After Intruder's success with the Aerobee Hi gap staged model, his head turned toward my Nike-X with that far away look in his eyes. He's now finished with everything but the booster fins. We flew the upper stage the other afternoon to prove that it would be stable with those little fins and no nose weight. He wanted somebody to RocSim it, but I eyeballed it and said it would be stable. He usually hates it when I'm right, but in this case, I'm guessing he's glad because he'd have to build another upper stage if I wasn't. The sustainer flew flawlessly and recovered about 100 ft from the pad. It was a very late evening flight, so I didn't bother with a camera, but pictures will eventually come.

I built one of these as well. I flew it a few times. The sustainer fins needed to be enlarged just a bit, and I needed to add weight to the NC for stability. Here is my rocsim file:

Phred

Attached Files

Nike X 2 stage.rkt (93.4 KB, 85 views)

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My son finally finished his Nike-X gap staged model and I finally got around to taking a picture. His model is on the left, my standard clone on the right. The only differences other than gap staging are his use of two small launch lugs instead of the one large lug specified in the instruction sheet, and he also used a balsa nosecone.

BTW, the rockets aren't curved. That's from using the zoom set at a wide angle. I should have used a more neutral focal length.

Another nice one Intruder! Can't wait to see 'zeps pics of this baby staging!

The venting on the booster really looks cool!

I like it too. It makes it look more like the real rounds of the Nike-X/Nike-EX/Spartan family.

Thanks. It looks better in the photo than in real life (my hand wasn't very steady when I cut the vent holes ).

Those holes will burn clean the first couple of times it stages.

It might be a good idea to glue vertical strips of thin balsa or 1/8" dowel along the inside of the booster between the vent holes. This would not only add strength but would also protect those relatively thin sections between the vent holes from charring.

Joe

Although this is a good idea, I have flown my gap staged Nike X several times, with no charring issues. I just roll a piece of paper to fit into the stuffer tube, and replace it eacg flight.

Phred

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