Summary update on BAAH-1, the L-1 cert bird. Okay, more than simply update: more of a recent history, since it’s now been quite some time since my last BAAH-1 posting. In fact, I started this update back in November 2014! Construction at that time was mostly complete. The only things remaining were the avionics bay […]

April 4, 2015. It’s been a long time since then, but that’s when my AS-501 model flew. Waaaaay back in March, I posted my previous AS-501 entry. In our last episode, we left the bird all in white. Here’s the reset of the story. AS-501 is, in the true sense of the word, unique. For […]

It’s a another lunatic project. First, scratch-build my L-1 cert project (see these posts; yes, I finished the project, even though I’ve not written about the final build portions and flight: that will come). Then, repair and complete another 1:70 Saturn V, modeling AS-501 (aka Apollo 4), which has numerous differences from Apollo 11 (AS-505), […]

First, the back story. A few months ago, one of the guys on the LUNAR club list, Paul, sent email offering a 1:70 scale Saturn V model. It was partially completed, and needed finishing. Paul realized he’d never finish it, and wanted to see it fly. It had been modified from the original 29 mm […]

(What about rocket building? Very much underway. Too busy working on BAAH-1, my L-1 certification project, actually to write up the progress. But, I’ve taken lots of pictures. Quick summary: airframe done, fins painted and attached, motor mount complete, nose cone painted, rest of airframe primed and ready for final sanding and paint.) This past […]

It was a great day at the ranch!  (Many thanks, again, to Bill Orvis and his family for allowing us to fly on their ranch!) The temperatures were moderate: not hot, certainly not cold.  In the sun, it was pleasantly warm.  The winds were very light.  The sky was clear.  It had rained lightly—just enough—a […]

Most of the recent work has been on BAAH-1’s paint prep. Not quite all, but most. The balsa nose cone takes an enormous amount of work to get it as smooth as I want it.  I don’t need a polished hardwood furniture-grade finish on it, but I don’t want all the lathe pits and typical […]

The nose cone: it fits, but it doesn’t fit. The nose cone is a reasonably nice plastic cone, sized, at least roughly, for high-power tubes. They’re probably just about perfect for what appears to be the standard 2.56″ (65.0 mm) I.D. and 2.63″ (66.8 mm) O.D. tubes, with a 0.035″ (0.89 mm) wall thickness. I’m […]

So many clichés. The best laid plans… Measure twice, cut once. Missed it by that much. A miss is as good as a mile. And the grandaddy of all rocketeers’ clichés: Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem. (This one is famously mis-quoted.) The problem is hardly as life-threatening as that experienced by Lovell, Swigert, and […]

The maiden launch of Die Fledermaus was on Saturday, February 2nd, at LUNAR‘s Snow Ranch launch facility. It was a beautiful day: light winds, pleasant temperatures, a good turnout of fellow space cases. Perfect situation to fly Die Fledermaus. The first flight, on a G64-4W, was fabulous. Picture-perfect. Nice, straight up, ejection near apogee, gentle […]