Model Rocketry on TV

Edited

I'm pretty convinced that rocketry is a strong and growing hobby, even if those outside the obsessive community of rocketeers remain unaware of its very existence. It seems that model rockets had a much higher public profile back during the 1960s, '70s and '80s. While the hobby has never disappeared, and today seems to be having a new Golden Age, lay persons have largely forgotten about it.

But both model rocketry and high power rocketry have made several appearances on television recently, mostly in various commercials. It's fun to see when these things sneak into commercials and popular culture.

Here are a few examples I've come across in the last few months.

TD Ameritrade: Moments That Matter

 A girl and her grandfather launch a model rocket at the beginning of this commercial for personal investment services.

Mazda Summer Drive Celebration

This time, a father and son launch a rocket together, and apparently it goes so far they need to chase it down in the car.

Honda Ridgeline: A Car for Everyone

This truck commercial ends in the desert with a high power rocket launch.

Ford Drive 4 UR School

This one is by far my favorite. This commercial for Ford's community fundraising program prominently features a TARC team going through the process of designing, building, and test launching rockets.

The X-Files

Fox' recent miniseries revival of The X-Files had an episode with a flashback sequence in which Agent Fox Mulder launches model rockets with his son. It's a lovely depiction of a sunset launch. There's no video clip to post here, but here are a few stills.

Mulder prepares an Estes Mercury Redstone. It's a challenging build - Fox must have some serious modeling skills.

Freaks and Geeks

Finally, an example which isn't recent, but I wanted to include it here, because it's really great. The 1999-2000 show Freaks and Geeks, created by Paul Feig with Judd Apatow as executive producer, looks at the lives of some high school students - a group of "burnout" kids - the freaks - and a group of socially awkward kids who obsessively love things like Steve Martin movies, playing Dungeons and Dragons, and the high school AV Club. It's a touching comedy that takes a realistic look at the lives of 1980's high school kids without ever getting too mean.

In Episode 7, a new girl comes to school, and befriends Sam, Neil and Bill, the geeks. They invite her out to launch model rockets after school.

I really wish there were a video clip of this online, because it's a really fun scene. It not only faithfully depicts the realism of kids launching model rockets (as the actors are really doing the flying), it also really shows the joy of a launch.

Here is an interesting moment of unrealism which only a sharp-eyed model rocketeer would notice. See how Bill's Mercury Atlas appears to have no fins?

Check out the recovery system. A moment earlier, the shock chord was stuffed into the rocket - but it's not attached to the nose cone. The loop in the nose cone isn't even cut out.

This appears to be a short cut for filmmaking purposes. But the rocket never gets far enough to go unstable - or to come down with no parachute.

Liftoff...

...and CATO. Poor Bill!

I had seen Freaks and Geeks years ago, and it was one of my favorite shows. But when I recently re-watched it, I was totally surprised by this scene. The first time I saw the show was years before I got into rocketry myself, so I made no note of it! Check it out, if you can. It's a great show.

* * *

Model rocketry has made a number of appearances in movies and TV over the years, including some notable moments in shows like The Simpsons and The Big Bang Theory. But The Simpsons is a cartoon, and in The Big Bang Theory, you never see a launch - the rockets are just the basis for a few rather unrealistic jokes. It's always nice to see the hobby represented, but I've chosen to focus here on more accurate depictions of model and high power rocket launches. It's more exciting to me to see the real thing.

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Rocketober 4 - Rocketry Education Photos

All this month I'm posting photos on Twitter for #Rocketober. They'll appear here with slightly expanded text.

"Day 4: TARC or educational rocketry photo"

Yesterday's #Rocketober theme was educational rocketry photos. Since I've taught Rocket Camp two years running, I have a lot of these. (For those waiting, I know I haven't finished the Rocket Camp blog series yet. It will happen.)

Painting the Apogee Avion. This booth was really helpful. It kept harmful paint fumes away from the kids, and sucked up overspray. Also, we didn't have to worry about getting bugs stuck on the paint.

This is what Go Fever looks like.

Whoosh!

A couple of my students from last summer returned this year. Here, one of my returning students launches her Apogee Avion. These were great rockets.

We tracked the altitude with an Estes Altitrak. This is the baseline we used. It moved a little as kids walked across it. That's fine - it was just an exercise.

An experiment - comparing the findings of an Estes Altitrak tracker with a barometric altimeter on board the rocket. The Estes Reflector lifts off, carrying the Jolly Logic Altimeter 2.

Checking the altimeter readings to compare with the Altitrak.

I wish I had video of this launch. This kid's reaction was amazing. "It worked! It worked!" he yelled. "My rocket really worked!"

Painted and ready...

From last year - putting the Crossfire ISX on the launch pad.

Using the Altitrak to find the elevation angle for calculating altitude.

Hooking up alligator clips on the Baby Bertha. This was the best built rocket all season, and had a great flight.

I felt it was important to show the kids how to set up for launch and have them do it themselves, rather than have me do it for them. They folded parachutes, put in wadding, installed igniters and igniter plugs, and they hooked up the launch controller clips - which can be fiddly work, but must be done.

The intrepid Claire launches her Hi Flier.

After her flight, Claire carefully notes the elevation angle from the Altitrak station. She took altitude notes all launch day.

Showing off Trident - a 3-motor cluster rocket. The kids really liked this one.

I also did some building yesterday, but that was a ton of tweets in a short time, so I stopped there.

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Rocketober 3, 2016

All this month I'm posting photos on Twitter for #Rocketober. They'll appear here with slightly expanded text.

I recorded a new episode of The Rocketry Show podcast last night, so this post is on yesterday's tweets.

"Day 2: Rocket t-shirt"

 I don't have any rocketry t-shirts (though I should), but for yesterday's theme, I posted this. I bought this NASA shirt to wear while teaching Rocket Camp, and wore it to my first club launch. That's me with Trident, a scratch build of mine before its last flight.

All fin slots have been cut, and here is Sky Wolf dry fitted together. Note that nothing is glued in place yet (except for the aft centering ring, which I did on Day 1).

Sky Wolf is small, but powerful. Only about BT-60-sized, it has a thicker airframe, and can hold 29mm motors. It can fly fast and high on composites, and can take anything from D to H impulse!

A notch cut out of the forward centering ring. The Kevlar shock chord will pass through this and be anchored to the motor tube.

A knot tied in the shock chord 3 inches from the end.

The knot serves to help anchor the shock chord, acting as a stop to prevent it from slipping through the notch in the centering ring.

The spiral grooves in the body tube were shallow but wide. They filled easily with my minimal-sanding method.

The stressful moment of getting the forward centering ring glued exactly in the right spot - not stuck too far forward or aft - is done.

Finally, the end of the shock chord gets dipped in epoxy, laid onto the motor tube, and wrapped in black electrical tape to cure. Once the epoxy is cured, the tape will come off.

There was too much chance for a mess at this point, so I didn't photograph the epoxy process. I needed to get it on there and wrapped up before it ran anywhere. You'll see it when I take the tape off.

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Photos for Rocketober 2

Click here for an explanation of this Rocketober stuff.

Sunset Launch

Day 2's official theme for the Apogee Components #Rocketober photo blitz is "The earliest photo you can find of yourself doing rocketry."

The earliest photos of me in rocketry aren't that old. I just started this a couple of summers ago. This isn't the very first one taken of me, but it's close, and it's my favorite.

Once that was up, I posted more build photos of the Sky Wolf.

The SkyPyrates Sky Wolf is about BT-60 sized in diameter. The tube is actually a heavy-walled 38mm tube used here as an airframe, but also used in HPR rockets as a motor tube, so BT-60 nose cones wouldn't fit on it. The walls are thicker, so the inside diameter is much smaller than a BT-60 model rocket tube.

But the Estes Tube Cutting Guide will fit around the outside, and it's good not only for cutting, but for drawing circumferential lines around a tube. Here I'm using it to mark lines around the airframe, which will mark the forward and aft ends of the slots I'll need to cut for the fins, which are of through-the-wall (TTW) construction.

Note the circumferential lines around the tube. Also note that instead of a single fin line, there
are two, 1/8 inch apart. That is how wide I needed to cut the slots to accommodate the fins.

The first set of slots are cut. They may not look perfectly neat, but I can widen or clean them up if need be. Most likely, though, they'll be just fine. I used a piece of aluminum angle on the body tube as a straightedge and cutting guide when I got the slots started, so I know they're straight.

I used a hobby knife. It took a little time. This tube is pretty thick. If you have a Dremel tool, this would go much more quickly. But don't feel like you need one to cut your own fin slots, even in thicker tubes.

The motor mount laid next to the body tube. The aft centering ring (right) is glued on, and will end up flush with the aft end of the airframe. The forward centering ring is where I think it needs to be, and I've marked that spot with a pencil line right up against the ring. Next, I'll dry fit the motor mount and fins, to see if everything fits just right.

Looks about perfect. The aft centering ring butts right up against the aft fin, and the forward centering ring is tight against the forward fin. Next is to cut all the other fin slots and re-check the dry fit on each side. Then I can attach the Kevlar shock chord to the motor mount, glue the forward centering ring on, glue the whole motor mount into the rocket, and glue in the fins.

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Sky Wolf Sim

I've created a simulation of the Sky Wolf in OpenRocket, and it looks pretty close.

I'll need to print out fin templates and compare them to the real thing to be sure, but after tinkering with it for a few hours, I think I have a close enough sim.

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