I finally got my Cyclone painted, and I launched it today. Click here for the launch report. It's a beauty in action. I probably should have chosen a better color scheme, but I was evidently influenced by Jonathon Mills' photos of his rocket.

I have revised the plans to show the correct grain direction on the "Spin Unit Main Fin." You can download my plans below:

	Cyclone-Plans-1.1.odt OpenDocument format (OpenOffice.org Writer)
	Cyclone-Plans-1.1.pdf PDF format (Adobe Reader)

Tonight I finished assembling my Cyclone, and I'm quite happy with it despite one glaring error. Take a look at the closeup of the first picture at right...

... yup, I screwed up the grain direction for the "Spin Unit Main Fin." No, I didn't mark it wrong when I cut the balsa, it's actually wrong in the plan I published. I'll get a revised version put together this weekend, hopefully. I'll probably soak the edges of the fins with CA before I paint this rocket, and hopefully that will reinforce the otherwise weak edge.

When I punched the vent hole in the upper sustainer, I also punched a half-circle out of the lower end of that same tube. I glued the half-circle to the exposed coupler of the stabilizer unit to ensure that the rocket will stay lined up while being handled. I also glued the launch lug to the stabilizer unit, aligned with this "alignment key," rather than gluing it along the spin unit main fin as given in the original plans. I think the result is visually superior.

Sadly, it will likely be months before I can paint or launch this sweetheart...

Last night I started building my Cyclone; mainly, I just cut the BT-20 tube sections out and glued up the engine mount.

My revised instructions (see below) call for a selection of Semroc parts, but my parts inventory consists of items from Semroc and Uncle Mike, including engine mounts by Sunward. I must say, I'm not overly impressed with their 13mm to BT-20 mount; I couldn't get the engine tube to go through the centering rings. Yes, I could sand or peel the inside, but I shouldn't have to do that.

I sorted through my collection of 18mm thrust rings and found that most of them made better BT-5 to BT-20 centering rings than the Sunward rings did. So I swapped them out.

The picture shows the engine mount as assembled by me. I did not follow my own directions in fitting the centering rings; rather, I used the coupler (shown in the upper left) to push the upper ring to the right position, then glued the slit lower ring in place flush with it. I slid the upper ring off, then glued it back on after the slit ring was firmly in place. I probably could have gotten away with not slitting the ring since it sets relatively far back, but it should work fine this way.

Some time back while looking for rocket plans online, I found the Cyclone rocket. It looks like a great deal of fun to build and fly, but I found the format of the directions difficult to work with (not easy to print out, no fin templates, and so on). Finally, I decided to create my own version of the plans to this rocket.

As of right now, I have NOT built this model, so if you download and use my plans, understand that things may or may not work as expected. There is no warranty... use these plans at your own risk.

(Please see above for the revised plan downloads.)

If you are looking for the original Cyclone rocket plans, I'm sorry, but it seems they are no longer on the Internet; at least, they aren't where I found them originally, and I can't find another source.