Certifying Level 3 is no easy accomplishment, but through the combination of careful planning, hard work and following the advice of your certification advisors, you can get the job done.  The process is designed to test the skills and knowledge of the builder in order to prove you are capable of safely flying large, high performance hobby rockets.

Conway Stevens is one of those individuals who recently joined this elite group of high power rocketeers.  Stevens certified during Northern Colorado Rocketry's Oktoberfest launch, held on the 6th through 8th of October, 2006 and located in the midst of the sprawling Pawnee National Grassland near Weld County, Colorado, which features over 96,000 acres of potential recovery area.

From these humble beginnings arose a successful Level 3 certification.

Stevens built a 6" diameter, 14 foot tall, all-composite rocket that weighted 70 pounds ready-to-launch, and the successful certification flight attained an altitude of 11,396 feet.  Built of convolute-wound fiberglass with a Performance Hobbies 5:1 fiberglass nose cone and G-10 fins, this rocket was built to take abuse and still come away unscathed. 

Conway worked closely with James Russell, his local TAP/L3CC member, following his recommendations and guidance.  "I can’t say enough great things on him as he challenged me at my task and really made me put my own mind at work," Stevens said. "It was a fun process and working with him was the greatest of pleasures."

Built with the capacity to handle over 50" of motor, the rocket is capable of handling most 98mm motors, retained by an Aeropack screw-on retainer.  Stevens opted to include a 98mm-to-75mm motor adapter to fly the smaller motor sizes as well.  For the L3 certification flight, his motor of choice was the AMW N2020WT.

Electronics bay showing battery mounts on one side, electronics mount on the other, along with ejection charge holders.

Construction utilized a straight-forward "zipperless" design, with drogue parachute deployment occuring out of the lower section and the main recovery system handled from the nose cone end. The recovery system consists of a 36" Giant Leap Rocketry TAC-1 for drogue recovery and a Rocket Rage Quantum 70 combined with a Giant Leap Rocketry TAC-9 deployment bag for the main recovery.  All of this is fired by a Missle Works RRC²X 40K altimeter as primary deployment control and an ARTS flight computer for backup and data acquisition.

Selecting fiberglass sheet stock and pre-cut G-10 bulkhead plates, Stevens constructed his electronics bays in a way to isolate the electronics into separate areas.  This method placed the altimeter and flight computer away from the other electronic components and protected them from ejection charge gases. 

The altimeter and flight computer were further isolated by placing the battery holders on the opposite side of the compartment to prevent damage should a battery come loose in flight.  Stevens choice for battery holders was dual Missile Works 9V holders, mounted with the contact end in the down position to eliminate the possibility of the batteries losing contact under thrust.

Conway Stevens applying the KEVLAR lamination to his fins using West Systems two-part epoxy.

Ejection charge design seems to evoke a different reaction from different builders, and Conway has his own approach.  In his design, he mounts 3/4-inch PVC end caps to the altimeter compartment bulkhead plates.  Short sections of 3/4-inch PVC are filled with epoxy on one end, and a pass-through hole is drilled for an electric match, which is sealed in place with hot glue.  Filled with black powder and capped with masking tape, this rounds out the ejection charge.

The electronics bay bulkhead plates are attached to each end of the electronics bay by two lengths of all-thread, which are capped with threaded one-piece eye ends and locked into place with nylock self-locking nuts.  This set up is stout enough to pull automotive engines!

Construction of the booster called for lamination of the 1/4-inch G-10 fins first with KEVLAR® cloth and West Systems (105 resin/205 hardener) two-part epoxy, and after being attached to the motor mount tube, another lamination of tip-to-tip carbon fiber and fiberglass cloth. 

Stevens laying up the carbon-fiber/fiberglass tip-to-tip reinforcement.

Conrad started by covering the G-10 with KEVLAR cut to the fin shape, wetting the cloth out with epoxy and forcing the epoxy in with a plastic squeegee, before laying them on mylar release film to cure.  Once cured, he smoothed the fins up to remove any rough edges, and will tell anyone about just how tough KEVLAR really is.  Stevens utilized J-B Weld to attach his fins and centering rings to the motor mount tube to handle the heat associated with large motors, and then strengthened the assembly with the tip-to-tip lamination.

This design, building the fin canister outside of the main air frame tube allowed Stevens to concentrate on strength in his construction and gave him full access to the fin-to-motor-mount-tube joints, where he was able to fillet and harden to his heart's content.  Once he put the motor mount assembly back into the airframe for the final time, he then spent equally as much time applying fillets between the fins and the inside of the airframe.  You haven't had fun until you've worked two foot down the inside a one-inch-wide tunnel with a long stick and wet fiberglass. 

Stevens designed a hidden electronic tracking compartment inside the Performance Rocketry nose cone.

Turning to the Performance Rocketry fiberglass nose cone, Stevens designed it to hold a tracking transmitter by mounting a section of PVC tubing to a wooden dowel and then fixing it firmly in place by filling the nose cone with Public Missiles two-part expanding epoxy foam.  Then he fed the PVC tubing into a hole he drilled in a plastic pill bottle, which would protrude through nose cone's bulkhead plate, allowing him to place the tracking transmitter in the pill bottle, feeding the tracker's antenna up into the PVC tubing and then pop on the screw-on cap.

One of the neat things Stevens utilized in his construction was the use of Nutserts, a rivet-like threaded insert fastening system.  These threaded inserts are available in two types: a shouldered insert like is used for surface mount items and a flush mount insert more suited for the close tolerances of slip fit connections like nose cones and payload airframe tubing to underlying couplers or electronics bays. 

Rivet-like Nutserts make easy work of adding hard fastener points into fiberglass, wood and metal.

Resembling a rivet gun, the insert installation tool compresses the insert, expanding the body of the insert against the surrounding surface.  While not suitable for phenolic or kraft cardboard tubing, Nutserts are a perfect accompaniment for G-10 fiberglass.  Stevens also discovered that they worked well for attaching the Aeropack motor retainer to the aft centering ring.

To "capture the moment," Stevens decided to mount a camcorder in the electronics bay and give it the ride of its life.  Conway selected a Mustek DV4500 MPEG-4 7-in-1 multi-functional digital camcorder with a 1.5-inch LCD and 4x digital zoom.  This hand-held camcorder can be found at various online sources for a little over a hundred bucks.  Stevens found his on Amazon.com, adding a 512MB SD memory card as well.

Access to a professional automotive spray painting facility isn't a bad thing, is it?

Taking a section of 3 inch diameter convolute wound airframe tubing, Conway split it length-wise and used that as the outer shell of his camera housing.  Then, taking two strips of 6 inch airframe tubing, he glassed them to either side of the 3 inch tubing, forming a flange to screw the camera housing into a corresponding hole cut into the electronics bay.  Constructed open-ended, Stevens is able to use the camcorder in either an upward or downward orientation.

Since Conway works with automotive specialty paint supplier House of Kolors, a legend for over 50 years among the custom car crowd, it was only fitting that his project be outfitted with a custom paint job.  Conway selected an electric blue with dazzling pearlescent overtones, displaying a kaleidescope of red, purple and pink hues. 

Starting with a silver metallic base coat applied over a urethane-hardened primer, layer upon layer of the magic blue was applied using professional automotive spray equipment inside an automotive spray booth.  Once the color was applied, it was time to seal it up with a high quality clear coat.  The finished product was nothing short of spectacular.

No project is complete without a name, and Stevens chose the most obvious one for his baby: Full Throttle.  How absolutely appropriate.

KEVLAR® is a registered trademark of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company in the United States.

11-21-2006 12:00 AM  #1
crontab Certified Level Three   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 204	Conway! Ya did good!

11-21-2006 12:30 AM  #2
Constevens Certified Level One   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 26	Wow. Thanks Everyone. The adventure and build of my L3 project has been one of my most fun times in this hobby. It could only have been followed up with a great flight and perfect recovery. but i didnt get there by myself. I owe it to all those over the years that I learned from and payed forward for me. Darrell Thanks for the great write up. It was very awesome. A suprise to say the least. Totally an honor. Thanks!!! Conway Stevens TRA#9567 NAR#86005 L3

11-21-2006 09:23 AM  #3
JimJarvis50 Certified Level One   Joined: Oct 2006 Posts: 12	The "pill bottle" idea is great. I'm going to retrofit that concept. Thanks Conway! Jim

11-21-2006 04:48 PM  #4
ddmobley Administrator   Joined: Jul 2006 Posts: 2142	Quote: Darrell Thanks for the great write up. It was very awesome. A suprise to say the least. Totally an honor. Thanks!!! Hey you did all the hard work, I just put it together in writing. What do you do for an encore?

11-22-2006 12:59 AM  #5
Constevens Certified Level One   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 26	Im glad you like it Jim. BTW loved your rocket and Cert flight. AWESOME!!!!! As far as a encore? Well im working on getting the chance to fly this particular rocket (I hope) at the Xprize Xcup next year on a large research N or even a N comercial motor ( I was there this year with another team) and Im also working on some 6 inch Research motor projects that should yeild 2 actual rockets. One being a BDR and the other being a high altitude rocket using my own propellant mix and construction. But mainly I just want to have a great time and get to know more of the many great and incredible people that are part of this awesome hobby and fly big motors and have fun. But isnt that what its about? Conway BTW. The writting is as always very great work!! Good job DM.