- Joined
- Sep 16, 2010
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I am sharing my tale of woe that others might learn:
Recently I was flying my scratch built L1 rocket with an AT RMS 29/240 case. The case had a G79W load using the Reload Adapter System (RAS). The motor was retained by an Estes 29mm plastic retainer.
On that fateful morning I assembled the load in the case. The rocket is small enough that I only need half of the 1.3 grams of BP provided. Well I accidentally poured all of it in the ejection well. No big deal I thought. I inserted the motor in the rocket. I grabbed a well used Estes retainer that I noticed didn't quite attach as well as a new one would, but if you ever used an Estes retainer on the HP cases, you know that they don't fit perfectly. They do work though.
Well the flight was great. The rocket reached just under a 1000ft and I clearly heard the ejection charge go off. As the rocket started it descent with the parachute deployed, I heard a distinct metallic ping in the distance. Not unlike the ping of an aluminum baseball bat hitting a pitch.
As you might have guessed the combination of the extra BP and the worn Estes retainer resulted in my nice case being ejected at about a thousand feet up! I was lucky enough to search in the direction of the ping and I found my case. Luckily the aft retainer was fine but the forward....well not so much.
Thankfully the fine folks at Wildman had a new AT 240 case and a new RAS they could ship to me right away.
The question is what to do with the old case? My thought is to cut it down to a 120 length. I KNOW that this case would not be certified but could be used as a research case. I also fly on a private field so I am not too worried. The case would need to be threaded for the forward enclosure but I don't know the exact thread specs. Does anyone know? Would a machine shop do this for a reasonable fee? Reasonable defined as cheaper than just buying a new 120 case.
thanks
Jim
Recently I was flying my scratch built L1 rocket with an AT RMS 29/240 case. The case had a G79W load using the Reload Adapter System (RAS). The motor was retained by an Estes 29mm plastic retainer.
On that fateful morning I assembled the load in the case. The rocket is small enough that I only need half of the 1.3 grams of BP provided. Well I accidentally poured all of it in the ejection well. No big deal I thought. I inserted the motor in the rocket. I grabbed a well used Estes retainer that I noticed didn't quite attach as well as a new one would, but if you ever used an Estes retainer on the HP cases, you know that they don't fit perfectly. They do work though.
Well the flight was great. The rocket reached just under a 1000ft and I clearly heard the ejection charge go off. As the rocket started it descent with the parachute deployed, I heard a distinct metallic ping in the distance. Not unlike the ping of an aluminum baseball bat hitting a pitch.
As you might have guessed the combination of the extra BP and the worn Estes retainer resulted in my nice case being ejected at about a thousand feet up! I was lucky enough to search in the direction of the ping and I found my case. Luckily the aft retainer was fine but the forward....well not so much.
Thankfully the fine folks at Wildman had a new AT 240 case and a new RAS they could ship to me right away.
The question is what to do with the old case? My thought is to cut it down to a 120 length. I KNOW that this case would not be certified but could be used as a research case. I also fly on a private field so I am not too worried. The case would need to be threaded for the forward enclosure but I don't know the exact thread specs. Does anyone know? Would a machine shop do this for a reasonable fee? Reasonable defined as cheaper than just buying a new 120 case.
thanks
Jim
