Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Getting Ready

I am getting ready to head to Chicago area this weekend for the Great Lake Cup competition and the US Team Practice. While they will not be flying our events that we will be flying at the World Championships, I will get a chance to talk with our team matesand meet with competitors from 7 other countries. It should be a fun time. Here's hoping for good weather!

Monday, June 21, 2010

Public Missiles

We got these fantastic molded rail guides from Public Missiles. Thanks so much for the donation!

Matt

Friday, June 18, 2010

Bob Smith CA

I have been using the Bob Smith "Gold" CAs for the past few years - I like the quality and low fumes that the brand has. Charlee Smith was gracious enough to donate a supply of CA and kicker to get us through our building needs for the world championships. Thank you so much!

Aero Pack Help

We were lucky enough to receive a donation of some 29mm Aero Pack 29mm motor retainers for use with our shuttle main engines. I have used these in the past and found them to be a fail-safe way to keep motors in big, important models. Thanks so much!

CAD Help!

A special thank you goes out to Jim Faliveno of General CADD Products (www.generalcadd.com) who saved me hours of painstaking work by converting some old drawings into a newer format. The help is really appreciated.

Each of the Scale and Scale Altitude models must be submitted with a 1:1 workshop drawing. The file I had was in a slightly different scale and needs to be slightly resized. If I had to re-draw the 24" x 48" drawing, it would take me a month. Instead, all I have to do is clean up some fonts and change the scale slightly. That's a big help, as I already feel the pressure of being behind where I should be.


James F. Faliveno
President
www.generalcadd.com
General CADD Products, Inc.
1 Railroad Avenue
Cherry Valley, N. Y. 13320 USA

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Family Help - Thanks!

Much thanks to my brother Miles, who contributed via PayPal. We sure appreciate the support of all our family and friends in this project.

Another Thank You - Performance Hobbies!

We sure would like to thank Ken Allen of Performance Hobbies, who graciously donated to the cause with some F25-4 motors. This will let us start test flying soon!

The S7 Scale Event

One of the events we were selected for the Scale event, where the goal is to model a real rocket, and then fly it. We will be flying 1/72 scale models of the Space Shuttle. Each modeler prepares a substantiation documentation that includes photos and drawings of the vehicle. The models are judged on scale accuracy (including the measurement of key attributes to .001”), likeness of color and markings, and flight characteristics. We plan to fly our models to a peak altitude of 600 feet, separate both RSRMs and let them parachute back, separate the Orbiter under rocket power and let it glide back under radio control, and return the ET via parachute as well. Each model has a small flight computer on board that senses peak altitude and controls the deployment of the parachutes. They are really miniature versions of the real thing.

Your help would be greatly appreciated. A donation to the Team Steele in order to offset some of our costs would be wonderful! I have set up a non-profit organization to accept donations, so anything collected will be 100% tax-deductable.

If you can help, please make your check payable to “Team Steele”, or go to our blog (www.TeamSteele.org) and make a donation via PayPal.

Thanks so much!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Thank you so much!

A big "Thank You" goes out to David J. Miller and Sirius Rocketry, LLC, who donated to the cause. I love David's kits, and will no likely be buying more after I get back from Belgrade.