2024 was a busy year. I built five fiberglass rockets, each one seeming to present different challenges. Finally started to get some good results with one of my GPS trackers, and upgraded to a Creality K1 3d-printer better able to produce rocket parts than my very old Dremel 3D20.
The Darkstar Mini from Wildman is a 1.6″ diameter rocket with a 29mm motor mount. It flies great on “F” model rocket engines, but would vanish with a high-power rocket. I do have the optional dual deployment kit for it, and hope to tackle that in 2025.
My Arcas from Madcow is a 2.6″ diameter rocket with a 38mm motor mount. It also performs well on “G” model rocket engines, but in 2025 it should fly to about a mile high on a J94 engine.
The Avalanche 3 from Madcow is a 3.0″ diameter rocket with a 54mm motor mount. Strictly a high-power flyer, it did well on its maiden flight and I am looking to reach about 6500 ft with it in 2025, powered by a J140.
My most recent fiberglass build is a Journey 98 from Wildman. It is 4.0″ in diameter with a 54mm motor mount, and I plan to use it at Fire & Ice 2025 to test the electronics and recovery components from my L4 rocket.
Most of 2024 was spent building my L4 rocket: a DX3 XL from Madcow. This fiberglass rocket is 4.0″ diameter and has a 75mm motor mount. It required quite a few modifications, lots of money, plenty of swear words, more money, additional modifications, and a wide variety of components that could not be sourced from a single supplier. I’m not even going to mention all the paperwork that CAR requires!
I was going to name my L4 rocket “Blood, Sweat, and Tears” but decided it was nothing to sing about. It is called Pandora. It has been approved for its certification flight, which was going to happen in 2024 at Rock Lake on September 20th (my 77th birthday!), but the launch was cancelled. Fall Fire 2024 was a possibility, but they reluctantly declined since the flight was at the edge of their comfort zone. I won’t be able to try at Fire & Ice 2025 because their ceiling is 10,000 ft and Pandora thinks she’s going to over 14,000 ft, just hitting Mach 1 in the process.
Besides these fiberglass rockets, I have built two more, 2-stage rockets. The Hydra Sandhawk from Rocketarium has a BT60 airframe. The booster has an 18mm motor mount, while the sustainer has a 24mm motor mount. The construction is somewhat similar to the smaller Romulus that I built previously. The maximum altitude is only about 1500 ft, so I can fly it in Calmar without any problems.
The second rocket is a TTV from Apogee. It is also BT60-based, but is intended for motors that use composite propellants, instead of the black powder used by most model rocket engines. Composite motors require an igniter in the upper stage motor, which means there must be an electronics bay that can fire the ignitor at the right time. This rocket was designed by Apogee as a “timer test vehicle” to get people comfortable with the technique before going on to high-power, multi-stage rockets.
This rocket is complete, but awaiting paint. I have the “Simple Timer” from Apogee that fits this rocket, and look forward to launching in Calmar, in 2025.
In 2024, I built seven new rockets, attended eight rocket launch events, and actually launched thirteen times! Not me, the rockets…