June 6 Walcott, IA
Today we finally made it to our first launch with Tripoli Quad Cities since March. Due to weather we were unable to launch that day but today was different with great weather, and a nice group of people.
We'd just completed a new kit, a Binder Design Jaguar and Tannor picked it for our first flight.
The avionics bay was setup with a new battery and ejection charges were made. We then assembled the recovery systems and plastic rivets to complete the rocket.
Plans are for this to go up on an AT J350 later this month so for the maiden flight we decided on an AT I211 to shake things down. The flight was to be controlled by the RRC2 altimeter with no motor ejection.
Above the Jaguar on the pad is coming up to pressure. Kind of hard to see a dark green rocket on the pad with green grass in the back ground.
The motor pressure builds up and.......
We had the rail tilted just ever so slightly into the wind to try to get her back down on the sod. Boost was quick and straight, with just a little wobble right before motor burnout, then a long coast up and out of sight.
It went quick and I'd lost sight of it, after about 30 seconds I began to get worried as I was unable to hear the apogee charge fire. Drogue was a 12" nylon chute and I was starting to think it should be close to the ground by now and still I couldn't see it.
So the usual thoughts begin to go, there's one rocket, one altimeter, one motor casing gone...$$$ argh.. another 10 to 15 seconds.
Then I heard someone near the LCO table holler "There it is" I followed all the pointing hands with my eyes and caught sight of it coming down under drogue a couple hundred yards south of the pads. Watched it for a few more seconds then right on cue the RRC2 fired the main charge and the main deployed nicely for a nice soft touchdown on the sod.
Devin and I went to retrieve the rocket and upon our initial quick inspection everything was intact in excellent shape. The altimeter was beeping out an altitude of 3774' for our highest flight to date.
See video here.
A few more flights had gone up and then our launch neighbor was ready to put up his PML Miranda on an I357, I thought what better challenge for the new camera to see if we could get a picture of that lifting off.
Here she is on the pad.
And here she is lifting off, with some motors I'll get two to three in-flight pics, just depends on all circumstances involved but with this quick motor I got lucky and did get one nice one, the rest were all smoke trail. I have a higher resolution for the rocket owner when he just needs to contact me.
That flame is almost transparent against the light colored sky but she's moving out quick.
While some other flights were going off we started to prep the Spiderman rocket.
While doing this I saw something for the first time, that I didn't think I'd ever see. A Cessaroni Pro38 J330 CATO about 500' off the pad, the whole thing pretty much popped and came down in pieces. I got a quick glimpse of the casing after it was recovered and the top 4 inches or so were just peeled back like a banana. I've always heard of Pro 38's as being about the most dependable of motors so I was a bit surprised.
I wanted to go with an H128 or H164 on the Spidey rocket this weekend but seems as luck would have it as we started prepping the rocket the wind felt like it was picking up, and blowing of course right toward a "swamp" that a couple people had told me about. I didn't want to loose this one and even though Tannor was hollering for "more power" I got cautious and opted for the old reliable AT G64.
As usual another nice straight liftoff and soft landing on a 24" nylon chute, I've yet to be able to get an altimeter to fit into this bird but simulations from friends with rocsim show an altitude of close to 2000' with this motor.
After our Spidey flight there were a couple of individuals on the pads with cert flights ready to go.
First off was a nice Binder Excel Plus for a Level 1 cert attempt, you had to see it in person to see how nice the paint job was on this one, it was really nice.
Hey does anyone know what these wires are for??
Boy I hope we got those wires in the right place, hmmm
All set and ready to go and the nerves should have been coming up to pressure pretty quick as the rocket was. I don't recall what motor exactly was being used, it was an I redline but that's all I can recall.
On the pad and coming up to pressure.
And finally she's on her way, a nice straight boost and plenty quick it was a beautiful flight, a skyangle chute deployed at apogee for a great flight overall. Congrats!!!
I've got higher resolution copies of these pictures, if this is your rocket contact me and I'll get copies to you.
Right after that one another was ready, I don't recall if it was a Level 1 or 2 cert flight, this one was a PML Amraam 4 with a beautiful custom paint job. Again to the owner of this rocket I've got higher resolution pictures available just contact me if you'd like copies.
Here she is, one last look goodbye before heading back. Note the angle this rocket is at on the pad, you'll see something that I've come to find out from others is very characteristic of this bird in the following pictures.
Coming up to pressure and still angled. This next picture has been reduced in size a bit to make it easier to see the whole liftoff shot and the change in angle as the rocket self corrects.
Here you can see by the smoke trail that the rocket took off angled and at the top of the pic it's self correcting to a straight up flight. This one moved out quick for a very nice flight and chute deployed at apogee, I believe this one too was a successful cert flight.
Next up our launch neighbor decided to put his PML Black Brandt X up on an AT J350, well that gave me ideas so I went to the Vendor trailer and ended up with a few new items myself to include a J350. Unfortunately I was busy prepping the stretched Horizon for the J350 and didn't catch a picture of the Black Brandt flight, but it went up nicely for another nice flight.
We then prepped the Horizon with our newly built payload bay for a dual deploy flight. After setting up the rocket with a drogueless shock cord for apogee separation and a Rocketman R7C for a main we got the altimeter and ejection charges built and setup and the rocket put together.
Then we built up an AT J350 motor and got ready to head to the pad. We set the Horizon up on the rail and then armed the RRC2, which controlled the flight for a separation at apogee and a main at 500'.
Above the Horizon is coming up to pressure, should have turned the rail around for a better picture.
And up she goes on an AT J350 for a nice straight boost out of sight again, this time though I was able to hear the pop of the apogee ejection charge, and about 10 to 15 seconds later caught sight of it coming down drogueless right on cue.
At 500' the RRC2 fired the main charge and the R7C deployed nicely for a soft touchdown a couple hundred yards north of the pads. Upon reaching the rocket we found it with no damage and the altimeter beeping out an altitude of 3571'. Another nice flight for the Horizon.
At that point it was after 3pm and it had gotten pretty hot out, the kids were getting tired and hungry and I decided it was about time to pack it in and head home.
Overall a great launch for us and several others too, Congrats again to the successful cert attempts and all the other great flights.