Summit City Aerospace Modelers

Club Project

2007 S.C.A.M. CLUB PROJECT:

6X UP - SCALE

ACME SPITFIRE

Spitfire flies at N.S.L. 2007!

Hi Folks,

The Spitfire jumped to life last Saturday, (June, 2) at the National Sport Launch 2007. The morning started out prepping, Loading the AMW, M2200 Skidmark, Packing the chutes, installing the electronics and recovery charges, and loading onto the pad. Jim Fliss stopped by to add his seal of approval (some cool up-scale Fliss Kits decals), and photos were taken along with some media attention from the local news channel.

Finally we got down to business. Unfortunatly, the electronics initially would not arm. As there were fliers near our pad waiting, we removed the nose with the electronics bay, and returned to the prep area. Charlie did a good job trouble shooting, and after re-soldering a loose battery connection, we were finally ready for launch. We waited a few minutes for the local fire dept. to hose down the area around the pad, as the launch officials did not wish the Skidmark to set a ground fire. Finally the countdown and launch...... perfect flight! Recovery system worked perfectly as the Spitfire separated from the nose as planned on apogee. Both chutes opened properly with the nose landing approx 65 yards from the rocket. The altimiter beeped out 1463 feet, less than planned, (the design is a bit dragy). The airframe suffered a little damage from bumps and scratches, some de-laminating of the fiberglass at the bottom edge of the shroud, and a broken fin. All damage was repairable, and the Spitfire will be able to fly again one day. Everyone on the team wishes to thank Jim Fliss, for his support and intrest, and Dennis Watkins, our project leader, for the design work, and tireless efforts keeping the project on track.

-Ed

If your not familier with this interesting rocket, below is a photo of Dennis's smaller version lifting off at LDRS last year in Texas.

The 6x up - scale version as designed, would have an overall length of 107.59 In. Diameter is 18.82 In. with a span dia. of 50.25 In.

Computed Mass W/O motor is 48.84 Lb.

The goal was achieved, for a completion date in Spring 2007, with the rocket ready for launch at The NAR National Sport Launch, NSL "07" held in Muncie IN. June 2-3. Launch was preformed on an AMW M-2200 Skidmark motor. Altitudes was reported by the altimiter at 1463'.

Team Members:

Dennis Watkins (designer / project mgr.).

Charlie Humphries

Dean Bobay

Joe Isca

Mike Law

Travis Troyer

Ryan Lawrence

Mike Hollman

Mike Gross

Edward Hardy

Mark Rogers

Dave Wyss

Thank You Jim Flis for your interest and support of this project!

The Acme Spitfire was the first club project initiated since the Honest John project of 2002, and provided a great opportunity to afford-ably participate in a large scale, high power rocketry project.

CONSTRUCTION DETAILS:

This project was built using a 6" central tube, with 1/2" plywood, 3/8" composite material fins, Single deployment. The first building date was 12/16/06 @ Mike Laws house. We decided that we would be in the range of $50 each to get this built. Charlie was in charge of handling the funds. The following are the way my notes read. Travis worked on enlarging the drawings for our templates, Dave Wyss also looked into this. Travis also picked up the 12" tubes and talking to his aunt, about 20 oz. Fiberglass cloth to use on the nose cone. Dean came up with some marine grade plywood that is his thought to be lighter and as strong or stronger than Baltic Birch. West System Epoxy and filler were used for assembly. Mike Hollman aka El Presidenta! brought the 6" motor tube. Mike Law provided the 6oz. glass to wrap the body tubes, the fins, and the lower transition.