February 2014 Model of the Month

Mike Richardson and a rocket named Richie

This is my first scratchbuild, which my 10-year-old has named Richie. It's special because I designed it with OpenRocket and built it to try out a lot of construction methods at once. Everything on it, with the exception of the launch-lug, is made from scratch, or rescued from the recycle bin.

§ Body tube is from a paper towel roll
§ Motor/stuffer tube is hand-rolled cardstock
§ Centering rings hand-cut from 1/32 inch plywood
§ Nose cone from hand-rolled cardstock and scrap cardboard with some epoxy putty in the tip
§ Shock cord is 1/4-inch sewing elastic
§ Parachute from a shopping bag, or streamer cut from a mylar space blanket
§ Motor hook bent from a paper clip
§ Fins are thru-the-wall, hand-cut and airfoiled from quarter inch balsa, papered and CA'd

I was going for a mashup of steampunk and 1930's racing airplane. The fins are elliptical because they resemble the Supermarine S6B (a forerunner of the Spitfire); they're metallic copper because the S6B circulated engine coolant under the metal wing skins instead of through a big, draggy radiator.

Despite heavy coats of putty and paint, it flies nicely on a B6 or C6. Flies very straight with no rolling and minimal weathercocking (I designed it for exactly one caliber of stability). Richie has been flown, crashed, re-glued and re-flown on a few times so far.