Techniques
Nose Cone
Design
with Beeper and Adjustable CG System
This design all started with trying to find a better way to secure a screw eye to a plastic nose cone. I really liked the 6" fiberglass nose cone that uses a bulkhead at the aft end of the shoulder so I decided to do the same thing with my 4" nose cones. I also liked having the beeper installed in the nose cone and so the next logical step was to change the bulkhead to a removable electronics section for a beeper. Then I started on the scale military missiles, most of which needed considerable weight in the nose for CG control. Rather than making a weighted nose cone for each rocket, I decided on a nose cone design to fit all of my 4" rockets.
High altitudes and parachute deployment at apogee don't always mix unless you enjoy long walks or drives to recover a rocket. An alternative recovery method is to deploy a drogue system at apogee to allow a rocket to fall at a relatively fast rate to a low altitude where the main recovery system is deployed. This type of recovery system is called two-event (or two-stage) recovery.
Motor clustering is the use of more than one motor fired at the same time. Clustering adds together the thrust level, and thus the lifting or pushing power, of all the motors used. This makes it a good technique for lifting heavy payloads and large rockets.
Motor staging is the use of more than one motor, each fired in sequence, and typically with each motor (stage) being discarded after it is used. Staging extends the thrust time which makes this technique especially effective for achieving higher altitudes.
Rocket Data Sheet and Flight Data Sheet
Learning from your successes, and the inevitable incidents, are absolutely necessary if you want to progress in high power rocketry. Apogee Components has an excellent Technical Publication, Analyzing a Model Rocket's Flight, on documenting your rocket configurations and tracking your launch results. It is an excellent tool.
As rockets become more complex (multi-event recovery systems, multi-stages, electronics, etc) it gets easier to forget something during flight preparation. This can be exaggerated by months between flights. I don't typically follow the checklist as I work, but rather as a reference once the work has been completed. I've made a generic checklist that works for most of my rockets, but I have a specialized checklist for the Black Brant XI.
You can feed someone or you can teach them to feed themselves. The later is more productive for us both so here are excellent sources of information that I've found along the way. Please don't think that these are the only sources, there are literally hundreds of them. These are ones that I found myself going back to.
Featured in Rocketry Online's INFOcentral
and Submitted by Tom Savoie
r.m.r
faq
(rec.models.rockets frequently asked questions)