June 19 Pickrell, NE
We were in Pickrell, NE this weekend with The Heartland Organization of Rocketry (THOR) for their big summer launch, Nebraska Heat.
We had two main launches planned as well as many others. The main ones being the THOR on a full impulse J motor or a K motor and the Jaguar on an I284 both with dual recovery.
We arrived early as planned on Saturday morning and the weather looked like it was going to cooperate nicely with blue skies on the horizon.
Tannor got to pick the first rocket to fly so of course it was the Spidey rocket. We'd flown this rocket over and over on G64's and it was time to kick it up a notch so we decided on an H128-M.
Unfortunately the 20 oz rocket really moves out on an H128 and we were unable to get a liftoff picture. But here's Tannor with his favorite rocket before flight, can you tell he likes this one, notice the Spiderman shirt.
The flight was arrow straight with a very quick and straight boost and very good altitude, a nice way for us to start off the weekend.
Next up it was time to get Thor up and off the ground before the weather had time to change. With my run of bad luck on this rocket I was a little apprehensive about lofting it under K power and opted for a Pro 54 J295 a full impulse J that should push it to over 5,000, that seemed plenty high to get warmed up for a K motor later.
The THOR was prepped with dual deployment, drogueless at apogee and a Rocketman R7C main at 500'. After that was setup the J295 was acquired and built and we were ready to go.
Here's she is on the pad with a rack of other rockets. Unknown rocket on the far left, an upscale Der Red Max in the middle and THOR on the far right. Time to let them fly.
The first of three is off for a nice boost. Unfortunately once again I missed the DRM, I've had a couple chances now and not been able to catch a picture of it at liftoff.
So the DRM flew next for a nice flight and the THOR was up.
Coming up to pressure,
These motors don't have the flame and smoke that a white lightening does, but this one had a nice steady 4 second burn and up she went for a nice flight. It was out of sight for my eyes, but others had a track on it and called out separation at apogee. She then came down drogueless to 500' and deployed the Rocketman R7C parachute for a beautiful flight and recovery.
Awesome Video of this flight here.
Upon recovery everything was in excellent shape with no damage and the RRC2 altimeter was beeping out an altitude of 5,695', our highest flight to date. Now next time we have blue skies and low winds with an adequate launch field she will be going up under K power.
Next up we opted for an AT Initiator and an AT F40-7. This really is a nice little rocket/motor combination, and once again went off without a hitch for a nice flight. Allowed a little time to settle down after the last flight.
Now it was time to offer something up to the rocket gods as I was planning a high impulse flight on the Jaguar very soon I wanted to give something else up first.
I had an Estes Big Daddy built completely stock except for an extended motor mount which had been flying very nicely on E9's, I've got another one still in kit form, so I decided to go ahead and see if we could loose this one, that way I could build the other one with a 29mm mount and use it to practice fiberglassing on.
So we loaded it up with an AT F21-6 and took her out to the pad. Again this thing is built completely stock so while I had a feeling it would take the motor I also thought it had a chance of coming apart, so the flight card was marked for a heads up flight.
At ignition she roared up off the pad, and other than a bit of an arching flight it handled the motor fine for another nice flight.
Now it was time for our next dual deploy flight of the day, the Binder Jaguar on an AT I284. I'd flown this bird before with an I211 and it had a slight wobble at burnout, so not wanting to loose it or damage it I opted for the I284 instead of the J350 I'd been wanting to fly it on. I found that I'd had a couple of couplers that were just slightly loose and thought I'd figured out the reason for the wobble on the last flight. Those were tightened up, a coating of epoxy on one coupler with some coats of primer tightened it right up, the other was tightened up with 3 shear pins.
Dual deploy was setup for a 12" drogue at apogee and a 36" nylon chute at 500' for the main deployment, after everything was setup it was taken out to the pad.
Just prior to flight on the pad.
This is the last known picture of the Jaguar in undamaged form.. :-(
The Jag lifted off nicely for a straight boost and everything looked good, no coning or spiraling, then right before motor burnout it just bent right over, then came apart.
Everything was recovered and upon inspection no ejection charges fired, and it was found that the section of tubing directly under the avionics bay had just bent over.
You can see in the picture above the bent section, after it bent over the rocket just came apart, it cleanly tore the booster section into two pieces, the nosecone came off and then ran about a 12" zipper down the top section of tube until the kevlar line broke where it was knotted for the parachute swivel.
I've talked to Binder Designs already and they're going to help me get her rebuilt and ready to fly again. I must say Mike Fisher at Binder Designs has been a pleasure to work with on this rocket, any questions I've had he's been willing to help out and answer in a timely fashion as best he can.
He also has the same suspicion that I do about the weight of the avionics bay (16 oz) just being too much under high thrust for the body tube to handle. Had it not been there I'm pretty sure she would have flown fine and handled the motor fine in stock configuration.
That was it for our flying on Saturday. Below are some other flights from Saturday, if one of these is your flight please let me know the rocket and the motor used and I'll also be glad to send you full resolution copies of the pictures, they're compressed here a little bit to save on space.
Above rockets are being prepped for flight, center is Joe Michel with his scratch build Shockwave, being prepped for a K530 GG. Here I believe Joe is trying to figure out what goes in this end of the rocket. Hmmm
I guess he got it figured out right as here she goes, the Shockwave had a nice flight up over 5,700' with a successful dual deploy for a nice recovery.
Above Joe's 29mm Estes Executioner (left) lifts off in a drag race with another rocket.
Bill Richardson's PML Endeavour on an AT K695 Redline.
I liked this rocket as it reminded me of a Binder Raptor, but came to find out is was a scratch build called the Red Rogue, here it is lifting off under a Hybrid motor.
And again on it's way to a nice flight.
Well I was going to do both days on one page but this page has gotten huge so I'll add a second page for Sunday's reports and pictures.