| Manufacturer: | Modification |
Brief:
A modification to the Estes Big Daddy to use much less wadding.
Modifications:
The Estes Big Daddy is a short, fat rocket. With this being the case, there is a large volume in the interior of the rocket that needs to be filled with wadding to protect the parachute. I am always looking for ways that I can reduce or eliminate the use of wadding. I had heard of a similar modification being done on a Estes Fat Boy, so I decided that this was the perfect kit to try it on.
The modification consists of extending the motor mount so that it extends into the nose cone. In order to do this, I swapped out the motor mount that was supplied with the kit with a BT-50 tube that was slightly longer than the main body tube. The hole in the base of the nose cone was enlarged by first drilling it out and then using an hobby knife to enlarge the hole until it cleared the extended motor mount. The rest of the construction went rather easily, as it just followed the instructions provided with the kit.
Flight:
Prepping the rocket is a breeze, I stuffed some dog barf wadding into the motor tube, so that I would reduce the chance of melting the nose cone with hot ejection particles. The parachute was loosely dropped into the large cavern that is left in the body, and a motor was installed. The launch was on a D12-5. The rocket launched slowly and ejection was at apogee. This is a nice small field rocket. The parachute opened and the Big Daddy was lowered slowly to the soft grass of the baseball field. I must say that I do like the slow liftoffs and noise this combination produces.
Recovery:
When I recovered the rocket I noticed that there was some residue in the nose cone but no evidence of melting--success! I also noticed that the motor mount was bent. Then I noticed the Estes "smile" on the nose cone. What I believe happened was since the parachute was loosely packed, it opened immediately, causing the nose cone to stop motion while the shock cord was stretched, then the body of the rocket was catapulted into the nose cone.
I have since lengthened the shock cord to four times the length of the stock cord. Since there is plenty of room in the rocket there should not be an issue storing the extra length of shock cord. This extra length should eliminate the problem.
Summary:
Overall this was modification was a success as there was no evidence of melting in the nose cone and preparation of the rocket uses a minimal amount of wadding. The other problem is totally unrelated and should be solved with the longer shock cord.
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