Projected release date: Late June, 2008
Model Rocket Design & Construction
Written by: Timothy S. Van Milligan
Revised 3nd Edition, Copyright: 2008
P/N: 00111
Regular Price: $36.00
Pre-Order Price: $27.66
It is hard to believe it has been 13 years since I wrote the first edition of Model Rocket Design and Construction. Was it really that long ago? Sure enough, I just checked
my book, and it says copyright 1995. Five years later, I completed the second edition. I was really happy with the 2nd edition, as I added 40 pages worth of information. That book was 160 pages long, and I thought that there wasn’t much more I could put into it.
Last November I started putting together an outline of all the good stuff that I wanted in the third edition. In January of this year, I dedicated about four hours per day for the revision process. My goal was to add 20% more to it—about 30 to 40 more pages of new information.
I’m on the home stretch now with the revision. Last Wednesday, I finished the last major piece of writing that I had to do. There is still a lot of work to do, but it is mostly just clean-up work of editing, proof reading, and page layout.
The new book will be over 300 pages long. That’s 140+ pages more than the 2nd edition! What’s new in it, you ask? I did use a lot of the how-to construction articles that have appeared in the Peak-of-Flight Newsletter. Having all the information in one book is a lot easier than having to download the articles from the internet. And it will be in formatted in the correct sequence with the basic information that the book already contained.
But there is a lot of new stuff that has never been printed before. I wanted to make sure to do this, so you will have a good excuse to get a copy when the book comes
out in a few months. For example, the chapter on rocket construction techniques has a lot more information now; it went from 20 pages to 49 pages long!
One area that I put a lot of work on was classifying the different types of recovery systems used in model rocketry In past editions, this part of the book has become one of the most quoted/reviewed sections. I suppose it is because everyone that teaches rocketry to students has to cover the topic of recovery systems. The obvious place to look for
that information is in this book.
In the first edition, I had the basic categories that most everyone knows about. You know... parachute recovery, streamer recovery, nose blow recovery, tumble recovery, glide recovery, drag recovery, and helicopter recovery. I think Estes’ educational information didn’t have nose-blow and drag recovery, so in 1995 I felt personally proud that my little book had something that they didn’t have.
The second edition of the book added two more methods that weren’t previously classified, bringing the total to nine different recovery types. I was beaming with pride in 2000, because those two little types gave the book some serious sales appeal. But I was a bit crushed when some of the first reviewers gave away the secrets. Some even printed the pictures of them in their own educational publications. Those people won’t be reviewing the book this time around.
The third edition will have sixteen different categories! There are two new ones that I had to make up brand new words for, because they had never been classified. I can’t take credit for inventing the new recovery types, as I’ve seen other people fly them in the past. But I do take credit/blame for the new recovery-type names.
I will give you a glimpse of one of the new categories. I cheated... I broke glide recovery into two types: boost-glider and rocket-glider. I figure if the N.A.R. has a good reason for the distinction, that is good enough for my book.
The number of new line-art illustrations is something that I know you’ll cherish. It takes an incredible amount of time to make the line-art drawings compared to dropping in a photograph. But they are so much cleaner looking, and it is easier to emphasize the important stuff that rocket designers need to know. That is why I do them. I want you to design successful rockets. In fact, I redrew a large number of the old drawings because I felt that they weren’t good enough at explaining things.
I added a bit more on building high powered rockets. But Mark Canepa’s book Modern High Power Rocketry is so well done, that I decided to concentrate on other aspects of rocket design. If you don’t have Modern High Power Rocketry, get it. It is worth it!
Another new section I added in this book is how to accomplish successful parallel staging. You know... strap-on boosters! Everyone asks me about them, and I don’t think any other book covers this topic. So look for that too.
There is one completely new chapter in this book. It is about using your computer as a rocket design tool. You’ve probably read in the past that RockSim is a direct descendant of this book. Paul Fossey, the programmer of RockSim, read the first edition of this book, and was so inspired that he contacted me about writing a program to assist rocket designers. And from that, RockSim was born. Because of that, your PC has become probably the most important design tool in your arsenal besides your own brain. That makes it worthy to write about. So the new chapter describes all the neat things you can do to make better models with the help of your computer.
As I said, the majority of my work on the book is done. And it couldn’t come soon enough. You see, we’re just about out of copies of the 2nd edition. At this point, if you have the 2nd edition, you’ve got a nice collector’s item. I’m not going to reprint more copies.
I am now taking pre-orders for the 3rd edition. It is far enough along that I don’t want to make you wait. In other words, you are able to order it, and we’ll ship it when we get the printed versions (hopefully less than 3 or 4 months). While you’re waiting for that, I’ll send you a pdf version of the book on a CD-ROM as soon as the proofreading is complete (estimated 5/18/08). I know a CD-ROM isn’t as nice as a printed book, but I don’t like taking your money without sending you something in return. You know me by now... my integrity demands that of me, or it won’t let me sleep at night.
If you would like to place a pre-order now, I’m also going to give you a special price. The regular price will be $36.00, but I’m going to offer you the pre-order price of $27.66 -- which is what we’re currently selling the 2nd edition for. This pre-order price will not last very long, and after the web site is updated in a few weeks, we will not extend it to fence-sitters. The reason for the pre-order price is so I can get a little extra cash to pay the printing company. They want their money up-front before they print the books. Once they get paid, the pre-order deal will be over.
If you want to place a pre-order for the new 300+ page, 3rd edition of Model Rocket Design and Construction, you can do so right now. Scroll up a litle bit on this page where the preorder deal is listed.
You might as well get two or three... I’m sure you’ll want to donate one to your kid’s school and the local library.
