Centuri Flying Saucer

This is great! A really unusual flying machine. I made this from plans I downloaded from Yitah Wu's web page. I had a lot of trouble getting the dimensions right, my printer kept scaling to fit. I built int from a double thickness of card. I rolled the engine mount from a double thickness of the same stuff. The inner struts are made from balsa for strength, and the legs are made from a wire coat hanger. I was very unsure of this before the first flight. I mean, how do you test the stability of something like this? I couldn't get the shape into any of the simulation software I have, and where do you tie the string for a swing test?

Shaun and I only finished painting it the day before we were going to Largs for the International Rocket Weekend, so there was no time for a test flight. The first flight was in front of strangers with a real RSO and everything, a real 'heads up' affair. But, the flight was perfect, straight boost, hangs in the air, reverses orientation, and drops, slightly teetering, to the ground, landing on it's legs. Someone remarked 'There's the winner of the lander contest'. What lander contest? Well there were several competitions the next day, one of which was the lander contest. The rules are simple. You state the orientation of the landing, and then you fly it. The flight is judged on several criteria, design, construction quality, landing orientation, and general applause. Ok so we didn't design it, but it was built to last, landed on its legs on every flight, and was a real crowd pleaser. We won!

From left to right:

• Ready...
• 5...4...3...2...1...
• Launch!

From left to right:

• The saucer in flight.
• This was taken just after apogee, in the descent orientation.
• A safe landing.

In part two, we ask the question... 'Can you tape on a D engine and expect it to fly?'

Just what are you supposed yto do at the end of a great day's flying and you've run out of appropriate engines? Go home? Lets just see if we can tape this D engine to the end of the engine mount...

From left to right:

• Is that engine secure?
• On the pad.

So far so good. The D engine is taped to a spent C casing. The C casing is in the engine mount. A bit more tape for good measure and...

From left to right:

• Flight 1.
• Flight 2.
• Is it supposed to be going sideways?

And our survey said... sort of. It definately flies much better with the right engine!

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