Debut of the Dragon Fly

I finally finished the paint job on the Arreaux. I had it nearly finished and then screwed it up. It would have looked better than it does if I hadn't had to rework it.  I still have a bunch to learn about spray painting I guess.


Photo Album: 2010-09-20, Painted Arreaux

I'm not a pin-striper!

I had the paint looking pretty good on the Arreaux, but had a couple things I wanted to try. The first thing was to use a gold leaf paint in an airbrush to apply a technique I've seen on TV to produce a scale like affect. I tried it on a practice tube first (an old wrapping paper tube) and found that the gold paint wouldn't work well in the airbrush. I scratched that plan. I also have a gold leaf pen that I wanted to do a pin stripe along the edge between the two colors already on the rocket. I made a horrible mess of things and am now in the process of sanding back down to a workable point. I'll then have to redo the original design that I was reasonably happy with. Since my fiberglass for the Vulcanite should be arriving this week and I really need to get that project moving I don't know when I'll get the paint finished on the Arreaux.  :-(

Slow Progress

The Vulcanite has been stalled while I wait for fiberglassing materials to arrive. I have been working on painting the Arreaux. I don't have photos yet, but I do have an image showing the paint scheme for the airframe. I'm not going to share the color scheme until I'm done. I have most of the painting done at this point, but won't get it finished until this coming weekend (I hope). The image includes cut-outs for the 3 fins (one split in two) and the two launch lugs. The centerline is just for reference. The dashed perimeter corresponds to the front edge of the airframe and the edges of the pattern where it meets when wrapped around the tube. The design is divided into 4 sections, as that is how many pages I had to print it on.

Broken Arreaux

I worked yesterday on painting my Arreaux. I assembled my improvised paint booth and applied primer and the first color coats, all in white.

My 3'x5'x7' improvised paint booth. Constructed from 3/4" PVC pipe and wrapped with a plastic drop cloth. The drop cloth is long enough to pull under from one end to the other to protect the floor. This will also serve (sans drop cloth) as the support for fiberglassing my Vulcanite.

While sanding primer coat on the payload bay tube I discovered damage that apparently occurred during its uncontrolled landing a few weeks back. It is very minor and won't prevent me flying the rocket. In a bone I believe this would be termed a buckle fracture, basically a compression of one side of the tube. Provided there are no repeats of the hard landing I don't expect it to ever be a problem.

The buckle is rotated towards the side and is pointed at by the arrow. Contrast with the equivalent area on top of the tube to see the difference.

The buckle parallels one of the seams in the tube's construction.

I shot an Arreaux into the air, it fell earth, I knew not where...

So my first step up from low-power rockets was an Aerotech Arreaux kit that I purchased at my local hobby shop. I built it this spring, which took far longer than it should because I lost a part and had to get a replacement from the manufacturer. Kudos to Aerotech for excellent customer service.

I finished the rocket just in time to take it, sans paint, to the final launch of the Spring season conducted by our local Tripoli Rocketry Association chapter. I hadn't even managed to acquire motors for the rocket before the launch date, so had to get a motor from another member for the maiden flight. I ended up getting a G80-10T. This is a single use motor from Aerotech. At the time I failed to realize that this was not one of the recommended motors for this rocket, having too short a delay on the ejection charge. This also represented the most powerful motor that can be flown in the Arreaux, which was hardly what I wanted to shake-down my build with. With some trepidation I proceeded to load the motor into my rocket. The launch was a success with the rocket climbing straight into the sky despite a moderate breeze. No weather cocking was observed and the chute deployed successfully. I happily recovered the rocket a couple hundred yards from the launch pad.

Jubilant with the success, I went in search of another motor to fly it on. Another member had an Aerotech G71-10R reload he was willing to sell me and a Rouse-Tech Monster Motor case he would loan me for the flight. This being the first time I'd flown a re-loadable motor I did the assembly under his supervision. I took my rocket to the pad and hooked up my first Copperhead igniter. Again my rocket flew off the pad straight into the sky, this time with a beautiful, bright, red flame trailing out the back. As it approached apogee all observers lost track of my rocket against the sun. No sign of the rocket was seen as it descended and I came to fear that my parachute had failed to deploy. I spent the next 3+ hours searching the desert for my rocket, but to no avail. Finally my wife was not feeling well, so I was forced to abandon the search.

Later in the week our club's "finder", Jim, went out to the launch site and searched for my rocket and the booster section of another rocket that had gone missing. After 8 hours of searching he gave up for the day, having found neither of the missing items.

Our finder went out again late in the week and put another 5 hours into searching for the two stray lambs. Again he met with no success.

I went out on the weekend and spent six hours with my daughter combing the area for my rocket and the booster section. Some of the search areas are heavy with cheatgrass which gets into your socks and shoes and makes walking an absolute torment. Again neither object turned up.

Our finder found he couldn't give up on our missing rockets and went out again the following week.  This time within a couple of hours he had found both my rocket and the stray booster section! After some 13 days exposure to the environment, a period which saw some serious T-storms roll though, my Arreaux was finally found. As feared, the recovery system had failed to deploy. The payload bay was only separated from the rear portion of the rocket by about 1/4 inch. Apparently the small piece of masking tape I'd used on the coupler tube to tighten this connection had managed to prevent the two parts from separating. Miraculously my rocket somehow managed to make an uncontrolled descent and land with no apparent damage. There are some water stains and other marks on the body tube, but otherwise my rocket appears ready to go again! I've cleaned up the tube with a light sanding to prepare it for painting and look forward to flying it again this fall when fire season is over and we can resume launching.

Thanks Jim!

My recovered Arreaux standing in my backyard.

Close-up showing the stains on my rocket.