Floyd the Boob Cancer Rocket

Okay, this is the biggest I've built so far. Quarter inch launch lug, so big he'll barely fit in my car.

Floyd is three Mr. Creosotes or so tall. The three 18-inch BT-80 tubes from the batch that spawned Mr.C., I guess. Plus a 8.25-inch nose cone.

This is too much for a C engine, which normally means I'll fly it anyway, but I put a 29mm motor mount in this one, making a C11 the minimum, and a D12 the only likely engine to actually launch on. I could have put a deeper 28mm mount that would let me go to an Estes E9 motor, but I figured it'd only tempt me to buy bigger, more expensive motors.



We were passing by the Nichols Fountain on the Plaza this weekend and when I noticed the pink fountain, Em said 'It's Breast Cancer Awareness Month.



I didn't go through the wall for the fin mounting. I couldn't convince myself my hand-cutting would be steady enough to cut the slots. The thinking was, with a D12 motor, no way the fins are coming off from either lift-off acceleration or deceleration at the end of the flight. The latter is actually the most stressful point in the flight. I'd weighed the largest parts, the body tubes and nose cone, which were about seven ounces, so I'm thinking a 10oz rocket, and a D12 is supposed to be able to handle a 14oz maximum lift off. Surface mounting should suffice.



Of course I coated the 1/8" basswood fins in epoxy, and also brushed that round the body tube at the fin area to reinforce the glue joints; then I put epoxy putty fillets in to boot.



Floyd took almost three whole cans of fluorescent pink Krylon. That was on a base coat that used about a can and a half of white Krylon; and I sealed the nose cone in epoxy because it kept soaking up the white paint and raising the grain of the turned balsa.

Then about two cans of Kilz clear coat.



Then I took Floyd, cancer ribbon and all, to work to weigh on a postal scale. It was Take Your Rocket to Work Day, anyway. The verdict? 18 ounces. Way, way too heavy for a D12. Too heavy for an E9.



It looks like about the only single-use motor that would fit the motor mount and actually take Floyd up high enough for his parachute to deploy would be an Aerotech E30-4, which is only rated for 16 ounces, but would probably get the job done as well as a C6 gets Mr. Crosote's fat ass up in the air.


The other complication: because he's over a pound, Floyd can only fly if I notify the FAA. And I think the five mile rule about airports will apply, too, which means not in the field behind my house (even though Tony G on a C6 flies much higher than floyd is likely to on any motor I can cram up his pink ass).



The real bummer is when you get into these mid-power motors, it starts getting expensive fast. A single-use E30-4 will set me back about what nine C6-3's do. I can buy a reloadable motor casing and reloads are about a third the price of single-use motors, but the case is expensive. And if Floyd gets lost up a tree or whatever, good-bye $50 RMS case.



I think I've basically found the point at which bigger is not better for my taste. I still love Floyd, and I'll find a way to get his fruity-looking ass up in the air, but I don't see myself building anything as big and expensive (just the Krylon on him adds up, in money as well as weight) for awhile.



Em likes him, though. She enjoyed posing with him, taking pictures of me with him, saying words like 'awesome,' which are getting harder to elicit as she gets closer to being a teenager.