Vehicle 76

The design of Vehicle 76, a sport model with payload section, is loosely based on the smaller Vehicle 9, previously covered here. Vehicle 76 was built in 1999, using various Vaughn Brothers, Estes, and Aerotech components. It utilizes plywood through-the-wall fins with a thickness of 2.3 mm. It measures 650 mm in length and 66 mm in diameter and is intended to be flown with 29 mm F and G composite motors.

The nose cone, 205 mm in length, conceals a tubular payload section with a length of 180 mm and a diameter of 42 mm. At the time, it was tailored to the altimeter I used most often, the Missile Works RRC2. The payload section is fully removable, for ease of altimeter access. The rocket is recovered by means of two silk parachutes.

Top photo shows Vehicle 76 in Zurich, Switzerland, in 2016. Lower photo was taken in Thalwil, Switzerland, after completion of the rocket in summer of 1999.

Vehicle 22 Redux

The evolved version of the original Vehicle 22 payload model rocket, Vehicle 22 B, while being prepared for launch from my metal theodolite launcher at Allmend Frauenfeld, Switzerland, on Saturday, April 26, 1986.

Vehicle 22 B flew with a Flight Systems Inc. 21 mm black powder D or E motor. And while my flight data sheet of that day indicates a very good deployment of the parachute and a perfect post-flight condition of the rocket, the flight itself is described by means of a brief, wry remark: "stability deficiencies".

Photography by Martin Kyburz.

Cox Model Rocket Ad, December 1972

Cox "Now: Two more ready-to-launch rockets" ad, featured in Model Rocketeer magazine, vol. XIV, no. 11, December 1972, published by the National Association Of Rocketry, McLean, Virginia, USA.

Shown are Cox' legendary X-15 plastic model rocket, recovered by parachute, and the elegant Space Shuttle America, whose booster section was recovered by parachute while the two "shuttles" glided back to the ground.

Cox ad © by Model Rocketeer, McLean, Virginia & L.M. Cox Mfg. Co., Inc., Santa Ana, California, USA, 1972.