Somes Ya Wins, ’n’ Somes Ya Loses

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 […]

Surprising Repairs

I finally did more than remove the bulk of the damage on Bed Knobs and a Broomstick, damaged (very bad zipper, and a gussetted centering ring partially torn) at last month’s NASA Ames launch (see the posting). The zipper on the forward portion of the lower part of the rocket went right down into the […]

Primary Damage Removal Complete

Removal of the vast majority of the damage to the forward portion of the S-II is complete. This entailed cutting around the S-II aft skirt wrap, which is the most complicated of the cylindrical (as opposed to conical) wraps, and probably the most complicated of all the wraps. The S-II aft skirt wrap has a […]

Saturn V Repairs: First Cut, Rev 4

I’ve made the first sets of cuts on the Saturn V.  The rough cut to remove the forward, damaged portion of the S-II is done, the body tube for that has been separated from the S-II tunnel cover, and the forward motor mount centering ring, with its gussets, is removed. I’m documenting the work in […]