Starfire construction began in late December 2003 and was completed in late April of 2004. It is based on a 7.5 inch (inside diameter) airframe and is over 12 feet tall.  It has a central 75mm motor mount and six 38mm out-board motor mounts.  It is also designed to carry a mini-DV camcorder for on-board flight video as well as a remotely controlled TV transmitter (pan and tilt) and a digital still camera module. 

Starfire is shown here ready for launch on its maiden flight at the Tripoli Idaho Swan Falls launch site on May 1, 2004.

This photo shows all the main parts of the booster section ready for assembly.  This was the state of Starfire on Feb 21, 2004.

The body tube has already been fiberglassed and the fin slots cut into it.  The five different bulkheads (centering rings) have been cut and drilled and the G10 fins have been cut and sanded.  All of the motor tubes, threaded rods and igniter wire tubes are cut to length.  Now it's mostly just a matter of putting it all together!

Here is a peek at the motor tube and fin can assembly process.  A plywood fixture is used to hold the main motor tube vertical and the fins are held in place by clamping them to the wood blocks that are secured to the round plywood plate.  This fixture is handy for holding the fins in exact alignment while the fiberglass and epoxy is applied to secure the fins to the main motor tube. Once the fins were in place, the out-board motor tubes were then added and epoxied.

View more photos of fin-can assembly.

Starfire can carry a camcorder in an electronics bay at the top of the booster section.  This is the mirror hood that allows the camcorder to look out and down the side of Starfire during liftoff.

The inside of each coupler tube also has two layers of fiberglass reinforcement.  This is a bit more tricky than fiberglassing the outside of a tube, but with a little care it can be done very successfully.

The body tube for the booster section was slotted so that it could slide over the top of the completed fin-can assembly and then be epoxied in place. 

The fin slots were cut with a router while the tube was held in a special fixture that also served as the router guide. The actual slots only took about 30 seconds to cut, but the building of the router fixture and the setup and alignment took all day!

Starfire was built in the standard antizipper configuration. However, a 1/2-inch wide steel reinforcement band was also added to the end of the body tube to add even more resistance to zippering just in case parachute deployment should ever occur in a "less than optimum situation".

Steel bands were also added to the Kevlar anchor straps on the parachute attachment harness.  This eliminates any possibility that the steel band on the body tube might cut through these Kevlar straps during a "less than optimum deployment".

Starfire has seven different bulkheads and centering rings inside it.  Almost all are made from 1/2-inch aircraft plywood.  This photo shows one of them being drilled out for the 38mm motor tubes.  The center hole is for the 75mm motor tube.

Starfire uses two MissileWorks RRC² altimeters. This photo shows them mounted to a wood block along with two power switches on extension arms.  These arms make it easy to access the switches through the altimeter bay vent holes.

The booster section on Starfire contains an electronics bay just above the end of the motor tubes. This electronics bay holds a mini-DV camcorder for capturing on-board flight video.  The bay also holds the timer electronics for igniting the out-board motors.  This photo shows how the timer switches are mounted for easy access through small holes in the side of the booster body tube.  One switch is for timer power, and the rest are arming switches that will connect the out-board motor igniters to the timer. The timer is a MissileWorks PET² Programmable Event Timer.

Starfire was designed to carry a camcorder in the electronics bay just above the motor section.  Originally an old "full sized" mini-DV tape based camcorder was used.  However, this was eventually replaced with a newer digital HD video camcorder that does not use tape but records directly to a secure digital memory card.

Starfire was designed to deploy a camera module from the forward payload bay at apogee.  The module contains two Canon S40 digital still cameras with 4-Mpixel resolution. The cameras each take about 120-150 photos while descending on parachute. 

Starfire was painted on April 19-22, 2004 at a local automotive paint shop.  The color is General Motors "Medium Red Metallic".  This photo shows the main airframe components after painting but before the yellow decals were added.  The camcorder lens hole can also be seen near the top of the coupler tube on the booster.  The camcorder mirror mount is difficult to see, but it is near the bottom on the section of long body tube.

This is a short video of the ground test for sizing the black powder ejection charges for Starfire. After trying several different sizes, I decided to use 6.0 grams. This video shows the results.  All of the recovery harness and parachute was packed inside Starfire just like it would be for flight. 

View high resolution video.  (1.7 MB mpeg2 file.)

The final touch was to install the two rail guides. This photo shows the parts for the rear rail guide sitting on the end of the booster just prior to final assembly.  These parts will screw into a threaded steel insert inside the rear bulkhead.  The aluminum motor retainer plate can also be seen at the end of the booster.