Fragile: Handle with care 2

Hello all,

For those of you who saw our website you know about Fragile: Handle With Care I (10 A8-3s, 3 C6-3s), well we said hmmmmm....and then there were two. FHWC2 is not only the second FHWC but also a 2 stager check out the irony. Anywho, the booster was made from Marv's old "Poop 'Chute" rocket (made with a mailing tube, AeroTech fins and other stuff), and Giant Leap parts. It also had a rear ejection design (not the original rear ejection used in the rocket when it was the Poop 'Chute). It carried a central G35 (instead of G69 because the rear ejection system had a 29mm motor mounted in a 38mm tube, and the other G69 was used in another rocket ) surrounded by 10 -count 'em- 10 C6s. The sustainer sported the last G69 in Marv's possession. We used a BP flashpan to light the C's in the booster, and the G used a QB Twiggy. My PerfectFlite mini timer was to light the upper stage with a QB Hot Shot e-match (using a break wire for timer initiation since I dont have a G-switch...yet...). The only igniter in the booster was the Twiggy in the G and there was not one in the pan so that if the G didn't ignite, nothing would. We hoped for a chuff or sparks from ignition to light the pan and...it did! The G began to light, and as it did the pan lit and so did the C's. The rocket roared to life and leapt off the pad on ALL the Cs and the G! It burned for about 3.5 secs total with the C's burning out at about 1.5 secs. There was a VERY suspensfull delay of around a second, and then WHOOSH the upper stage ignited and successfully separated from the booster, and flew of in an arc to the left with a bit of spin. It flew beautifully to apogee. Now for recovery...that's another story... The booster used rear ejection with a 18 in nylon 'chute. Unfortunately the chute got caught in the tube and didn't come out and the booster made a "picture perfect" lawn dart about 6 inches deep. Its in decent shape, but we were gonna hopefully build a new booster anyways. The sustainer, on the other hand, ejected perfectly at apogee with a 36 inch nylon chute and returened undamaged within easy walking distance in the field. After prepping for 3 hours during the day I am glad that it worked so well. I know, I know, "we need pics! we need pics!" Well, I'll get ya'll some dont worry It will be later this week. Sorry for the long message but, you know...

-Chris H. (one very happy dude)
Marv, too (another very, very happy dude)

......heh...wheres the pics?

Its Picture time These are vid caps. Enjoy.

-Chris H.

Claering the rail.

Passing the sun.

Sustainer ignition.

Sustainer spiraling over head.

Sustainer under parachute.

Bosster in ground.

Chris,
The stills came out really nicely! The flight was incredible. I just wish I coulda made it out to today's launch Oh well, yesterday was awesome!

This was from when we were loading it on the rail so it is relavent (Thats my head there). We fly on a landing strip and the guy that works there has a plane...'nuff said.

-Chris H.

Great pics RF...glad it went well for you man...nice flight!

Carl

Nice pics...the flight looked perfect.

I am probably gonna look like an idiot here but, what is flashpan ignition...I have never heard of it before and I am interested in the detials.

Ryan,

A flashpan is a device used to set off multiple motors (Black Powder motors only) with the use of only one igniter. This eliminates the need for clip whips or the use of lots of igniters. A pan is placed under the rocket, we use a 4inch PVC pipe endcap because its cheap and it works, and then it is coated in a layer of the flash mix. In mine and Marv's experience we have come to the conclusion the Black Powder works most reliably above all the rest. In ours in the above post we had a G in the center and so it at least needed an igniter because composites need to be lit at the top. What we hoped for was a chuff of sparks from it to light the pan before it came up to pressure and it did. If you only have BP motors (ex. FHWC 1) you can just put a single igniter in the pan, in the center below the motors works best, and that will ignite all of the BP and then (usually) all of the motors. Just make sure that there is no clay in the nozzles or anything like that that could obstruct the flames from reaching the propellant. One more thing, don't use too much BP (yes, there is such a phrase ) 'cause if you do you will end up with a very crispy rocket!

-Chris H.

Ryan,
You don't sound like an idiot. Many people use flashpan ignition to light Estes motor clusters. It mainly avoids one thing: igniters. A flashpan is simply sitting your rocket on top of a "pan" (we used a 5" PVC end cap) that is taped or fitted to the bottom of the launch pad. The rockets' tail is usually 1-3 inches from the bottom of the pan. We fill the inside of the pan with a thin layer of black powder (and before we put in the BP we tape an igniter or e-match to the middle). Simply light the igniter, which in turn lights the pan, and then the exhaust from the burning BP goes into the motors' nozzles and lights them...it also makes a spectacular liftoff shot, too It's a great (and very cool way) to light Estes motor clusters...especially large clusters. We've (we being me and rocketfreak) used this method successfully several times. We only didn't light one motor, which was a C6 in a 9 motor cluster. That is with blackpowder, though. Twice we tried a KNO3/Mg powder....WAY to powerful and weak at the same time. Basically, unreliable. It lit so fast and hot once it torched rocketfreaks' "Orion" on 2 A10's and a C6 (we got some awesome pics of that), and the 2nd time we used it it was too weak and only lit 3 out of 9 motors in my first 9 motor cluster attempt. From then on we've used blackpowder, and it works great. For the rocket mentioned in this thread (FHWC2), though we used a slightly different method of igniting the flashpan. We wanted to make sure that the central G35W came up to full pressure at launch so we didn't have a landshark. So we lit the G35W with a Quickburst Twiggy igniter and hoped that the ignition flames or a chuff from the G igniting would light the powder....at any rate, the G was guaranteed to light or not at all. This worked great, and as the G came up it lit the flashpan, which in turn lit the C's and every thing came up to pressure right on time and the rocket lifted off through a spectacular cloud of exhaust produced by the flashpan. Well, I hope that explained flashpan ignition well enough. Tell me if you'd like me to email you flashpan launch pics or not. I'd be happy to. I also did attach a picture of a flashpan so you can see how one is setup!
Hope it helped!