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Freeze Frame is finally finished and ready to fly! This has been one of the largest projects I've done. It started several years ago with the idea of having boosters on a large rocket that blew off in flight. I thought the pictures could be very nice. Here is the rocket just prior to its first flight to show the overall size of the rocket. It stands about 11 feet tall, 6" in diameter, and weighs about 70 lbs without motors. It is my first attempt at using strap on boosters. It is scheduled to fly at Oktoberfest on an M1419 and two J415's. The projected altitude is over 9000 feet.

The main motor is a 98 mm and each booster has a 54 mm motor mount.

This photograph shows the main motor mount with the two strap on boosters. The thrust of the boosters is transferred to the rocket via an aluminum ring attached to the centering rings of the main rocket.

I used an aluminum bar (shown on top) to accurately align the mounts for the booster droppers.

This is a close up shot of the forward booster mount for the booster dropper.

The recovery mount for the booster. I didn't take any chance it wouldn't hold. It is made from 1/8" aircraft cable and is attached directly to the motor mount.

A close-up of the lower mount.

The upper mount where the booster transfer their thrust.

This close-up shows how the boosters are installed. The booster droppers are prepped on the booster then attached to the main body of the rocket and clamped.

The fins were built nearly identical to BDCR. Only the shaped changed slightly. I used honeycomb and carbon panel and glued rounded pieces of hardwood to the edge. Then I prepared to vacuum bag.

The honeycomb and carbon panel was covered on each side with 10 oz carbon weave and 9.8 oz fiberglass. They were vacuum bagged under heat and pressure while the epoxy was cured. The resulting fins are extremely strong but relatively lightweight.

I did attach the fins slightly different than BDCR. For Freeze Frame, the fins were attached after the motor mount was glued into the body tube. I still used a jig for alignment. The bunji cord was used as a clamp to hold the fins in tightly next to the motor mount.

I used a makeshift oven to elevate the temperature while the epoxy was curing. Elevating the temperature provides a higher Heat Deflection Temperature for the Epoxy.

I made a oven for curing the epoxy at elevated temperatures. It is made from Styrofoam and wood frame and lined with aluminum coated bubble wrap insulation. The heat is supplied by a portable space heater. It can reach temperatures of about 180 F.

Here is the initial test for dropping the boosters. Its a 3.3M video file. The sounds you here are the high speed cameras running.

This is a new way for me to mount the camera on board the rocket. In previous projects such as BDCR the cowling was built on the nose or body tube and the camera attached to the cowling. With Freeze Frame that camera is mounted to a plate that is attached to the payload section. The nose cone and cowling fit over the payload section and are screwed into place. The nose cone and cowling just act as the wind break for the camera and payload section.

This is also the first time for me to use the Milliken DB4 high speed camera. It doesn't hve a magazine but it is capable of 400 frames per second. In addition it is capable of changing speeds while running. This allows greater flexibility for shooting the flight. I'll used the highest speed (400 fps) initially during motor burn but then change the speed to 128 frames per second for he remainder of the flight.

The nose cone and cowling were built from conventional methods used on previos rockets. After a hole was cut in the nose cone for the cowling a box was constructed from carbon composite panels. Blue foam was attached and shaped. Then the foam was sanded to make the design more aerodynamic.

Here is and end view showing the hole in the nose cone and the box that was constructed from carbon composite panels. Later the foam was sanded to make the design more aerodynamic.

The bag was pre-staged inside the nose cone and cotton placed inside. Multiple layers of carbon were used and some pins stuck through the carbon into the foam held the carbon from slipping while epoxy was applied.

This shot shows the multiple layers of carbon with different weave patterns and the stick pins going through the carbon into the foam to hold the carbon from slipping while epoxy was applied. A small amount of high strngth filler was used in the epoxy.

Under vacuum I used rollers to push the excess epoxy to the edges. I used extra streatchy bagging material because of the highly complex shape.

After the vacuum bag was removed and the excess spoxy sanded off the results look good. Vacuum bagging compresses the carbon fabric tightly so there are no voids or air gaps to weaken the cowling. Its a lot of work but the result is stronger than just using the carbon and epoxy alone.

The carbon on the cowling was then coated with a layer of epoxy with sandable filler mixed. It is now ready for sanding.

This is a very large (10.5M) video of testing the ejection charge for deploying the drouge. Four 4-40 nylon screws are used for retention. The volumn is very small so only a 0.5 gram charge was necessary to blow the two sections apart.

Also a very large video (over 11M) for deploying the main chute. The payload section also used four 4-40 nylon screws. This is why I don't like trusting calculations for ejection charges. The numbers show this rocket should use over a 3 gram charge. Here is the test of only 2 grams, do you think its sufficient?

Fins were added to the boosters to make them stable. Many have done boosters on rockets and just let thme tumble after dropping off. The initial test of these booster droppers actually had one of the booster fall into the main rocket and damaged the fin. My design keep the boosters stable.

Also to aid in bolwing them off at the correct angle (booster nose cone outward away from the rocket), lead weight was added (shaded ared inside the body tube). It was quite a challange keeping the booster stable and having it still fall away with the nose cone tiing away from the main rocket body.

The electronics packages for the boosters. I used Missile Works PET2 timers since they have the "pull-pin" activation method. In this case, the refrigerator switch senses when the booster has left the rocket. An extension is screwed in after installation into the booster.