Polish Meteor 2K

Mark Schrader's Descon-14 Entry

Brief:

Parallel staged sport scale model of a Polish sounding rocket.

Construction:

Parallel staging is a great way to kick it up a notch in model rocketry without adding the expense of mid and high power. I've used parallel staging on a few projects up to this point, but when I saw the Polish Meteor-2K in Peter Alway's Rockets of the World, I knew this was the model I needed to build next.

I began with the Estes Black Brant II kit for the nose cone, BT-55 body tube, 24 mm motor mount, and boat tail. Using a photo copier, I scaled the rocket drawings in Rockets of the World to 1.325" diameter to match the BT-55 outside diameter and used these measurements to trim the Black Brant body tube to size. I also used the scale drawings to make fin templates and cut fins out of 1/8" balsa stock.

The strap-on boosters are based on BT-5 body tubing and the nose cones are plastic 4:1 ogive sawed to approximate the unique shape found on the Meteor-2K. Once I'd cut them, I filled the hole in the plastic cone with a balsa dowel and wood filler then sanded to shape. The boosters use 1/8" launch lug stock and wood dowels for attachment and split in half at ejection to release. I also used the scale drawing to cut the booster’s fins out of 1/16" balsa. I used about 18" of Kevlar® thread and a streamer for booster recovery. The BT-5 boosters are not exactly to scale, but they look pretty good.

In RockSim, the rocket with boosters loaded with a D12-5 and two A10-0s has a static stability margin of 0.58 (Barrowman method) and 1.02 (RockSim method). I think this will be adequate since the boosters will add to the stability of the rocket. Even with 0.5 ounces of weight in the nose, the unloaded weight is just over 2 ounces. On a D12-5 with two A10-0s, this sims to almost 1800 feet. To give me a little more flexibility in motor selection, I also made am 18 mm motor adapter out of spare parts.

Finishing:

I ordered decals from Tom at Tango Papa Decals. He was easy to work with and the decal sheets came out great. It took a lot of patience to get all those checkers on the fin surfaces but I think it turned out very well. I even decided to put the Tango Papa logo decal on the rocket! The rocket is overall gloss white, the nose cone is painted aluminum, and the red on the boosters is Krylon red. The stripes on the boosters were made by spraying Krylon red on decal stock and cutting out and applying the appropriate sized stripe.

Flight Report:

It was a beautiful day--temp near 40F, winds from the SW at 5-10 mph. I was launching on a central A8-5 and two outboard A10-3s. I checked and double-checked continuity. My large, main boy had the launcher, I had the camera. Good countdown, 5-4-3-2-1 *snap* BANG!... Parts everywhere!

Fortunately I snapped what might be the best CATO picture ever. The A8-5 exploded, hurling the motor into my launcher putting a large dent in the blast deflector and breaking it into pieces. At the same time the nose cone ejected out the top. Only of the parallel boosters lit, and this sent the rocket up about four feet with the launch rod still attached! It wasn't stuck either, it's a 3/16" lug on a 1/8" rod.

Other than some cosmetic damage to the paint job and my Tango Papa custom decals, everything held together just fine. This bird has since flown on a single C11-5 motor—I plan to fly it this weekend on A10-0s and an A8-5.

Conclusion:

I was a little reluctant to enter this design since I’d already submitted it as a review on EMRR. However after looking at the rules, I noticed that it wasn’t published in a magazine article, it used multiple motors, it flew (at least four feet—even the pad was in the air!), and it was safe—no injuries to anyone involved! I’ll post a flight report of a real flight with full parallel stages to TRF when it happens. Hopefully this weekend!

The Real Thing!