The parts for this rockets were made by Brad using the mold's described [HERE!]. Note that it was actually Dave Erickson and me that made the original plugs for the molds, so we can take the credit for how nicely they turned out. (Dave, incidentally, built his own 4" diameter SS1 simultaneously with me building mine.)

I spent many an hour sanding these parts whilst watching my son's baseball games. Here are the parts just before I got serious about assembly

Folks just don't use the word "whilst" often enough.

Port wing glue in place. The starboard wing is there just to confirm position of the glued part.

Starboard wing before attaching to the body. to make the joint stronger, I filled the area near the joint with two part foam that was sanded and countoured to fit the body tube. This gave the epoxy a much larger adhesion area.

Finishing

The rocket is finished using Rustoleum gloss white paint Windows were made with a circle cutter and vinyl adhvesive backed film. I didn't much want to attempt the official paint scheme so I drew outside the box using adhesive stars I found at Michaels Crafts.

Veiwport locations were determined by staring really hard at pictures of the actual SpaceShipOne.

The self adhesive stars were placed in a random pattern that can only be achieved well after midnight after several diurnal cycles of sleep deprivation.

Click any to the below images for an enlargement of the picture and marvel at my photography skills. I took these pictures while juggling a digital camera, the SS1, a silver table service and a rather vexed poodle. Photos were retouched to remove the dog spittle.

Flight

Brad gives the SS1 one final check over before while I was handing in my card at the RSO table. We were scrambling to get the flight in before the range closed. Because the rail buttons I had installed didn't match Brad's smaller rail we had to use his 12-foot jumbo rail. Good thing he had it -- he had almost left it at home, thinking he wouldn't need it

3...2...1....Ignition!

The Aerotech H128 White Lightning motor springs to life

Blast off!...... It's a long way up that 12 foot rail!

Just off the rail in about .2 sec making the rail exit velocity about 60 ft/sec (88mph), and it's beginning to roll due to the missalignment of wing surfaces

90º roll

I like how the sky gets bluer as you start looking up. 135º roll

Just barely stayed on screen, 180º roll

Closing in on apogee (5.6 seconds), rolled about three more times on the way up.

Why has the sky gotten lighter again? The SS1 coasts past apogee and begins to pick up descent speed

Parachute deploys about a two seconds after apogee

Fine recovery on a Covert Recovery Parachute Touch down at 31 seconds (pretty fast, but even hitting the desert hardpan, there were only skuffs.

Video

Click HERE to See the video

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Bug

Rick's 1/16th Scale SS1

Construction

Finishing

Flight

Video

INDEX