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 […]