Ye Olde Rocket Forum - View Single Post

Quote:

Originally Posted by KidShelleen

Glad to see you are back Ironnerd. The lifting bodies were favorites of mine when I was younger and they are responsible for being a BAR. And this thread also had a lot to do with it. I have enjoyed this thread too much. Thanks for all the posts, I think I have built every X-24 variation that you posted. You are something of a guru to me.

You being an expert on the Bug, I have an idea that I would like to get your opinion on. What do you think about a 2-stage X-24? What do you think the chances of this working are? Do you think it would stand up to a C on the first stage and B on the second?

All comments welcome.

That is beautiful! As stable as the bug is, I am betting it will fly just fine. I did some math a while back and I think the bug can be staged by simply taping the motors together, without any added airframe for the booster. Not NAR-friendly, but functional.

Now that I have seen it the way you did it... I gotta try it.

Awesome work.

To the contest aspect. The X-24 is a LOT of fun for a small field. My club tried X-24 drag races. It was REALLY cool to see a couple of these fly at one time, but it was almost impossible to keep track of which model was which since they cross each others paths so much and are so fast on the way down. Still it was a real crowd-pleaser. The nice thing is that they are really easy to build, and if you mess it up so that it won't glide, it will just tumble. Even if it nose-dives, it has so much drag that it returns like a shuttlecock ([art of a provisional NAR event).

I'm actually looking around for some 18mm rubber or foam balls to use as nosecones to make it more shuttlecock-like. I tried styrofoam - too easy to damage and it makes trimming for glide a real pain.