Success! Krsytal flew well! Twice, to ensure it wasn’t a fluke. All four engines lit both times: three in the booster, one in the sustainer. Booster pods deployed their chutes just fine. Cliff asked me to write an article for the’Clips.

I finished Krystal yesterday evening, attaching the pair of 30cm chutes to the booster pods’ shock cords. In retrospect, I should have gone with BT-50 pods, to allow for at least a nylon chute and a heat shield, maybe even 45cm chutes. Tomorrow’s the big day, then: first flight. I’m hoping to get some good […]

A minor snag on Krystal, at least slightly anticipated. The pod nose cones interfere slightly with the booster main body tube. I thought this might happen: I probably should have just built a shim onto the pod in the design. I caught this flaw during test fit, before gluing the pods to the booster, so […]

I mentioned this rocket called Krystal that I’m building, in Display Nozzles and Other Distractions and The Joys of Tools. For details on the rocket, see its section on the Rocketworks Web site. Painting is now almost complete. The final color scheme has a red body, gold fins with a few red highlights, black pod […]

It worked! I was very nervous about securing the few remaining edges and corners of the main tube wrap, given my experience with melting CyA when the plastic is under any stress (radial or tangential). Last night, I tried 60 second epoxy to secure a few of the errant edges: seems to work very, very […]

I’ve been working on the display nozzles. That might seem like it wouldn’t take much time: just glue them together, assemble the base (to which you attach the nozzles, which is then inserted in the bottom of the rocket), and paint. Well, the base was a bit snug inside the bottom of the rocket, so […]