Sirius Rocketry Saturn V

Apollo Saturn V please see links above for later flights Saturn V flies again: flight 9 in 2011	Beautiful Scale High Power kit by Sirius Rocketry of the Greatest Rocket Ever Built Modified for Level 2 Certification, dual deploy and clusters Has flown on 1 to 5 engines up to 3372 feet. 5 feet tall by 6.3 inches diameter. Flight weight 16 to 20 pounds. Click on any picture to enlarge.
Flight 8: 10/25/09 CMASS Amesbury, MA 1x J-440 Blue + 4x Estes D11-P BP motors created extra smoke before liftoff and their flames created an interesting effect next to the blue J. At about 300 ft strong crosswinds caused rocket to veer sharply and recovery deployed at speed at 400ft. The parachutes and the rocket recovered well, but the Nomex and deployment bag were stripped off.
photo by Bill Ralston Flight 7: 8/15/09 NERRF 5 1x J520 Skid + 4x G71 Redlines = Very cool flame effect, 4 Redlines created red border to top of fireball, with gold and sparks at bottom. Got distracted taking pictures and forgot to turn on altimeter, engine backup deployed drogue ... and the main too! at about 1600ft. Rocket recovered in great shape.
Flight 6: 7/18/09 CMASS Amesbury, MA My son Paul standing the same height as the 60" rocket. 1x J-440 Blue + 4x G71 Redlines Perfect flight to 1428ft. Fired all engines, flame all red/rose, clean dual deploy recovery. Stable with slight weathercock using 1.3lb nose weight.
photo by Neil McGilvray Flight 5: 7/5/09 LDRS 28 J520 Skidmark Good flight. Skid was cool. Main chute stayed in deployment bag, no damage due to soft mud field. Stable flight to 1135ft.	Flight 4: 7/4/09 LDRS 28 1x J440 Blue + 2x G64 White + 2x G71 Redlines Good flight, all motors fired. Flight path arced left in strong cross winds, 3 hour muddy recovery. Attempted red, white and blue flame, but got white/rose. Good DD recovery from 1115ft.. 17.2 lbs w/ 1 lb nose wt.
Flight 3: 7/19/08 CMASS "Houston we have a problem" Got the paint detail and decals completed, rocket was looking good. Prepped with a central J440 and 4x G64's. J blew out nozzle and caused just enough internal damage to prevent chute deployment. Lifted off on the G's to 273ft and lawn darted. "If you can't deal with that you should have built a train set" Rebuilt Spring 2009 in time for LDRS 28.

Flight 2: 6/22/08 NERRF 4 Central Cesaroni K445 and 4x G64W's. The 2095Ns K impulse cluster sent the Apollo Saturn V quickly to 3372ft. Four canted G64's created a wide base of flame around the hard pushing K. Roughly 200 lbs total initial thrust, tapering off into a long hard pull as it soared upwards. It did make me smile. Flight weight 19.6lb. First K cluster and first use of deployment bag. All ignited by Rocketflite igniters.
. photo by Howard Greenblatt flight photos by Print Your Hobby Flight 1: 6/20/08 NERRF 4 Successful level 2 certification flight! My son checking out the Cesaroni K445. Both of us at the pad having a great time, the NERRF flight line in the background. Liftoff sending the 17.2lb rocket to 2692ft. The 3.7 second burn on our first K engine was sweet.
Original build - Spring 2008 Click on any picture to enlarge
The Sirius Rocketry Saturn V is a finely crafted and highly detailed kit. It is 1/64 scale and designed for high power. Includes everything shown above, about 60 parts and 20 pages of detailed instructions. Very well packaged, including many precisely detailed styrene and resin cast parts. Other than a parachute, which is an option, everything needed for the complete build is included. A stock build with escape tower is 6" x 67" and launches on an I285 with a lift off weight of 10-11lbs.
Modified the build planning for a level 2 certification attempt. Went with a 54mm main engine tube and fiberglassed in 1/8 G10 fins (25oz each side). As a fan of clusters, added 4x 29mm outboard engine tubes for effect. Main body tube is 6.3" diameter.
Nose section construction. Used 3-5 layers of (sheet rocking) fiberglass tape painted with thick epoxy to strengthen transition and added extra nose weight. More slide-in nose weights can be added as necessary. Left off escape tower.
More fiberglass tape inside engine bells for strength. Fins were extended slightly downwards from stock to be the lowest points on the rocket.
Modified for dual deployment. Pictured center plate bottom connects to drogue, top to main parachute. Electronics bay cut into side of main body includes dual 9V batteries in parallel, Perfectflite HA45K altimeter and MT3G timer.
Many layers of paint, including painted on latex primer to fill tiny pits in my fiberglass job. Followed by much sanding and spraying. Ran out of time before NERRF 4, so rocket flew as pictured for the first two flights.