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Got the HellBoy prepped with 19x E9 engines.

Added 8oz nose weight to compensate for the additional engine weight, as compared to the usual load of mostly or all D engines.
Will use the usual flashpan ignition method with this cluster.

As Robert DeHate said at a previous LRDS "This is LDRS, go big"

Heading off to LDRS in about an hour....

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Boris, your projects are definitely one of the highlights on this forum. You gotta love big BP clusters :)
 
Boris, you may have mentioned this earlier... what is the purpose of all the tape on your motors? The last photo shows exquisite taping of all motors beyond anything I've ever seen.

Ari.
 
Boris, you may have mentioned this earlier... what is the purpose of all the tape on your motors? The last photo shows exquisite taping of all motors beyond anything I've ever seen.

Ari.

I hope that Boris does not mind my providing a response. The tape serves as his thrust ring for the motors. I LOVE the effect it has on the loaded motor view.
 
Ah, I see! This is much prettier than anything I've done. I usually just trim the dangling tape with an exacto knife.

Ari.

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I hope that Boris does not mind my providing a response. The tape serves as his thrust ring for the motors. I LOVE the effect it has on the loaded motor view.

Absolutely correct.

As I often have many motors to prep, thrust rings with 3/4" masking tape work well with 24mm motors.
Narrowest tape that is widely available and cheap.
Prepped 66 motors like this for LDRS.
Didn't fly many of them due to weather.

The TOGinator's "motor bikinis" have thrust rings at the back with 3-4 wraps of tape.
Then motor are inserted in rocket and double layers of tape bind the tops of the motors in place.

Was going to fly the TOGinator Saturday at LDRS but that was rained out, so it will fly at CMASS in Amesbury in August.

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LDRS 34 - Thursday 6/25/15 - Potter, NY

LDRS was lot of fun.
Thanks to the many good folks that put the event together.

Unfortunately the weather was a challenge, with clouds reducing the flight ceiling at times on Thursday and Friday.
Then rain on Saturday and Sunday closed those days to flying.
While the event flew again on Monday, I had returned to work.

Pictures of cool flights from Thursday below.
If anyone recognizes their rocket, please let me know and I'll gladly email you more pictures.

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I prepped Sky Hook in the morning, but the cloud ceiling prevented high altitude flights at noon when I finally had it ready.

So the Midnight Express was prepped and lifted off on an L820 Skidmark (CTI 75mm 3grain motor).
This was a repeat of this rocket's first flight on the first day of LDRS 31.

It is a great motor for this rocket, with an insane amount of fire and smoke spewing down beneath it.

Late in the afternoon, the Midnight Express flew to just over 2800ft at a peak of 340mph.
The rocket is 10in diameter x 68 inches tall, 38lbs liftoff weight, 3.4x Big Daddy.

On the way up, it passed very near another rocket coming down under chute (pic 5)

It deployed all chutes at apogee, was supposed to descend to 700ft first.
May add a couple more shear pins for main retention going forward.
Also cracked a fin on touchdown, so a little more epoxy and fiberglass repairs to be done...

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LDRS 34 - Friday 6/26/15 - Potter, NY

Fun flights from that morning.

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Then I sent up the HellBoy on 19x E9 motors.

Nearly a full I BP flight.
Rocket was just under 10 lbs flight weight.
5.6in diameter upscale FatBoy.

The flashpan started the fire and smoke, and the 19x E9's kept it going from there.
One E9 CATO'ed - blew out its nozzle with a loud pop - just after liftoff, but the flight continued well.

All motors fired, and the rocket went just past 930ft and deployed a pair of chutes for a clean recovery.

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And still more.
Again if anyone want pics of their rocket please message me.

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Wow! I was going to say "beautiful flights" after the first batch, but I kept scrolling and scrolling, and the beautiful photos kept coming and coming!

Thank you for posting these, they are a delight.

Ari.
 
Then I prepped the Sky Hook for flight and got it on a rail.

There were multiple delays due to problems with event launch electronics, and repeated openings and closings of high altitude launch windows not coinciding well with times when the right side was hot to fly.
As a result, Sky Hook was on the rail waiting to fly for four hours.
The onboard camera battery died despite me turning it off when I could.
I replaced the battery in the pad camera and deleted some clips from its memory, but that camera struggled with the extended delays as well.

Finally, one minute before the final closing of the high altitude window, Sky Hook was launched.
It shot into the sky pulling 60G's accelerating at the rate of 1000+mph per second.

The speed was explosive and the flight path was arrow straight.

First two pictures were at 0.3 second, about 80ft off the pad and already 370mph.
Second is a closeup, showing 6ft of intense flame, close to 400lbs of thrust.
Rocket is 4ft long, 54mm minimum diameter, 7lbs at liftoff.

Third pic is video screen grab, which shows change in smoke pattern as the rocket passes through mach at
0.6 seconds into flight, 330ft up and accelerating past 760mph.

There was a very pronounced boom as the rocket blasted through mach.

Fourth pic is at 1.3 seconds, at about 1500ft and about to hit mach 2, over 1500mph.

Last pic is a RockSim chart of predicted altitude, speed and acceleration.

Unfortunately, the rocket was not seen again after liftoff.
There was a tracker on board.
The rocket was supposed to fly to about 13,500ft and separate for a drogueless recovery, deploying a 3ft main at 700ft.

It turns out someone else at the field was using a tracker with the same frequency, so that wasted the first two hours of searching, until that was turned off.
Then I walked for another couple hours, until it got dark, chasing faint tracking signals that never became strong.

Flew the Turbine Rocket Saucer at the night launch on 6x D11-P engines.

Then came back on Saturday and walked the field for another three hours in the rain.
Walked back and forth through chest deep grass in a wet gully where the signal mysteriously seemed to lead to and then die.
Thanks to Howard G. for helping in the attempted recovery.

Last pic shows the K1440 54mm 6grain motor next to the rocket, half the length of the rocket and 60% of liftoff weight.

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A couple last pics from LDRS.

My car FULLY loaded.

AMW out in force at LDRS, with Gloria's awesome rocket flown previously on an O3400 for her L3.
Talk about going big...

I had a great time despite not recovering one of my rockets.
Will stay in touch with the folks at URRG in case someone finds it.

Had to drive home for work on Monday.

Will post video shortly.

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Wow sorry to hear about the lost rocket, maybe make some Mennonite boy real happy one day. I got to see your flash pan and the Mach 2 flight, very impressive!
 
Sorry you didn't get to fly the TOGinator at LDRS but I'm real happy to hear it will be going up in Amesbury again.

Yes, the TOGinator was past due for repairs and to fly again.
I was surprised to look back and see it hadn't flown for four years.
Looking forward to sending it up at Amesbury.
 
Got video of my 4 flights edited

[video=youtube;GW3ctQqpb8o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW3ctQqpb8o[/video]
 
Data from Featherweight Altimeter Raven for two flights.
Unfortunately my other Raven flew away with the Sky Hook...

Midnight Express on CTI L820 Skidmark
speed 340 mph
altitude 2832 ft
acceleration of 6 to 8Gs during motor burn

HellBoy on 19x E9
speed 155 mph
altitude 932 ft
initial acceleration over 6Gs tailing off to 3Gs towards the end of the long burn.
Can see an acceleration spike when one of the E9 motors blows out its nozzle at 0.5 seconds.

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After getting back from LDRS, posting pictures and video and doing some clean-up, it was time to move some more projects closer to flight.

The 4' LOC V2 that suffered due to no ejection event earlier this year, required a complete rebuild of the mid-section.

> used a Dremel to create a clean end to the 38mm motor tube
> set up several small sections of 6oz fiberglass, short section of 38mm motor tube, centering ring and about 10in length of 1/8in Kevlar line
> placed a medium length 38mm engine tube wrapped in wax paper in the existing motor tube to assure alignment of repairs
> epoxied all parts together (West 206 slow) rebuilding fin can
> Kevlar line forms epoxy-saturated recovery attachment point, and has 3x layers of FG wrapped over its base below the centering ring

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> epoxied and clamped flat a damaged fin tip
> wrapped 4in LOC tubing with 3x layers of 1oz fiberglass
> Trimmed this down to 13in length, 2in longer than original V2 kit
> bonded these using 206 with some thickener
> next day, used a few quick small buildups of 5 minute Bondo to create smooth transition over repair area
> attached rail button "pedestal"
> wiped inside of rocket motor and body tubes with 206 epoxy thinned with alcohol to physically and fire harden internal rocket surfaces.

Slightly extended body tube to have more room for recovery, and to make rocket a little bigger while still being light enough to fly well on a G at a low power launch,
Now rocket dimensions are more scale to the Russian R2 (NATO designation SS2) or the Canadian Arrow.
Both are slightly stretched evolutions from the V2.

Complete airframe (middle picture) is 38oz and 4in dia x 40in tall.
A nice "big" low power capable flier.

...the 5 Minute Bondo should be named 2 Minute Bondo...
makes my Locktite 5 Minute Epoxy seem slow by comparison and its not

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CMASS Launch - 7/11/2015 - Acton, MA

Weather was in the upper 80's, sunny and low winds. Very nice day for flying rockets.

Launched the Naked Finn's Canadian Arrow twice for good flights on CTI 29mm 2grain G57 Classic and G68 White.
Can see a bigger and brighter flame from the White propellant vs. Classic.
Also sent up the RC Ecee twice on Estes F15 loads.

Got shots of a couple other fun flights from the launch.

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Second Canadian Arrow flight landed hard on the road, but fins were still solid.
Two thin layers of fiberglass during the original build did a lot to tighten up this rocket's tail.

[video=youtube;WitgEY_HKpQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WitgEY_HKpQ[/video]
 
CMASS Launch - 7/25/2015 - Acton MA

Another nice day for flying rockets.
Launched the RC ECee first on the nice long-burning Estes F15.

Then the Naked Finn's Canadian Arrow went up on a CTI G57.
Nice liftoff, but landed at the top of a 50ft tree on the way down.
Lots of open field all around, but it appears the rocket wanted to stay in the air a little longer, and found the only tall tree in that area of the field.

Took multiple efforts and over an hour, but the rocket was recovered in good condition.
Thanks to all who helped, particularly Howard G., an expert in flying boldly followed by successful recovery.

Last up was the Classic Saucer on an F27 Redline.

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Launch video:
[video=youtube;bHs0DOlZfUQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHs0DOlZfUQ[/video]
 
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