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Tuesday, September 26 We sanded the fins more and set up the jig we would use for the fin attachment at the next meeting. Worked on the nose cone ballast system a bit. Put three more layers of glass on the tailcone for a total of 6. Yep, it is hard!
That is a bunch of 4" ABS that makes up our adjustable ballast system.
Turning over the big fin sandwich machine. Thursday, September 28 Attached two fins to the motor tube and tail cone assembly. Cut out other miscelaneous parts we would need later. Discussed various problems and worked through possible solutions.
Tom gets into some real drilling on the rear thrust plate.
Doc shows off the ballast system parts.
Lloyd, Tom, Carl, Anthony, Domingo, and Doc in the background. This is the closes you can get these guys for a group hug. Ha Ha. That tailcone sure is taking up a lot of time, but it is one of the elements that caused us to choose the HAWK in the first place. It presented that extra level of difficulty we were looking for in a big rocket. It is a masterpiece now. Very clean.
The first two fins to go on the motor tube and cone assembly. Monday, October 2 Attached a third fin to the motor tube assembly. Messed around with the ballast system mount plate in the nose cone. Built the recovery system anchor. It is a killer piece indeed. Wednesday, October 4 Attached the last fin to the motor tube and made final installation adjustments to the ballast system. Sanded the nose cone to fit the airframe to our satisfaction. Marked the airframe for fin slots to be cut at next meeting. Tuesday, October 10 We got fin slots cut and test fitted the airframe to the fincan. Some minor adjustments were needed and we installed the rail guide hardware inside the airframe.
Thursday, October 12 Installed the fincan in the airframe and started the fillet process after building a "20 second" rocket stand" from parts of a dog house and the grinder stand. Made additional parts for, and modifications to, the electronics bay. Lots of pictures along the way. Well, I got busy and lost a couple of meeting in here. We got the electronics bay almost done, the ballast system is complete, and the upper section of the rocket is complete with assembly hardware. The recovery system is nearly complete. Parachute is ready for flight, deployment bag is made, and pilot chute to pull the deployment bag off the chute is in place as well. All that remains to build is the shock cord harness. Sunday, October 22 We had planned to do ground testing, but we had some loose ends that kept us from fulfilling that objective. We were able to completely assemble the rocket as flight ready as possible and simulated the motor and all other missing parts. We have now nailed down the CP and CG and we know that we need 20 lbs. of ballast to get in the stable zone. No surprise. This brings the total weight of the rocket with no motor to about 120 lbs. Friday, November 3 Ground testing is done. The rocket has been sanded and filled and sanded and filled till we are all sick of looking at it. So it is all grey now. We are working on it every night, and that is why there have been no more web updates. I'll post a picute up when I have one that shows our progress. We start the one week count down tomorrow. Target launch day and time is still Novenber 11, at about 11 a.m. Well, things just got too busy to sit down and record it all. We spent every night on the rocket for a week before the launch. We got it done in time and you can check out the flight here.
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