Qoubba was the second rocket I build and was quite a major project for someone so inexperienced.
Construction
The body was made from a cardboard tube that I got from work which unfortunately did not have a standard inner diameter.
The nosecome was also non-standard in that it was made by hand using a foamboard frame and fiber glass to cover it. It was then given a smoother finish using P38 body filler.
The fins were originally going to be made of cardboard which would be fiber glassed but this idea got forgotten soon after I started trying to make them. I then decided to get them made out of Fiberglass sheet. The fins then got cut out and when placed beside the rocket I realised how stupid they looked as they were FAR to big (these didn't go to waste they were kept for the next big rocket which turned out to be KRY). Attempt number 3 at the fins finally suceeded. A new fin template was made and this was then used to make Plywood fins.
I also decided to make Qoubba able to take various sizes of motor. So I have interchangeable engine mounts. Which so far have been a waste of time as I jumped straight to the larger sized engine and doubt I'll ever put a smaller one in.
The rocket had standard parachute recovery using the motor ejection.
Flight History
1. Flown at IRW August 2000 and everything worked well but altimeter not in payload so no flight data recovered. Motor ?G-7W
2. Flown Pete's Farm Sept 2000 everything worked well but altimeter not in payload so no flight data recovered. Motor ?G-7W
3. Flown at Pete's Farm Jan 2001 and again everything worked well this time I glued the larger engine mount into place since I realised I'll never be flying this rocket on the smaller diameter engine. Also I decided to use a slightly lower powered engine in it this time since there was low cloud cover, so I picked a F20-4. It worked really well and was even filmed by a TV crew for the Discovery channel. It was also filmed by one of the MARS crew who has sent me the mpg which you can see here, and a still picture which is here. The rocket sim'ed to go to about 1100ft and seemed to go to at least 1000, so all in all the flight went well, except 2 fins came off on landing, or while getting dragged along the ground by the wind, but they came off cleanly so will be back on and flying again soon.
I have now decided to retire Qoubba as there was little chance of me fixing it as there was also a small hole in the nosecone.