, top right to bottom left.
Then do the same for the opposite top corner - here, top left to bottom right. You now
have a triangle with shroud lines coming from the bottom two corners.
Fold the parachute in half so that all the shroud lines are together. Now, you'll have a scalene triangle, with all the shroud lines coming out the bottom.
Take most of the extra slack that leads from the parachute to the nose cone and gently lay it on top of the parachute.
Gently lay the slack from the shroud lines on top of the folded parachute.
Fold that outside corner over the shroud lines, then fold the top corner down about a third of the way, then fold what you have down again.
Fold that outside corner over the shroud lines
Fold the top third of the parachute down.
Fold that down over the bottom third.
Next, roll the whole thing up into a little packet and gently wrap whatever is left of the shroud lines around the parachute into a helical shape, making sure you don't cross over what you've already rolled.
Roll the folded chute down into a sausage shape
Wrap the shroud lines in one bundle around the chute, moving from one end to another, in a helix.
Don't cross lines back over what you've already rolled!
Once this is done, you stuff the parachute and shock cord into the rocket. Some say you should put the shock cord in first - which is probably better. Some say the shock cord goes on top. It probably doesn't matter a ton, and in some small-diameter rockets, it's hard to get that shock cord in there - it's just rubbery enough that it doesn't want to go in on its own unless you're pushing it, and that's hard to do when you've got your rocket in one hand and a perfectly-rolled parachute in another. If I can't get the cord in first, I stuff in the chute, then pack the cord on top. I've rarely had a deployment problem with this.
The shock cord in a larger rocket like the Big Bertha goes in quite easily - put that in first.
Put the nose cone on top, and make sure it's snug, but not tight. You should be able to easily pull it out with your hand, but it shouldn't be so loose it falls out if you turn the rocket over and give a little shake. If it's too loose, add a little strip of masking tape to the shoulder. If it's too tight, sand the shoulder down a little bit.
The nose cone of my Cosmic Explorer is just a little too loose. A few
bits of masking tape makes it snug enough to fly.
You then insert the igniter into the nozzle of the motor, making sure it touches the propellant inside. It doesn't have to go very far, and you don't need to force it. Just set the tip of the igniter gently into the nozzle until it stops.
Don't insert the igniter until it's in the rocket and at the launch pad!I'm just doing it on the table here for the purpose of taking pictures.
Next, you'll secure the igniter into the nozzle with either a little plastic plug that comes with the motor (in the case of Estes motors), or with a piece of masking tape. Either way, this will bend the igniter's leads into a 90 degree angle. Make sure the two wires leading into the nozzle don't touch each other - this creates a short circuit, which means that when you press the launch button, nothing will happen.
Now, you'll bend the ends of the igniter wires away from each other. You can bend them into little rabbit-ear loops, or simply bend them away from each other at a wide angle. The rabbit ears are easier to connect to the clips, but as long as the two wire leads aren't near each other, you'll be fine.
I recently showed a guy I know some of my rocket videos. He's a retired vet, nice guy, and I thought he'd get a kick out of them - and maybe I'd find someone else to talk rockets with. He thought they were pretty cool.
The other day, we were talking, and he asked when we were launching next. I told him I'd let him know, and hoped he'd join us. Then he said, "So, if I wanted to get into that, how much would it cost?"
Excellent question.
Sometimes, when I tell people I've gotten into rockets, they say "that sounds really expensive."
It can be. But it certainly doesn't have to be.
Advanced Rocketry Can Get Expensive...
If you get into high power rocketry, it certainly starts to get expensive. The kits get bigger and stronger, and are sometimes made of fiberglass, and they require stronger adhesives than mere white glue or wood glue. A lot of high power rocketeers put expensive electronics in their rockets. These are sometimes for fun (cameras or altimeters), and sometimes necessary - a two-stage high power rocket requires an electronic ignition system for an upper stage, for example, whereas a low power two-stage rocket, like my Janus I, is far simpler.
And a lot of high power rocketeers use something called "dual deployment," which is a system where a small drogue parachute comes out of the rocket at apogee (the highest point of altitude in its flight), and a larger parachute comes out much nearer the ground. This stuff all requires special electronics.
And then there's the fact that even the most basic rocketry need - a rocket motor - gets more expensive when you get to high power. Check out this coffee mug:
See Benjamin Franklin?
Actually, the other day, I was thinking "I bet if they'd had rockets back in the 1700's, Ben Franklin would definitely be into HPR." I forget why I was thinking about that... My mind goes weird places sometimes.
This is a realoadable casing for composite propellant rocket motors. This is for mid power rockets, larger model rockets with a motor mount of 29 millimeters in diameter - much bigger than a beginner's rocket motor, which is much smaller and uses black powder as a propellant. I got the casing - on sale - for $39. Which is expensive. But the casing is the expensive part. The fuel grain, which is the actual propellant which goes inside, is much cheaper per launch than getting single-use motors. You keep the casing and use it again and again.
Anyway, point is, advanced rocketry can cost a lot. But that's something you build up to.
...But Getting Started In Rocketry Is Quite Affordable
Now, rockets for beginners are really quite reasonable. You can buy lots of fancy tools and electronics - they do make altimeters for model rockets, which cost anywhere from 30 to maybe 80 dollars - but that stuff really isn't necessary, if you're just starting out. Launching a rocket, even a small one, is far more exciting than you'd think it was unless you saw it happen, and even really tiny rockets that use mini motors can go really high and really fast - and they're cheap!
My Estes Star Trooper, for example, is only 5 inches tall, but it goes over 900 feet high - and the kit only cost 7 bucks!
So, what are you gonna need to get started, and how much is it going to set you back? Well, if you go launching with a friend who has basic launch equipment, and you use his or her stuff, then you won't have to worry about that, and all you'd need would be rockets and motors.
But, let's assume you want your own equipment, so you can launch whenever you like.
Here's what you need to start out:
Rocket(s)
Rocket motors
Launch pad
Launch controller
Recovery wadding
If you plan to build kits rather than simply buying ready-to-fly rockets (which I'm sure you do, because it's much more fun to build them than to buy-and-fly), you'll need a few basics to build your rockets:
Pencils
Hobby knife (X-Acto)
Cutting mat
Sand paper
Glue
Metal ruler
Primer and spray paint
That's it! Let's break this down.
Rockets/Launch Pad/Launch Controller
For the moment, we're going to stick with Estes rockets and equipment, because that is the company that's the most prevalent in model rocketry for beginners, and most of the basics are pretty affordable.
I recommend for a beginner that you get a launch kit or launch set. You absolutely need a launch pad - a squat little tripod with a long metal rod coming out the top and a metal plate at the bottom - the blast deflector - to deflect the hot gasses from the rocket motor away from the ground and pad. And you need a launch controller - which ignites the rocket motor and launches the rocket. And you need rockets. A launch kit has all three of these things - for less than you'd pay if you bought a launch pad and launch controller separately, and didn't buy any rockets.
Now, you can make your own stuff, if you're inclined to do so. I made a launch controller, because I wanted something more flexible and powerful than the Estes controller that came with my kit. But that was after I'd been messing around with rockets for a while, so I was already familiar with what these things did. And I'd say it wasn't any cheaper - in fact, if I added up all the parts and tools I bought (I needed a soldering iron, for example, and 40 feet of pure copper wire), I'd probably have been surprised at the price tag. That was a labor of love, however, so I just decided I didn't care.
As of this writing, it's $22.22 on Amazon.com, with free shipping if you have Amazon Prime. It's also available from plenty of other vendors.
With this set, you get the pad, the controller, and two Skill Level 1 rockets, the the zippy, high-flying Crossfire ISX and the big, slower Amazon. They're both impressive - the Crossfire zooms up to altitude at really impressive speeds, and the Amazon lifts off more slowly, so you can really see it. A slow rocket may not sound impressive, but a lot of people prefer it - there's actually a common launch event called "low-and-slow," where the whole point is to get a slow lift and not get lost from view. Since it's heavier, it looks a lot more like a "real" rocket, in that it starts more slowly and doesn't disappear from sight in 1.5 seconds.
Here, Chad and I race our Crossfires:
Speaking of Amazon.com, I'm sure you know that their prices change often. Sometimes a price will drop drastically for a day. I had the Big Bertha in my shopping cart for about a month. It cost about $21, but one day I happened to be looking at my cart, and the Bertha had dropped to about $9.95. That's less than half price! I bought it immediately.
Stuff to Build Rockets With
Great! You got some rockets, now you need stuff to put them together. Now, if you read my long series of posts on building a Skill Level 1 rocket, you know that there are a lot of extras you can get to make a rocket look nicer - carpenter's wood filler, for example, and plastic putty. But maybe you don't care about spiral grooves or wood grain showing through your paint job, and you're fine with a little bit of the seam showing on the nose cone. The rocket will fly just fine, and for your first few rockets, you can skip the extras. Some rocketeers never use those extras - and their builds take much less time!
A hobby knife, often called an X-Acto knife (just a brand name) will run you between 2 and 5 bucks, depending on what brand you get and where you get it. You can get these anywhere - craft stores, hardware stores, probably even at a grocery store - and they're basically all the same. They (usually) have a metal handle and a chuck you stick a blade into. Most of them come with the #11 blade you'll use for most rocket projects. Get a pack of extras - they dull and the tips break easily.
This knife needs a new blade already - a five-pack costs just a couple dollars.
You should have a cutting mat or board. In the old days of model rocketry, a wooden cutting board was the norm, but now most people use a nice, self-healing cutting mat. Olfa makes the most popular brand, but it's also more expensive. I went with Fiskars, because I recognize the name from my mother's quilting gear - and if anybody thinks I have too much rocket-building gear, I'll just take them to see my mother's quilting room some time.
You could get by with a thick layer of newspaper for a little while - and when I say "thick layer," I mean most of the Sunday New York Times - but don't complain to me if you cut through that and mess up your table. Hobby knives are sharp!
I got my cutting mat for less than $10. It was priced higher, but another money saving tip is that when I went to the local Michael's Crafts, I found I had a 40% off coupon - they email these out regularly, so if you have a Michael's near you, just sign up at their website.
Double-sided self-healing cutting mat
A bottle of glue - I prefer wood glue, but a lot of people use "white glue" - Elmer's Glue All is one of these (do NOT get "School Glue." Anything "washable" is no good for rockets). A bottle is... I don't know - two bucks? I've bought a lot of glue, so I get a larger bottle now, but Elmer's or Titebond (which I like better) has small bottles for maybe 2-4 bucks.
A metal ruler is a must for measuring and also making precise cuts. Sometimes you have to cut fins out of balsa wood - they come "laser cut," but they're still held in with little tabs of wood. I use the ruler to make sure I'm only cutting the tabs, not cutting into the fins themselves. You want metal, because you'll use this in conjunction with your hobby knife. You can get these all over - craft stores, Menard's, Wal-Mart probably. Get metal. With a cork base - it will keep the ruler from sliding around. I started with a 6-inch ruler, but moved up to a 12-inch, and probably should have gotten 18. I use both of them pretty regularly. Look around, and you can get one for 5-10 bucks.
Sandpaper - I would get maybe 220-grit and 400-grit for starters. The higher the grit, the finer the sandpaper, so higher grits are for finishing surfaces. At the very least, you'll need to sand the fins a little to make them square and even. I get large sheets and cut them to size. I think they cost less than $3 a pack, though bulk packs are probably cheaper.
You can shop around for spray paint - or if you really don't care, you can fly your rockets naked, with no paint job. A bit ugly, but they will fly just fine.
Pencils are basically free. Who doesn't have a million pencils from who knows where?
The basic tools you need to build most Skill Level 1 rockets
A really rough calculation of what I think I'd have spent for this basic list so far tells me we've spent about $60. I don't know what you earn, and I don't need to. Maybe $60 sounds like a lot to you, or maybe that's peanuts. Either way, bear in mind that you don't have to get all this stuff on Day One. First you get the rockets. Then, if you've ordered them online, you wait a couple days. Then you build the rockets - that takes a couple days at least, unless you're in a hurry. I like to take my time. Then you paint the rockets. If you're using several colors, this can take several days, including using primer first and allowing each color to fully dry. So, over one week, if we've rushed out and gotten everything and then built and painted as quickly as we can, we've spent a total of $60 on rockets.
Now, some of that is one-time-only expense, like the cutting mat, ruler, hobby knife (minus the blades - you do need to replace those frequently), the launch controller, the launch pad, etc. You won't have to replace most of these things until they wear out, or until you're ready to move up to something bigger. And if you're careful launching, you can launch the same rockets over and over - that's kind of the point. You do lose rockets occasionally, of course - to trees, lakes excited children stomping on them, dogs thinking they're a cool toy, etc.. But if you're careful, a rocket can last you years.
Recovery Wadding
Recovery wadding is flame retardant paper which looks like toilet paper. In the old days, Estes actually treated cheap toilet paper with flame retardant chemicals. Perhaps that's what they still do.
Anyway, you stuff this in the rocket before putting in the parachute when you are getting ready to launch. It protects the plastic parachute from melting or burning when the recovery charge goes off, which ejects the parachute so the rocket can land safely. A packet of this stuff is 5 or 6 bucks, and will last you a couple of launch sessions.
However, there's a much cheaper alternative! If you're serious about this, go to Lowe's or Home Depot and get yourself a bale of cellulose insulation. This is recycled paper which has been treated for flame retardancy, shredded, and is used in home insulation. Rocketeers commonly refer to this stuff as "dog barf," because that's what it looks like. A bale of this will cost maybe 7 bucks at most, and can apparently last for years of launches.
"Dog barf" cellulose insulation, used for recovery wadding. This is a tiny fraction of the huge bale I bought for
less than $7. And you can see, I've barely made a dent in this. A giant bale of this costs about the same as a tiny
packet of the "toilet paper" wadding you get from Estes or Quest. It's biodegradable, in case you were wondering.
Motors, or Engines, or Whatever You Want to Call Them
Finally, you'll need motors (Estes calls them "engines," but most rocketeers use the word motors). This is where rocketry can get more expensive, and it's the most expensive part, even though beginner's motors don't cost much. It's just that you'll need new ones each time you launch.
When you start out, you will use motors that use black powder as a propellant, and you'll buy from three motor classes - A, B, and C. We'll get into motor basics soon, but a quick explanation for now is that each letter is up to twice as powerful as the previous one. C is up to twice as powerful as a B, which is up to twice as powerful as an A. There are small rockets that take mini motors, the 1/2 A and 1/4 A.
A selection of Estes black powder motors, with a mini A motor on the left The two on the right are larger,
more powerful (and more expensive) D and E motors - you don't need to worry about those for now.
The more powerful the motor, the more propellant it has, and that's largely what drive the cost.
Here's a three-pack of B motors. This class is capable of launching most of the rockets you'll build as a beginner.
This cost about 10-ish dollars at a local hobby store. A pack of A motors cost about 9-ish, and a pack of C's cost about 12-ish. Mini motors come in four packs, and cost 8-9 bucks.
Each time you launch a rocket, you need a new motor. When I launch with friends, we send up about 8-12 rockets in a 1-2 hour period. So, a launch can cost a few dollars. But I only launch about once every month or so. I'd like to do it more often, but I prefer to launch with friends, and getting everyone together, plus weather, has made it a little impractical.
So, you can see that a launch itself might cost you a few bucks, depending on how often you launch. However, you can buy bulk packs. A bulk pack of 24 Estes C6-5 motors is currently about $57 on Amazon, with free shipping. (If you buy directly from Estes, you get hit with a HazMat shipping charge, which isn't strictly necessary on small black powder motors, I think, because you don't have to pay that on Amazon.) That brings the price of each motor down from over $4 to just over $2. That cuts your launch cost nearly in half! And a "Blast Off Flight Pack" with A, B and C motors is only about $46!
As Chad once remarked to me, "this isn't the most expensive hobby around, but it certainly isn't cheap!" True, but there are ways to cut costs. And if you find rocketry as deeply rewarding as I do - and ask my friends, I've become obsessed - the price tag is worth it.
By the way - the Janus I - the rocket I designed and built from scratch? Very, very cheap. If you want to scratch build some low power rockets, you can find components for very reasonable prices.
But, we'll get into designing and building another time...
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Since I started this blog, I've been either too tired from work, or too busy working on or reading about rockets to actually post anything. And I've gone from knowing nothing and having done nothing to acquiring a lot of new knowledge and having done a lot of stuff, and it kind of reminds me of when I've written in journals every day for weeks, and then stopped. Then a lot of stuff happens. Then I think, Do I do a recap? For, like, posterity?
Well, I'll probably get to that. Since I don't know who, if anyone, will actually read this, and a lot of people I've told about my rocket obsession have a lot of questions - "How do they, like, work?" "Do you, like, throw them away after you launch them?" - I'll probably start simply. Apologies to any advanced rocketeers (yes, that's what they're called) who stumble upon this blog in the early stages. I'll get more technical as I go on.
Anyway, since this is a rocket blog, I should probably start by showing you some rockets. These are the ones that I first bought. Just to kick things off.
My first few were ready-made rockets which required little or no assembly. The very first was part of what's called a "launch set." This includes a launch pad, a launch controller (a little electronic box with a couple of buttons on it you push to make the rocket launch), plus an easy-to-assemble rocket, all for less than the price of a pad and a controller you'd buy separately. I got this exact one as a kid, and never put it together.
I'm not wild about the rocket, partly because it included stickers. The kind you can't move once you've touched any part of it to the rocket. This is what messed up my toy Millennium Falcon when I was a kid. It's called the Silver Arrow:
I mean, the thing flies great. But it's mostly made of plastic, and I didn't get any of the stickers on straight. I even messed up the purple underneath by trying to adjust one:
Also, one of the fins fell off a few days ago.
Anyway, not to complain. It's a cheap kit I got for about 20 bucks and I've used the launch pad for much cooler rockets since.
Next, I found a bunch of premade rockets on clearance at a Michael's Crafts here in town. This was before I became obsessed with building my own. These are all Estes rockets. For years, Estes was one of maybe two or three model rocket companies, and they're still probably the best known. Today, if you're starting out, and Googling "model rocket," Estes is about all you'll encounter at first. But as I've discovered, there are a lot of great, non-Estes companies who also make rockets.
These are actually all great, and fly really well.
This is the EX-200. It's a tiny little thing, and when you load it, it's packed so tight, you think it might just explode. But it doesn't. It flies fast and straight, and pretty high, on a tiny little A motor. Cost me 4 bucks!
Motors, in large part, are labeled by letters. A is the least powerful, and they go up by each letter. This is n00b information. I'll elaborate later.
This is the Patriarch. 7 bucks. I love this thing. It flies really straight, and it's heavier, so you can really watch it ascend. Some of the lighter ones go really high, but in less than a second it's so high you can't see it any more.
I nearly lost this one on the first launch, because the shock cord (which holds the nose cone to the body of the rocket... if you don't know, I'll explain later) wasn't securely tied. So the body came crashing down (it was fine) and the nose cone drifted across the fields on its parachute and was nearly lost, before being rescued by the 5-year-old (Cody), who was with us. Whew!
Estes Athena. Awesome rocket. Flies really high. This was either 4 or 7 dollars (I forget which). The bottom sticker comes off a bit - I need to tape that down one of these days.
I used this rocket for a little experiment I'll detail in a later post. Let's just say, it was a successful experiment I'm pretty proud of.
This is the rocket that gave me the bug for rocket building. It's a re-release of a classic Estes rocket called "Der Red Max." The design is based loosely on the look of the Red Baron's airplane, and the thing is freaking cool. Nice, thick airframe. Awesome decals. Black and red look. And the ascent is awe-inspiring. The kicker is the skull-and-crossbones parachute.
I saw this rocket on Amazon for about 16 or 18 bucks, and they only had one left at the time. I was worried about building my own, but it was too cool to pass up, so I bought it. I followed the instructions, and loved the process of gluing and priming and painting... I was terrified I'd get the fins on crooked - in fact, you have to look really close to see that one is slightly to the fore of the others, but it doesn't interfere with a great flight - and I was terrified of the decals. But I did some research, took my time, and it came out great. This is my baby.
Here are some more views of the decals.
As you can see, I did get a little chip in the paint job from a hard landing after the parachute melted to itself:
After building this one, I started researching how to get a better finish. Up close, this rocket has a lot of texture you might not want. And you can see the wood grain in the fins. I found out that you can fill that in with a few techniques. My second build was Estes Crossfire ISX. I built this one because Chad had one, and it was the first rocket I'd launched. We lost his first one after the second launch, and Chad got a new one.
The crossfire is supposed to look like this:
It's the color scheme Chad went with. I wanted mine to look different, and once I realized you can make a rocket look any way you want, I decided on my own paint job. (Besides, Chad's paint jobs are terrible. He rushes them, has no patience for "craftsmanship," and he uses paint brushes. Paint brushes, for crying out loud!!)
Mine looks like this:
I contacted Chris Michielssen of modelrocketbuilding.blogspot.com, a really gifted rocket builder, for advice on this nose cone color I had in mind. He had a tip or two, but said it would be pretty tricky. When I sent him my pictures, he posted them on his blog. I totally geeked out in nerdy pride over that one!
I also rounded the leading edges of the fins and moved the launch lug (I'll explain later, fellow n00bs) for greater aerodynamic performance, so that my rocket could defeat Chad's rocket in a competition. We finally did this on Sunday, and I think they were about equal. From where I was standing, mine appeared to go a bit higher. From where others were standing, his did. But we were all really too close to the launch pad to tell.
Here's a detail of that cool nose cone mask I did:
My most recent competed build was a cheap, impulse buy. An Ested Mini Honest John, which is a scale model of an early U.S. nuclear missile. I got it because it looked cute on the package, and was about 9 bucks. I considered this a practice rocket, since what I'm working on now is mostly my finishes:
These are all "Skill Level 1" (according to Estes) rockets, which means that they require the least amount of experience building model rockets.
I'm currently building two more rockets and have three I haven't started, plus one on the way in the mail. I'm just about to bump myself up a skill level, people!
Well, there you have it. Rockets.
I know this entry was pretty long, which is probably some kind of blogging crime, but I'm new to this. Just figured I should actually show some rockets on my new rocket blog.
