Several questions related to aerodynamics.... | Rocketry Forum

I think i have mentioned this before, but I am working on a 38mm min-dia rocket that I want to fly to mach 2. I am using a modified blackhawk from wildman.

I know that many people have flown things very like this, but I would like to not ust fly this rocket for fun, but also do some aerodynamic research with it.

When i was doing research before o started building i was found that there was very little hard data for aerodynamic heating for rockets for this size.
I foremost want to measure the temperature of nose and fins at different points. I have some questions on how to do this....
My goals are these
1 measure at multiple points on the fins for temp. at at least 10 samples per second. question: is there a color changing paint based on heat that is possible to use, or is there some small digital thermocouple data logger
2 do the same with the nosecone.
3 See if a nose aerospike would be feasible and if it would really reduce drag fro something this small. Is this practical?

any ideas on how to do these things, and how to make them practical from a cost and size (38mm) perspective?

Thank you all

Julian With respect to number three, an aerospike is only used where you have some other constraint on the shape of the missile. The most famous case being the Trident D-5. Its length is constrained by the hull diameter of the Ohio class submarine, which had already been set by the time the D-5 project started. The diameter was constrained by the launch tube diameter. To get the required range they needed a certain amount of propellant, this in turned pushed the ordnance package up, this made it impossible to get a decent Haack nose. Thus the aerospike. You never see aerospikes on pad launched missiles because they don't have the length constraint.

This paper, https://www.cs.odu.edu/~mln/ltrs-pdfs/aiaa-95-.pdf, shows some interesting data at Mach 6 but doesn't comment on whether the observed drag was higher or lower than an equivalent length Haack series.