Scratch Pumpkin Head Original Design / Scratch Built

Scratch - Pumpkin Head {Scratch}

Contributed by Herb Estus

Manufacturer: Scratch
Style: Odd-Roc

Scratch Pumpkin HeadBrief:

A Rocket I made for the Oct NEPRA launch. In the spirit of Halloween. 29mm tube have flown it only with 24mm with an adaptor.

Construction:

  • 29mm Loc motor tube
  • Halloween PumpkinHead man bank for the nose cone
  • 6 little plastic Skullhead candy baskets
  • 1/8" balsa for fins
  • 1/8" Estes launch lug
  • 2' streamer

The first thing that I did was to make four bat-shaped fins. I did this with a free-hand design. I glued the fins 1" from the bottom of the 29mm tube. I then painted just the bottom of the tube and fins black.

I removed the plastic handles from the six candy baskets and cut holes in the bottom of them so they would fit over the 29mm tube. I slid all six of these down on the tube.

The hardest part of this whole project was making the bank into the nose cone and even that wasn't that hard. I removed the bottom of the bank (where you would empty it). I cut a slot down the side of a 29mm tube and fit it into the bottom of the bank. This allowed me to just use this to fit into the top of the body tube for the nose cone shoulder.

I used super glue to attach the launch lug to the bottom two Skulls.

Flight:

For flight we are using a 24mm adaptor we had from one of are Aerotech kits.

We have flown this on D12-3, E9-6, and E9-4

The first flight was on a D12-3. It boosted nice, but had an arcing flight. I figured we needed more power.

The second flight was on a E9-6. This was a nice straight flight, however the delay was a bit long. The streamer still deployed okay and there was no damage.

The third flight was on a E9-4. This is the perfect motor for this with a nice straight flight and ejection just past apogee.

The fourth and fifth flights were also on an E9-4.

The sixth and final flight was on an E9-4. This time the nose cone didn't come off and it came in ballistic, shattering my pumpkinman bank (nose cone).

We will slide off all the plastic Skulls, find another nose cone, and make it into a minimum diameter rocket

Recovery:

As noted, streamer recovery worked well up until the failure to pop the pumpkin and the subsequent side order of pumpkin squash.

Summary:

Unusual looking, great attention getter ,The kids loved it. It flew good even though you wouldn't have thought so by looking at it.

The picture I am including was taken at the Oct NEPRA launch by Bob Theobald. It is going up on a E9-4.

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