Projects

AMRAAM 3  -  All scratch built: carbon airframe, carbon fins, fiberglass nosecone.

My latest project is an carbon composite AMRAAM,  3  inches in diameter, 54mm MMT, with dual deployment. The airframe is .033 wall, constructed as shown in my technical stuff page.

The fins are .062 plywood laminated with two layers of carbon fabric on each side. This makes the fin a slightly less than .125 inches thick, which is the width of my table saw blade used for slotting the airframe. The aft centering ring is .50 balsa laminated with fiberglass. Tee nuts are attached to the forward side of the centering ring.

The fins are filleted with Superfil lightweight epoxy. The masking tape allows the excess epoxy to be removed quickly.

The nosecone is my own construction of fiberglass and epoxy (above left). It was laid up on a Big Daddy nosecone and tube, which provided just the right ID for the fiberglass nosecone to slip over a coupler tube. The nosecone has provision for a screw in electronics payload, such as a Walston transmitter. I've successfully used a screw in altimeter module, using a 1-1/4 plastic pipe plug, in the 2 inch nosecone shown on the right.

More to come . . .

A previous project,  my storage magazine.