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(BAR-38) B-29 Sci-Fi Odd-Roc

I saw this photo and thought... that would make an awesome rocket?

Motor(s) would be mounted in the fuselage. Maybe a single composite or a clustered BP configuration.

Maybe rear ejection with twin chutes?

Here's a preliminary Open Rocket simulation. I didn't scale anything yet, this is just to attempt to see if this is even feasible.

As it turns out, based on the CG, this bird basically is a tractor motor design, which IMO solves a lot of problems.

4" diameter "sphere", BT-60 fuselages. Vertical stabilizer and wings are built like a balsa model.

2024-10-08

Almost 4 years later....

So here's the sim.... 29mm spool mounted motor and chute ... tractor set-up

Build Thread To Follow....

2024-10-12

Prelim CAD Model

2024-10-13 Preliminary CAD Drawings

2024-10-17 Nose Cone Block Gluing

The side boards were sanded to flatten one side.

Applied Titebond II Premium Wood Glue to the 3/4" side boards and also (not shown) to the 4 x 4. Then clamped everything in place.

2024-10-18 Turning the Nose Block on my Wood Lathe

2024-10-19 Construction Overview

2024-10-19 Cut the B-29 Fuselage for the Wings, Launch Lug, Upper Turret and the Recovery Pin

2024-10-20 Get Your Wings....

I cut the Wings from 1/4" plywood and started gluing them to the BT/C-300

2024-10-20 Rev 03 of the CAD Drawings

2024-10-21 Gluing the Wing/BT-300 Sub Assy into the Wooden Cockpit

2024-10-23 Fuselage Glue Fillets & Cutting the Horizontal and Vertical Stabilizers

2024-10-23 Vertical Stabilizer Gluing To Wing

2024-10-25 Longitudinal Stabilizer Stiffeners

These will be hidden inside the BT/C-60 Side Pods.

2024-10-26 Glue Fillets... and Side Sphere's for the BT/C-60.

Played a bit of Hangman with the rocket... looks like this one won't recover nose first and will likely sacrifice it's rear stability fin set to the Gods Of Recovery...

2024-10-27 Slicing and Dicing The BT/C-60's

Spent about 4 hours prepping the BT/C-60 side tubes for gluing to the plywood. It's all just mocked-up at this point.

2024-10-29 Glued the BT/C-60 side tubes to the plywood.

Used quick clamps, spring clips, rubber bands and a bunch of pens and markers to push all the surfaces down to align the joints.

Also made some spacers to hold the Vertical Stabilizers "just right". I'll remove them once the glue had dried.

2024-10-30

Applied Titebond Quick and Thick glue fillets at the Fuselages to Plywood joints. Cut and installed the Rear Tail Gunner Stations.

2024-10-31 Sanding the Spherical Windows

Went out to the barn in search of something to use to sand the curvature on the Spherical Windows. It just so happens that some plastic shelving legs are the perfect size!

The Gods of Odd-Rocs must be in approval of this project.

I layed some 100 grit sandpaper over the shelving leg and sanded the contours to match the BT-60 tube.

Gluing the Spheres

2024-11-01

Turning the Engine Cowlings, Rear Gunner Cones and the Top Turret

Made these from pine on my wood lathe.

Nose Gun Pod

The right gun doubles as the launch lug. Just gluing it in place... to be followed by some fillets and CWF.

2024-11-02 Nose Gun: Wooden Dowel

Gluing the wooden dowel. Used a piece of 1" wood and some playing cards to get it to align with the launch lug.

Pew-Pew.... Pew-Pew

Coming along nicely...

2024-11-02 Horizontal Stabilizers... these are also Through The Wall

2024-11-17 Spool and a Swing Test

Spool

Rough cut the Centering Rings with the fly cutter and then trued up the O.D.'s on the wood lathe. Used Gorilla Glue for the initial fillets, then finished up with Titebond Quick & Thick. Then chucked the finished spool into the lathe and sanded the O.D.'s to fit the the C-300 inner tubes.

Swing Test

As a recap: Open Rocket showed this rocket to be unstable with a -0.394 calibers.

The swing test showed that it is indeed unstable.... it flies backwards just as good as forwards, and it dances on it's nose quite fine too. :headspinning: