Atmospheric Test Vehicle

Name:	Atmospheric Test Vehicle
Designation:	OZY-002
Type:	Flying Mock-up
Recovery System:	Parachute
Builder:	William Boersma
Project:	Project Ozymandias
Maiden Flight:	1 May 2022
Status:	Active

Ozymandias Atmospheric Test Vehicle (OZY-002)

The Ozymandias Atmospheric Test Vehicle (OZY-002), or ATV for short, is a simple cardboard mock-up in the shape of Project Ozymandias vehicles, but with out the aethstetics of the MEP mock-up. It is however, outfitted with Propeller #1 that will be used eventually on the MVV for it's first flight.

Construction and First Flights

I built and flew the ATV on the same day I bought the propellers. I didn';t really feel like going to bed, and couldn't gte my mind of the idea of an ATV, simp,ly because I had so much fun tst flying the car version during the day and I wanted to do that with a mock-up of the Ozymandias. I used two toilet paper tubes, cut-out pieces of a Domino's breadstick box (the same as the MEP) and Gorilla tape. I also used a paper to attach the propeller, which conviently had little loops for it from the original mounting scheme from the toy. I then wrestled in my mind, wanting to fly it but also knowing I wanted to go to bed and not risk waking anyone up woith the propeller. Eventually I gave in and gave it ago, sure that most were asleep fast enough to not hear.

Since I didn't add any mass simulators, it was able to fly up very easily, almost as easily as the original toy! However, it always imediatly veered off to the side and hit something so it never really got to get very high. The problem seems to be that the propelle can't sit straight in the tube, and there for the thrust vector is off center. I think this is a problem with my make shift paper clip attachment system, but I will have to find a way to secure it to the piston base.

Subsequent Flight Testing

The next night, I made some modifications, including a mass simulator and a second paperclip going perpendicular to the other one to keep it straight. This helped alot, but it still went off to the side, possibly because the cardboard fins were not straight, or it caught on the floor, or any other reason. However, my brother Adam Boersma had the idea to start with it in the air and drop it. This made perfect sense, as the actual Ozymandias will not be taking off either, but landing while already in the air. When we tried this, it worked much better. In fact, it came done quite slow and stable, but toppled over due to some horizontal velocity.

Then we took it outside for some more room, and we were able to keep it flying a little longer, but it tstill was not very controllable in the horizontal plane and ultimatly went downwards. This was ok, as it was all that the real Ozymandias really needed to do anyway.

Ejection Piston Test Vehicle Concept

The OZY-002 designation was originally given to a planned Ozymandias Ejection Piston Test Vehicle (OZY-002), or EPTV for short, which would have been the second rocket made as part of Project Ozymandias and tested the ejection piston that would allow the helicopter blades to deploy out of the body tube, before actually putting propellers into the equation. What the MVV was to parachutes, the EPTV was to the piston. Of course, the idea of making the entire nosecone removable for easy access to the piston meant that this would be done on the MVV, so the EPTV was canceled, and the OZY-002 designation was used for the ATV.

See Also

• Modification Validation Vehicle (MVV), the previous vehicle in Project Ozymandias.
• Ozymandias II, the subsequent vehicle in Project Ozymandias.

Flight Group Log

Instead of a "Flight Log," I am calling this a "Flight Group Log" because every time I fly the ATV I technically take-off and land multiple time, which would each count as a seprate flight, but I don't feel like recording these simple tests to that degree, especially since there is little differences between them. A "weighload" is a term that as far as I know I came up with that means "mass simulated" or the type or weight of a mass that doesn't serve any purpose except to affect the CG in the same way a payload would.

Image Gallery

Updated 5/6/2022 by William Boersma