4" Black Brant X

I absolutely love the Black Brant X kit. Maybe flying a K535 without fiberglassing the rocket was not my brightest idea, though.

The rocket was painted identically like the cover photo. Flew on a AT J540R too 2883 feet at 360fps roughly 225 mph. Pad weight 11 pounds 2 Oz. The rocket was completely fiberglassed. Also had an extra 17” payload section holding a android phone using the insane rocketry app on a custom 3D printed cradle. For deployment I used a redundant Av Bay using a rrc2+ and eggfinder quantum. 24” Drought chute and a 6’ Bama NASA inspired chute that brought everything down at 17fps. Successful Level two certification with Tripoli!!!

I purchased the 4″ LOC BBX for my L2 certification. I went back and forth on a few rockets and settled on this. It’s well built, uses familiar LOC methods, and heavy enough to avoid a very high altitude flight. I built the fin-can outside of the rocket, used the Z-clips for retention, and after some debate included the baffle. This allowed me to reach down to the shock cord mount.

I ordered a few extra couplers and coupler-stacked the booster section up to the baffle, and again over the baffle up to the payload coupler. Given the large tube volume I also included an e-bay with an apogee event in addition to the motor ejection charge.

The only change to the building process I made is around the canards. I installed a coupler behind the slots, cut through it where the Body Tube slots are for the canards, and then glued a LOC “Stiffy” inside. This allowed me to glue the canards to the Stiffy. I also went with a 72″ parachute, in part because the launch field is at 10,000 feet, and in part due to the extra weight.

The certification flight went great on a J180T! I now have it set up for dual deploy and am planning a flight on a K270 in the near future!