Rocketry Planet

Sparkies to come under fire at NFPA: Who Made The G?

WORLD WIDE WEB — In less than two weeks, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)'s Technical Committee on Pyrotechnics will meet in Salt Lake City, Utah, where committee members will review proposals submitted prior to the 24th of November, 2009, the cut-off date for public submissions for the 2011 revision of NFPA 1125.  NFPA 1125, "Code for the Manufacture of Model Rocket and High Power Rocket Motors," in need of update following the removal of ammonium perchlorate composite propellant from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' list of explosive materials, is the set of guidelines that hobby rocketry motor manufacturers use to make the rocket motors that hobbyists so love to burn.

The Jarvis Illustrated Guide to Carbon Fiber Construction

Over the last few years, many people have asked Jim Jarvis of Austin, Texas, how he makes his carbon fiber rockets. So when he had an opportunity to make a new fin can, he decided to document the process in detail.The result of the build was the TooCarbYen Tutorial presented in this article. Actually, tutorial isn't a particularly accurate name for the build since it implies instruction on the proper way to do something. This article isn't about the best way to build carbon fiber rockets, it's about how Jim builds carbon fiber rockets, presented in enough detail to allow others to execute the process if they so choose.

D-REG101: Building the Estes D-Region Tomahawk

The Estes D-Region Tomahawk is back for its final segment in this How-To Classroom Series. Sporting a traditional white paint job with black, red and brown trim, the D-Region Tomahawk makes a great statement in scale model rocket kits. Follow along as we finish out this final lesson.In this edition of the How-To Classroom, we are focusing on building a hardened version of the new Estes D-Region Tomahawk (#2037). This kit is 38.8" long, 1.8" in diameter and comes with a 24mm motor mount. I got my Tomahawk from Belleville Wholesale Hobby for just $24.49. Features of the kit include a very detailed blow-molded nosecone, a very detailed fin and fin canister section, a twist-lock motor retainer and a rip-stop nylon parachute.

HJ101: Turbocharging the Estes Maxi Brute Honest John

This edition of the Rocketry Planet How-To Classroom is based on the Estes Maxi Brute Honest John, a 1/9 scale model of the venerable ballistic missile used by the United States Army. This class covers the Estes first edition Maxi Brute kit #1269 released in 1975, the Estes second edition Collector Series kit #1269 released in 1993 or the third edition Maxi Brute kit #2166 released in 2000.This kit is approaching collector status, if it hasn't already, and you can still find them occassionally on eBay for reasonable prices. This class project features dual deployment with an altimeter bay, fiberglass airframe reinforcing and fiberglass fins to replace the thin styrene shells that come in the standard kit. In fact, of the original kits, we are mainly using the styrene fin canisters and the two-piece styrene nose cones while replacing most everything else — this is imperative to be able to fly these kits on 38mm and 54mm motors.