LarryBAR99

I've always been a huge fan of the movie, " The Right Stuff ", especially the segments about how Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 plane he named after his wife, "Glamorous Glennis".  Nerd that I am I've seen the original plane, which now hangs at the Smithsonian  (their picture below).  They even have a 3D rendering you can view to inspect all sides of this rocket/plane. I always thought it would be a cool rocket to build, and even better if it would actually fly, then I found a post on The Rocketry Forum by the user Starfire73 for an OpenRocket simulation of his flying X-1 model (also see his blog here ).  I also found a nice article describing a flying 1/20 scale model of the X-1 on RocketryReview s by Larry Brand.  The latter posting used a wider body tube and a boattail, like the V-2 or my Silver Comet, to give it a more rounded oblong look.  I decided to try modifying Starfire73's OpenRocket version to use a bigger body tube and...

Well, I finally decided to try merging my software skills with my new toy to try to recreate an out-of-production rocket, the 37 inch tall Estes Maxi Brute Honest John  (available 1975-1983; on page 31 of the Estes catalog at  https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0686/0220/0369/files/Estes_1975_Catalog.pdf ).  The nose cone is unique and no longer available, so I decided to try to take advantage of a new feature in OpenRocket version 23.09 that allows the export of parts of a rocket as an .OBJ file, suitable for 3D printing.  The OpenRocket team put together a great tutorial describing the process.   Luckily for me, someone posted a RockSim file for the Maxi Brute Honest John on RocketReviews.com in 2010, and OpenRocket supports the import of RockSim .rkt files so I thought I'd give it a try. OpenRocket displays the nose cone in two parts, a cone and a "transition" that inserts into the body tube.  Selecting each part in the OpenRocket design then choosing F...

Santa was very good to me this year!  I'd given my family a bunch of suggestions to pass on to "Santa" and I ended up getting several of the bigger items.  Among the rocket themed gifts I got this year were a Featherweight GPS Tracker and an Anycubic Kobra Max 3D printer .  I set up the printer in my office: It's big, 17.7" high x 15.7" wide x 15.7" deep, which will allow me to print tall rocket parts (nose cones, etc.).  It took a couple hours to set up, partly because I put the tower on backwards.  After printing the owl test print, I've built a bunch of things so far: - Owl (test print) - Grateful Dead cookie cutter bear - "Whirl & Hurl" spinner flying rocket - Tube cutting guides - Higher resolution Gemini capsule  than the one I got from the library - Bomb rocket parts - Featherweight GPS holder - Dummy Mercury capsule (so the fragile escape tower doesn't break) -  Bulbasaur Planter   Owl test print finishing 12/30 (2 hours...