In 1990 I wanted to do a big camera rocket. Something that had never been done before. I wanted to put up a large format camera with the negative being 4” X 5”. I could buy the lens, shutter, and aperture in a neat package that just mounted on the front of the camera for a very reasonable price. What I couldn’t afford was the camera.

Since I wanted the camera to be focused on infinity, I didn’t need to move the lens for focusing, so I designed and built a box that would hold the film at the proper distance and shoot a single picture. The box was build from 1/8” fiberglass and the inside was painted flat black to prevent any light from getting in or being reflected. The large format camera was mounted in the base of the coupler of the payload section. Still the rocket needed something more…

I decided to add a 35 mm SLR camera, the Konica FS-1, on top of the large format camera to look out the side of the coupler after separation. It was mounted nearly horizontal to give a panoramic type shot. The idea was to try to capture a profile shot of the booster as it descended on its parachute. I didn’t achieve that shot on this rocket but the desire was realized on a later project. But still the rocket needed something more… if I had two cameras, why not three?

I decided to add the family camera, the Canon EOS 650, to look out the side of Talon into a first surface mirror and reflect down the side of the rocket. Its fast shutter speed and film advance rate made getting great take-off shots easy.

The rocket was designed using a cluster of seven 54 mm motor mount tubes inside a 7.67” body tube. I decided to go with six smaller fins instead of three larger ones and the payload section had a custom build reducer that tapered to the 5.5” body tube. This is where the payload section recovery compartment was located.

Before electronic devices that offer dual deployment, I designed a dual chute deployment that worked this way: The main chute was deployed, attached to an eye bolt that was spring loaded with a pre-set amount of tension. If the chute striped or the shock cord broke the spring would close and make contact with a timing circuit. After a set amount of time the backup chute would deploy, sensing that the main chute was not slowing down the payload section.

Overall, the rocket was 14 feet tall and had a take-off weight of 56 pounds. Talon only flew once but took some great photographs. It was flown in November in Kansas.

(Click on the photos on this page for a larger image and additional comments.)