RG-1

Robert's first full-custom rocket, with electronic-deployment.

Motivation

Robert had wanted to try out electronic deployment for a while. After he received a PerfectFlite MAWD commercial recording altimeter with dual deployment support as a Christmas gift, he designed this rocket to make use of it.

Design Details

• 54mm phenolic air frame
• 29mm phenolic motor mount
• Giant Leap Pinnacle 54mm nose cone
• 1/8 inch birch plywood fins in a custom shape, with rounded edges
• 1/4 inch birch plywood centering rings and bulkheads, CNC milled, the two that hold the fins are notched for perfect fin alignment.
• fin can foamed with Mega-Foam from Giant Leap

Build

Construction began the weekend of 11-13 September 2009.

Publicity

RG-1 is featured on the 108G57 Classic motor page of the Cesaroni Pro29 catalog!

Flights

First flown at NCR's Oktoberfest 2009.

The first flight was on a Cesaroni Pro29 84G88 Smoky Sam, with the MAWD configured for apogee-only electronic deployment with full-delay motor ejection as backup. A mistake in the wiring (copied from Bdale, who made the same mistake in Trick-o-Treat!) caused apogee ejection to be from the motor backup, with the MAWD observed to fire its ejection charge at the programmed main altitude.

After fixing the wiring issue, the second flight was on a Cesaroni Pro29 108G57 Classic, again with apogee-only electronic deployment and full-delay motor ejection as backup. This flight went perfectly, with ejection at apogee and a puff of smoke seen a few seconds later from the motor ejection.

Robert then reconfigured for electronic dual deployment, and flew a textbook perfect first-ever dual deploy flight as the last flight of the event on another Pro29 108G57 Classic motor.

At Hudson Ranch on 2009.11.21, Robert had another perfect dual deploy, this time on a Cesaroni Pro29 G73SK demo motor.