| Construction Rating: |  | | Flight Rating: |  | | Overall Rating: | |
Contributed by Ed Sewall Brief:
The Javelin is a single stage 29mm rocket with a nice sleek 3 fin design.
Construction:
The Javelin comes with a nice set of directions and LOC-type 2.56" tubes, 62" total length. Three G-10 fins for through-the-wall construction are provided. The rocket has a good size payload section which could easily house an altimeter although I didn't build it that way. Plywood bulkheads and centering rings are provided and are good quality. A steel eye bolt is provided for the upper bulkhead to attach the shock cord to. A good length of elastic/braid shock cord is provided as well as a piece of nylon cord for a shock cord attachment loop. A nice long plastic nose cone is provided and fits nicely with the overall sleek outline of this kit.
Instructions provided are good for an experienced builder and a nice overall engineering type drawing of the rocket is provided. Nice if you have to re-build any of the rocket from some flight mishap! A straightforward build makes a sturdy kit. I added two "T"-nut motor retainers on the rear centering ring since I am not a fan of "tape" motor retention.
This was to be my Level 1 rocket so I took my time and did a thorough job of fin fillets using a mix of milled glass with 20 min. epoxy. This was my first G-10 fin rocket and I was careful to sand the fins with 150 grit sandpaper where the fillets would be to make sure good adhesion was obtained with the epoxy.
 Finishing:
Pretty much standard finishing, tube spiral filling required. I painted my rocket with a bunch of primer coats, primarily to fill those spirals! Then gave it a bright yellow paint job with a black gloss nose cone and hornet like stripes coming down the upper part of the airframe, it looks cool!. No decals were included.
Construction Rating: 5 out of 5
Flight:
My first flight with this rocket was my Level 1 and I chose an H128 White Lightning RMS motor. The launch was straight and fast! It went ~2100' (based on the Rocksim simulations).
My next flight was with another H-128 and this time things went sour, a failed delay insulator caused a motor burn-through when the thing was ~150' up. This zippered the upper airframe but the rest of the rocket was intact despite a free fall without a chute from 150'. I cut out the damaged section, added a coupler and a new segment of airframe and it was ready to go again.
The next flight was on a G75 Black Jack, one of my favorites. This was a really nice moderate speed flight that went ~2200' (see photo).
Recovery:
Nylon 24" purple chute that is just right for the rocket. I would down-size if I was putting an I200 in the thing so I would get it back, it's a light rocket (28oz).
Flight Rating: 4 out of 5
Summary:
Nice sleek sturdy kit that flies great.
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 Flight Log| Date | Rocket Name | Motor(s) | Altitude | Notes |
|---|
| 1969-12-31 | Ed Sewall's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | G80-7 | - | Fast, straight flight to @ 1500' | | 1969-12-31 | Ed Sewall's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | G75-10 | - | Beautiful flight to @ 2000', nice moderate speed flight. | | 1969-12-31 | Ed Sewall's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | H128-10 | - | Notes First flight for this bird, my level 1 cert. with apogee @2,100'. Nice straight flight. | | 1999-02-20 | Dave Hanson's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | F40-4 | - | | | 1999-03-07 | Dave Hanson's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | F40-4 | - | | | 1999-03-21 | Dave Hanson's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | H128-M | - | Successful L1 certification flight | | 1999-04-17 | Dave Hanson's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | F52-5 | - | | | 1999-06-26 | Dave Hanson's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | G64-4 | - | | | 1999-09-11 | Dave Hanson's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | G64-4 | - | | | 1999-10-23 | Dave Hanson's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | G64-7 | - | | | 2000-05-13 | Dale Emery's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | J275 | - | It had an excellent flight, but we saw a smoking object separate from the rocket when the drogue... | | 2000-09-15 | Dale Emery's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | K700 | - | It had an excellent flight, with the IA-X96 reporting 11,101 feet, 822 mph, and 22. 2 Gs | | 2000-09-17 | Dale Emery's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | K700 | - | It had an excellent flight, with the IA-X96 reporting 11,131 feet, 819 mph, and 21. 3 Gs | | 2000-10-14 | Dale Emery's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | J275 | - | A nice flight, and the IA-X96 data has not been retrieved yet. | | 2001-04-07 | Greg Smith's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | I200-14 | 4409 feet | Perfect flight to 4,409 ft. Drifted over 4 miles with a 36 chute in these high winds. It was a big... | | 2002-07-06 | Justin Ryan's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | H128-10 | - | Certified Level 1 - great flight. Friction fit motor w/no problem (t-nuts were installed during... | | 2002-09-08 | Mike Salvatore's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | F50-5 | - | What a nice rocket! Nice, clean lines, launches clean and straight every time. LCO deemed this to... | | 2003-06-07 | Solomon Westerman's Vaughn Brothers Javelin | G35-4 | - | Perfect motor combonation. Very cheap and nice smoke. |
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