This is a new manufacturer we decided to try, very similar in parts and design to the BSD kits. We decided to go for somewhat of an altitude rocket and chose the Binder Design Jaguar. At 2.6" and 80" long it's a fairly sleek bird with 38mm power.
We went ahead and ordered a Binder avionics bay for this bird for dual deployment.
The build was fairly straight forward and the directions similar to BSD in that they were very detailed and thorough. The first step was to assemble the motor mount. Everything was held up however waiting for Milled Fiberglass. I'd decided that this bird will more than likely see J power and allot of G's during flight so I wanted everything as strong as possible.
This was my first time using milled glass but it's reported to increase the strength of the epoxy 3 times so I wanted to give it a try.
After the motor mount was complete I moved on to slot the booster tube for the fins. This was done with a hobby knife just using a little time. I've never gotten too picky about cutting slots as they are pretty much covered up by fin fillets later in construction.
Above you can see the slots are cut and motor mount ready. You can see a cap of tape over the top end of the motor mount tube. I did this as I had planned to coat the top of that centering ring with epoxy after it was installed in the booster tube. The booster tube is a narrow 2.6" by 34" long so pouring it in from the top was about my only option, with the tape in place I was able to insure that I didn't get any epoxy inside the motor tube, and when I was finished I just used a yardstick to knock it off of the top. Worked out fairly nice.
Next the fins were tacked onto the motor tube with 15 min epoxy, then fillets with 30 min epoxy with milled glass added were added to all the fin joints both internal and external. A little 30 min epoxy was used to construct the payload bays and avionics bays.
Above you can see all parts completed and ready for finishing. One thing I like about this kit is that it's somewhat modular in it's design. I've yet to try it yet but I firmly believe that you could fly the booster section with only the nose cone, or only one of the payload sections which gives you several different lengths that this bird could be flown at. With the shorter lengths you'd just have to watch stability issues but keeping those in check she should fly just fine. I will be trying this later this summer.
Finishing was simple for this one as we did it all in one solid color, a dark automotive green metallic was chosen by Tannor and we painted it up.
Our first flight was on June 6, 2004 see the launches page for details.
Video of this flight here.
***Update***
On 6-19-04 the Jaguar was shred on an AT I284. It appears that the heavy weight of the Avionics bay on top of the un-reinforced body tube was too much and bent the tube over during thrust causing the rocket to come apart.
Upon relaying this information to Mike Fisher at Binder Designs he's decided to change the kit by supplying enough couplers to double wall the entire kit for more strength. He's also sent me body tube and couplers to repair this rocket so that it will fly again. Great customer service and very much appreciated.
Complete details of the flight on the 6-19-04 launch report.
***Update Rebuild***
The Jaguar has been rebuilt, July 10, 2004.
Rebuild consisted of a couple of modifications. The original Jag consisted of the booster section, 34", middle body tube 17", Avionics bay 4", and then payload bay of 17" with nosecone on top.
The entire rocket is now double walled with couplers from the top centering ring up to the nosecone. The middle body tube was the point of failure last time as it had the heavy avionics bay directly on top of it. It's always been my opinion that a shorter section of tube is stronger vertically than a longer one. So the middle body tube has been shortened to 13". This brings the Jaguar back to the original design length of 80" and the double walled tubing has increased our end weight by 6 oz to a total of 56 oz with everything but the motor.
Next flight should be July 17th 2004. Will update after that.
Built May 2004
2.6" Diameter, Length 84", Weight 50 oz, 38mm Dual Recovery.