LDRS page is coming together with photos and video. Check back periodically; I'll update as things come in.

Thanks to Advanced Composites Group, we have carbon fiber for the rebuild!

What's it all about?

During a trip to visit my wife's family, I happened to bring a copy of Peter Alway's Rockets of The World, which I planned on flipping through, looking for a project. During the drive up, my wife decided to pull the book out and was flipping through it. I mentioned that I wanted to find something to make a project out of, when Deb found the Delta series of rockets. Deb took a look and thought the Delta II looked pretty cool. With further discussion, and some research, the switch was made to a Delta III. Why? Because we could, although Deb still claims she never agreed to the switch.

So, now we had a project. The question was what scale? I decided to go with 7.5" boosters, which made the lower airframe 16" and the upper 26". That gave us an idea of size, which also helped in determining what this beastie would cost. Now we're looking at a few thousand dollars, which means a decent sized team, to keep it affordable.

One of the first calls went to Pat Gordzelik, to see if he would be willing to make the motors. Pat, being the gullible sort, jumped right in. Once he was committed, he began to realize just what he had agreed to...

Once Pat was on board, the project had a chance of moving forward, as going with commercial motors was not economically feasible. Cesaroni makes a really nice O motor, but it's $2,500 for the reload alone, which would really skew the budget. Now I started talking with various club members, starting with a few whose select skills were critical to such a project, and making it successful. After that, I added folks to the team to round it out nicely. So, now you know the history of the project.

"Yes, I regret the day I opened the book and said, 'Hey, that one looks cool!'" -Deb