What would be a good way to go to launch on less than an acre or so? I'm thinking maybe mini engine in a rocket with some drag and streamer recovery? Any thoughts?
-- lab~rat >:-) Do you want polite or do you want sincere?
Mini Max -- you need something like 10' on a side :)
More seriously (actually more generally -- Mini Maxes have their own charm), there's a table of motor size vs. minimum site dimension at
On Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:59:06 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer puked:
That looks like the answer. After spending my rocket adolescence trying to launch as high as I could, now I want to do the opposite. Does that make sense?
-- lab~rat >:-) Do you want polite or do you want sincere?
Absolutely. I want to see the whole flight, and then not have to walk too far. I sort of regard every flight like a spot landing competition, with my pickup truck bed as the target!
"MicroMaxx" is the correct name for the Quest Micro motors.
"Mini-Max" is a name used by Centuri for their HUGE black powder D, E, and F motors last produced in the early 1970's. Centuri and Estes are the same company and have been for decades, so Estes or Estes-Cox or whatever they are now called as part of Hobbico owns the name.
On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:21:49 -0700 (PDT), shreadvector puked:
at
I assumed he was referring to the scaled down version of Der Red Max...
-- lab~rat >:-) Do you want polite or do you want sincere?
at
Thanks -- brain fart while typing. I did indeed mean MicroMaxx.
On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 07:57:09 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer puked:
at
Now I see what you're talking about. Those are even better.
-- lab~rat >:-) Do you want polite or do you want sincere?
Have you tried large (high drag) minimally built rockets? I flew a few low G-class motors last week and recovered all within 100 feet of the launch pad.
-g.
My flying food container rockets are perfect for this. Things like the flying saucers (Snitch, Area 51, Applewhite), Gassaway's Tri-F-O (scales up nicely for D/E motors and beyond), etc are all perfect for low altitude small field flying.
Well, you can sort of get an arbitrarily low flight with a big rocket and high thrust, low total impulse motor.
One of my favorite odd-rocs is a nerf pumpkin, with a mini-motor mount in it which I fly on an A10. Motor is done by the time it clears the rod (so no worries about the fact it's got no stability), total altitude about 20 feet, "nerf" recovery.
FWIW: If you want to try something higher-power, you could build a rocket that is Pyramid- or Tetrahedron-Shaped.
Several years ago a gentleman from Florida[?] built a rocket pyramid that came to be known as the "Flying Pyramid Of Death". And at least one person has built a tetrahedron-shaped rocket along the same lines.
In the high-power versions, it tends to be impressive because despite all the "thrust & flames" it doesn't go extremely high or fast. What you're looking to do wouldn't need that large a motor, however.
One of the rocketry magazines did an article on someone who built a tetrahedron rocket in an issue from around 2003. I've got a copy of that mag, but I can't find it right now. I'm pretty sure it's *not* SPORT ROCKETRY from the NAR. It might be the TRIPOLI ROCKETRY ASSOC magazine {I don't remember the name of that magazine off the top of my head}.
-Allan, aka "RocKiteman" NE North Carolina, USA
I found two online photo links...
Flying Pyramid Of Death:
-Allan, aka "RocKiteman" NE North Carolina, USA
On Mon, 11 Oct 2010 06:43:04 -0400, "RocKiteman" puked:
That first one looks a little scary. Pretty cool.
-- lab~rat >:-) Do you want polite or do you want sincere?
In a video of one of the launches of the "Flying Pyramid Of Death", the rocket weathervaned just after it launched.
I don't remember if it's the launch in the photo I linked or another one....
-Allan, aka "RocKiteman" NE North Carolina, USA
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