Successful Flight Post 6! Ghost Rider, 3FNC with a twist. Back Slide recovery.

[BABAR]

Sometimes less is more.

Yes, just three fins and nose cone. No chute, no streamer, it’s gonna be backslide or nothing.

For safety purposes this weighs only 20.8 grams with and expended motor casing, and it uses a Nerf Dart for a nose cone.

I usually launch in pretty isolated surroundings, so chances of fecoturbine interaction are minimized.

Length is 72 cm, with body diameter 1.38 c, gives me a length to diameter of 52.

It is a near downs scale from the Peter Alway model, down from BT-20 to Bt-5.

I didn’t downscale the fins as much, they should be 1.1 inches, I am at 1.25 (sorry for metric and standard mixing.)

The MAJOR difference is the fins position. Instead of evenly spaced at 120 Degrees, they are symmetrical but with a DORSAL dihedral of the VENTRAL fins. I fully expect this to corkscrew on boost, the hope is that the forward ejection port unilateral “puff” will throw this into a backslide, AND the fin position will determine the designated ventral side will indeed be ventral.

Among the challenges for both Horizontal Spin and Back Slider recover is fin damage on landing.

We will see. In any case I have always wanted to use the name Ghost Rider for a rocket, so now I can check that off!

 

[BABAR]

Fins are 1/16 balsa, rounded on all out roots and papered, then colored with pink sharpie.

Unfortunately the body tube raw is brown instead of white, so the only easy color to use was black sharpie.

I got used Nerf Darts on Amazon for $4 a dozen delivered, some of them were pretty bent up,but since I am only using the forward inch, all good with me. They are dark blue with a fluorescent orange nose.

You can barely see the lateral “puff” port, drilled it with an Exacto blade, hardened with CA, re-drilled with Exacto, then smoothed with rat tail file.

 

[Funkworks]

Yes, just three fins and nose cone. No chute, no streamer, it’s gonna be backslide or nothing.

Someone needs to make a helium cartridge. At apogee, balloon would inflate and rocket would either come down slowly, stay there, or keep climbing slowly

Name: Gas Rider.

 

[Nytrunner]

Can you balance it so that it is a guaranteed horizontal descent?

Otherwise its only a luck's toss away from being Sr space cadet's No recovery rocket

 

[BABAR]

Can you balance it so that it is a guaranteed horizontal descent?

Otherwise its only a luck's toss away from being Sr space cadet's No recovery rocket

That’s Very much the hope.

 

[BABAR]

Based on a Peter Alway design, downscaled from BT-20 to BT-5

Other mods.


Replaced nose cone with Nerf Dart for safety purposes, if this puppy goes ballistic, it weighs 21 grams with casing, and comes in with a very soft blunt nose.

The dorsal fin is positioned normally, but the other two fins are ATTACHED ventrally, but they are angled with dorsal dihedral. Two effects, one is I wasn't sure about stability with the asymmetric fin placement. Turns out wasn't a problem, Net trajectory was straight, and the altitude was perfect, if anything on a A3-4T was TOO high, almost lost it from sight. S

econd is that the boost is a bit squirrelly, there is some corkscrew. This is expected, and to me is actually an amusing if not favorable side effect. Probably reduces altitude a bit, which in this case is a good thing, I don't want this thing going out of sight, as it is difficult to see without a chute or streamer.

Video isn't great, hard to focus on something this small, but I got a few stills to prove it worked. I was fortunate to have a very slight curve on decent, otherwise this would have been in the trees. Fins are not as downscaled as the body, they should be square 1.1 inches, they are 1.25 inches.

Best way to follow the landing is to go to the end and back it up. From my view it was a perfect flight.

The length to diameter is 52 to 1, which is what makes it backs slide.

The asymmetric fins help this to land so it doesn't break anything on landing, comes down on motor casing..

So I am 1 for one on this one. Need to buy some more A3-4T motors, to see if this works consistently.