I spent a bunch of time this weekend at my friend Dan’s. He has a wood lathe and is pretty accomplished with it. A few months ago, the conversation turned to woodworking and nose cones and balsa. Though he had no experience with balsa and its very low density, he was willing to give it […]

In my recent blog entry that mentioned the C5-3 CATO, I said I’d post some pictures of the CATO. With thanks to Ryan Coleman, fellow LUNARtic who sent them over, and Shaina Pierce, his friend who took the pictures, here they are. The recovery parachute and the upper portion of the rocket are intact; the […]

I started working on a new rocket a couple of days ago. It’s a combination of a few designs, including one whose C5-3 CATOed at LUNAR‘s Ames launch last Saturday. (It was a pretty cool CATO, even if it was a maiden flight. Who ever heard of an 18mm black powder motor CATOing? Yeah, it […]

King Tut’s Pyramid, from Sunward Aerospace, has become one of my favorite rockets. It’s different from most of the other rockets flying, and I see fewer pyramids than most other oddrocks, like spools. King Tut’s Pyramid, though small, is not a light rocket. It’s about 25 cm tall (9″ or so) with a mass of […]