I am currently Tripoli Level 2 certified.

Tripoli 9672.

I obtained my Level one certification in May of 2003. It seemed like it was going to be pretty easy but as fate would have it, it wasn't that simple.

Our first attempt was on the BSD Sprint. A delay blowby in a motor ended that rather quickly. You can see the Sprint page for details.

A few motor problems and damaged rockets later I obtained my Level one certification with my BSD Horizon. You can see the details of the flight on the Horizon page.

I will be attempting my Level 2 certification in March or April of 2004 with the BSD Thor.

Stay tuned for details.

Level 2 Certification Successful 4-24-04

After much preparation a second attempt was made at the Whitakers TRF launch April 24, 2004. Things did not go as planned but with a little adapting I was able to get my Level 2 certification.

Here's a few pictures of the initial attempt Saturday morning.

Thor 2 on the pad and ready to liftoff, plan is boost by AT J350, drogueless deployment at apogee with main at 800 ft.

We got a nice liftoff, good boost, at apogee we had good seperation and it continued down drogueless. However at 800 ft the main did not deploy due to a shorted ematch and it planted into the ground hard.

Video of boost click here.

I did not trim the exposed wires of the ematch so while on the pad they were ok, the boost caused them to shift down and touch, shorting the main's ematch.

Damage was done to the payload bay with a significant crinkle and the booster sufferred a lossened fin and a crinkle.

So what to do?  We had access to another J350 thanks to my brother and decided to give it another go. This took a little adapting though. The upper half of Thor 2 was deemed flight worthy but the loose fin on the booster was not, so we needed a lower section.

I then decided to combine the 4" Horizon's booster section with the upper section of Thor 2 and hence the Thorizon was born.

The plan was the same again, boost by an AT J350, drogueless at apogee to a main at 800 all controlled by the RRC2 altimeter, no motor ejection.

The payload section still had that slight crinkle but it was able to hold alot of weight upon testing it before flight, so it was the only part I was worried about.

Video of flight here.

About a second after this picture at motor burnout I was finally confident that everything would work out ok. The payload tube held, seperation at apogee was fine and at 800 ft the main deployed the Rocketman R7C parachute for a soft touchdown.

Video of recovery here.

Not really the way I wanted to do it, but I was still able to get the cert with basically a BSD kit which is what I wanted to do.

So the flight that actually certed was attempt #3, same as my level one attempts. There's more info, pics, and video's on the launches page under the 2004 Whitakers launch.

To see the original Level 2 Cert attempt click here.

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