I made my first attempt at F79-D9 at the last Tripoli WI launch. Beautiful day. No second stage ignition, and also no separation, so the stack was recovered without damage.
On the pad with my elder son.
View attachment 341391
Flight line video
https://youtu.be/Sbc2BstlnRc
The lack of staging turned out to be a PICNIC problem. I hadn’t updated my sim with the real masses, and it turns out I had the airstart altitude check set too high. Velocity check -might- have been okay. For that matter, the F79 booster stays so low that the Quantum minimum airstart altitude is an issue. But I have this G88 handy here...
Sim is now updated, and now matches the data from both prior flights pretty well. There’s a half second mismatch that lingers, I suspect my avbay isn’t vented well enough.
I’ve also fixed a few outstanding issues:
I’ve CA’d down the spot where the fin papering lifted.
I’ve received my 300mAh, 45C, Cris-recommended Lopo, and tested it against several igniter types with great success.
I’ve addressed needing more pyro events on a full-up I-G flight by putting a Quark in the PNC60NA Apache nosecone. Mini HED!
And I’ve added vent holes for the avbay.
Time to try again.