April 24 and 25, 2004 Whitakers, NC
This was the annual TRF launch at Whitakers, NC.
After a 22 hour drive we arrived at my brother's house in Virginia Beach, Va on Friday morning. So do we hit the rack and catch up on some sleep?
Ahh heck no it's time to start prepping and going over rockets and equipment.
After some prep the children were taken to the beach for a while. With that complete it was back home for a little more prep and dinner, afterwich I finally got my brother to watch the movie October Sky.
Matt's L2 Flight
Saturday morning we were up early and off to Whitakers where we arrived around 9 am and began setting up and preparing to launch. The weather was partly cloudy with a bit more wind than we wanted but it was good enough to launch.
Matt was ready first and took his Thor out to the pad. Above he's turning on the altimeter and getting ready to go.
Unfortunately my camera person person was ill this morning and I ended up not getting a good liftoff pic. Here is what we got however.
Here you can see Matt's Thor coming up to pressure with an AT J420R. After this pic it roared to life and up to an altitude of 2325 ft. The RRC2 altimeter worked flawlessly separating the rocket at apogee and deploying the stock 45" parachute at 800' for a successful Level 2 flight.
Video of Matt's Level 2 flight here.
Jason's L2 Flight
Next up I was ready for my attempt. Same rocket different motor, I was going with an AT J350 White Lightening motor.
Here's Thor 2 on the pad and ready to go.
Once again the certification flight bug bit me however and things did not go as planned. We had a nice liftoff with no motor adapter problems this time, I learned from last time.
Above Thor 2 is lifting off nicely on an AT J350.
Video of liftoff here.
I decided to go drogueless at apogee with the main at 800 on this flight, at apogee the RRC2 separated the rocket fine without a hitch. I plugged the forward closure and relied solely on the altimeter for this flight.
At 800 feet however the main did not deploy and the Thor slammed into the ground. Once again no certification.
The payload tube was crinkled and the booster suffered a loose bottom fin as well as a slight crinkle in the body tube.
So with a round trip of 2500 miles to try to certify for level 2 I was not going to be deterred, adapt and overcome was the plan.
So adapt and overcome it was, a little testing on the Thor's payload tube found it to still be plenty strong regardless of the crinkle, we couldn't fly the booster with a loose fin as it would create fin flutter and probably shake the rocket apart. So........
Thorizon was born...
Here I am waiting for an open rail with the new Thorizon. Photo courtesy of Eric Fadley. I simply took the booster section of my 4" BSD Horizon and mounted the top sections of Thor 2 on top of it.
Again the plan was for the altimeter to do all the work, forward closure was plugged and drogueless separation at apogee with a main at 800 ft was the plan.
My only worry at this point was that the crinkled payload bay would hold sufficiently, about a second after the above picture I was feeling confident and it sailed upward to a height of 3,326 feet.
Video of flight here.
At apogee the rocket separated and began it's descent. At 800' the RRC2 fired the main charge and the Rocketman R7C parachute came out and fully inflated for a nice soft touchdown.
That pretty much concluded our flying for the first day.
April 25, 2004 Whitakers
Day two found us with plans to get a few more flights up and in the books.
First flight for me on this day was the BSD Sprint on an AT G64-7. The 4 second delay had been too short previously so we tried the 7 this time. The delay was just a second or two too long this time but it worked ok without damage.
Matt then flew his 4" Diablo on a G64 for a nice flight.
Next up it was time for a little drag racing and we both prepped our 3" Horizon's for G64 flights. Both flew nicely with Matt's coming off the pad first, of course he was on a rail while I was stuck on a rod.
Dionne's Level 1 Cert Flight
After that Dionne was ready to go for her Level 1 Cert flight.
Above Dionne's Dale Earnhardt Jr. paint schemed BSD Horizon is prepped and ready to go, momma's little helper has ok'd everything. The stuffed bear will go for a ride in this rocket.
Loading in the Dale Jr. bear who will descend with his own 18" parachute.
Tannor helps mom carry the rocket out to the pads, I'm excited as well as Tannor while mom looks at it as a routine day.
About ready to go Dionne attaches the leads to the H165 Redline motor. Still showing no signs of nervousness.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1......
The button is pushed and the motor comes to pressure and begins to lift the rocket up and off the pad.
It's off and on it's way to a nice flight, at apogee the 6 second delay deploys the parachute as well as ejecting the bear out who descends nicely on it's own parachute.
Video of flight here.
And down it comes under a fully deployed chute, luckily she over built the rocket immensely as it landed squarely on the paved road, yet everything held together fine with nothing but cosmetic damage to the paint.
Successful Level 1 Certification flight for Dionne, Congratulations!!
After this flight the Sprint got another flight this time with the H165 Redline, a beautiful quick and straight boost and deployment at apogee with the medium delay for another nice flight on the Sprint.
We also flew my 4" Horizon on a H165 Redline to test out a homemade parachute that Matt's wife made, basically a Rocketman style chute, it performed flawlessly.
Video of Horizon on H165R here.
Video of recovery under home made parachute here.