Deuce-XL5

Dick Stafford's Descon-13 Entry

no Micro-Maxx, x2 cluster, sci-fi, comedy(?), most parts from a Fliskits Deuces Wild

Hmmm, should I have entered this in the previous contest?

Design Concept

The Deuce-XL5 is a kitbash of the Fliskits Deuce's Wild. After building a stock kit and seeing a flurry of interesting kitbashes on The Rocketry Forum, I decided I'd bash one and began thinking of themes. Fireball XL5 was the title and subject of a TV series by one Gerry Anderson. It was produced in 'Supermarionation', similar to the Thunderbirds series. This show has a reasonably large presence on the web and several flying models have been made over the years (with mixed success). I myself had built and flown 29mm and MMX versions of the Fireball XL5, and I soon gravitated to the Deuce-XL5 concept.

My main design constraint was to use the major components from the Deuce kit: the same length body tube, the cone, and the stock fin patterns. This necessitated taking some liberties with the Fireball dimensions to ensure stability and to tweak the final look.

Construction

This section will only provided a brief overview of the design. A more detailed account can be found on EMRR [here]

Construction highlights:

• The Deuce fins were used in pairs to form the main side fins.
  
• The canted motors were aligned perpendicular to the plane of these large fins, to help with thrust misbalance.
• All trim (including side pods) consisted of Avery full-page labels printed on an Inkjet printer.

Flight and Recovery

The Deuce-XL5 has flown twice on pairs of C6-3s. In each case, the boost was fairly slow, with a slight arc and a slow rotation. This profile is similar to my Shrox SHX-15 and IMHO really looks cool. Ejection was close to perfect and an 18" chute ensured there was no damage upon landing.

Conclusion

This was a satisfying project that let me merge one of my favorite scratch rockets, the Fireball XL5, with one of my favorite kits, the Deuce's Wild. The rocket was stable and had a neat flight profile. I am very happy with it and it gathered many good comments at the field, from young and old alike.

P.S. Although I have a Rocksim7 file on EMRR, this was produced prior to Bruce Levison's techinique for tip-mounted fins (see Apogee Newsletter #113). One of these days I will update this sim.