Lost WM Vindicator on Friday

I lost my Vindicator on Friday at LDRS while the LCO was shooting off every 15 sec through the cloud

My name and # is on the rocket
- WM Vindicator 2.6"
- Flourescent Orange / chrome rings and black find
- DD with RRC3
- has red nomex protectors a drought and Blue and Black main chute
Contact me at adams AT acute training dot com. I'll be shipping and compensate you for your time.
Thank you
Nick Adams
Indiana
765-721- seven nine . Zero Zero

Nice rocket. No tracker?

Nick-

I am at LDRS and am driving back to Chicago Tuesday. If someone finds it, and you can meet me at some exit off of I-90, I'll carry it back for you in my car.

timbucktoo said:

Nice rocket. No tracker?

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...that's my next purchase / and next area to learn about. I knew I was pushing it but thought I could risk it one last launch before tracker, famous last word.

CVANC - thank you very much for your offer, if it works out and is found I'll PM you if it is convenient for you.

Nick@JET said:

I lost my Vindicator on Friday at LDRS while the LCO was shooting off every 15 sec through the cloud

View attachment 266330

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The LCO and staff were simply trying to keep up with the demand for flights. Over 600 launched Friday.
Perhaps that would be a good reason to have tracker in a rocket.....

Greg, Yes that will be the next area to learn about and purchase, was risking it with that motor. Nobody's fault but mine, I should have had him hold it to wait for the big cloud to pass. There was a particular frenzy time period when LCO was trying to get caught up and everyone was waiting, so they were lighting off way fast, I get that. But in that time span they were not waiting to see if anything came in ballistic, just firing , if it went through the clouds they were on to the next one, so usually one your eyes on your rocket once the next one went off. Meant no disrespect just stating what happened. I appreciate the event and everyone who volunteered.

Most of the rest of the time was announcing at least hearing apogee event or watching at least to apogee event if not all the way to main.

In the meantime, something you may want to do to help the fellas at Potter.
Sim your rocket in RockSim and input all info in Launch Conditions. I have V7. Ten yrs old.
Everything you can about that day. Important is wind speed at 2 altitudes,drogue/main deploy, in Flight Event.
Use a high deploy altitude wind speed and low to mid ground wind speed.
For altitude wind speed and direction, go to Resources. There are 3 links- Winds Aloft.
To be honest, I havnt tried to look for past wind data on these sites.
Using RS flight details for landing and direction, plot a straight line course w/ approx landing site overlay on a Geo Sat map of the area.

I dont have a tracker and have always used this method the day before I launch and pretty much spot on within a couple hundred feet of straight line recovery.
4" model w/ a 4G L motor, 9900ft and simliar to your rocket, 54mm MD using a K1400, 12400ft.

Good luck and dont give up...

Nick@JET said:

...that's my next purchase / and next area to learn about. I knew I was pushing it but thought I could risk it one last launch before tracker, famous last word.

CVANC - thank you very much for your offer, if it works out and is found I'll PM you if it is convenient for you.

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When I was out searching late Friday there was a split-fin wildman fiberglass rocket buried halfway into the ground in the field just to the right of the big clump of trees, you could see the fincan glinting in the sun from the road. I think it had some kind of light blue chute, kinda looked like a PML chute that I have. Could that have been yours? I tried to pull it out but it was quite stuck in there.

I might have seen it.... It was sticking out of the ground with about 14" out of the ground.
I attempted to extract it but, was unsuccessful. All I could see was the black booster section and what was left of the chute.

It was left of the cluster of trees past the away cell about 230 yard from the right of the trees.

JD

JDcluster said:

I might have seen it.... It was sticking out of the ground with about 14" out of the ground.
I attempted to extract it but, was unsuccessful. All I could see was the black booster section and what was left of the chute.

It was left of the cluster of trees past the away cell about 230 yard from the right of the trees.

JD

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can you put an X on a map where you saw it? if it is sticking out of the ground we want to get it out before it causes damage to farm equipment.

RocketHunter said:

When I was out searching late Friday there was a split-fin wildman fiberglass rocket buried halfway into the ground in the field just to the right of the big clump of trees, you could see the fincan glinting in the sun from the road. I think it had some kind of light blue chute, kinda looked like a PML chute that I have. Could that have been yours? I tried to pull it out but it was quite stuck in there.

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same for you, can you make a map with an X where you saw it? I can go digging if I know where to dig.

rocketsaway said:

In the meantime, something you may want to do to help the fellas at Potter.
Sim your rocket in RockSim and input all info in Launch Conditions. I have V7. Ten yrs old.
Everything you can about that day. Important is wind speed at 2 altitudes,drogue/main deploy, in Flight Event.
Use a high deploy altitude wind speed and low to mid ground wind speed.
For altitude wind speed and direction, go to Resources. There are 3 links- Winds Aloft.
To be honest, I havnt tried to look for past wind data on these sites.
Using RS flight details for landing and direction, plot a straight line course w/ approx landing site overlay on a Geo Sat map of the area.

I dont have a tracker and have always used this method the day before I launch and pretty much spot on within a couple hundred feet of straight line recovery.
4" model w/ a 4G L motor, 9900ft and simliar to your rocket, 54mm MD using a K1400, 12400ft.

Good luck and dont give up...

Click to expand...

I run a simulator with different parameters to see what a rocket "might" do. Good wintertime activity. I've done enough live GPS tracking on a map of rocket flights with Xastir to say that winds aloft are not always what they say they are. Rockets that go around in circles on the drogue during descent and flights where I've called out to the crowd where to look for the expected main chute deployment because they were looking in the wrong place. I could see on the map where the rocket was and the crowd was looking
the wrong way based on the "ground" prevailing winds. Fly a small enough rocket, high enough and you'll lose it without a tracker eventually period. Yeah, a long metallized streamer might help get a visual. A smokebomb tracker that lights off a bit after the
drogue is deployed but a functioning tracker bulletproofs the recovery as long as it's functional and doesn't fail. Toss in a GPS tracker as opposed to RDF and with the right receiving station, one can follow the flight in real time and "really" know where
it's headed.

Ed, I'm very impressed with your methods. If they work for you that's great. If you can make sure your rocket always leaves the rail at the intended direction you point it you are a heck of a lot better than most fliers. No matter what I do, I sometimes have a rocket that goes off at an unintended angle and I'm a firm believer in pointing the rod/rail a few degrees downwind so weathercocking is compensated somewhat for a slow speed apogee. Keeping track of all your scenarios could be daunting. I don't know if I could switch the gears in my brain as you can by eyeballing an out of sight flight and mentally computing the possible landing site based upon the multiple simulations you must run. (Note well, I'm not being facetious here. That's quite a record if anyone has been able to track outta sight flights can get them back without a tracker. Has my respect and wished I could fine tune the software to do the predictions. No, I don't want to spend a grand on RS Pro.)

Getting a good visual on descent is half the battle but in the Midwest, a rocket can land in a myriad of places that make it difficult to see at a distance. Out in the wide open spaces with no vegetation is a different story with no
tracker. Cripes, with a Sight n' Go feature on a GPS https://www.manualslib.com/manual/56166/Garmin-Etrex-Vista-Cx.html?page=62 just sight a line to the rocket just before it touches down or goes behind some obstructions and walk the most accurate line that can be had. I've found modrocs in tall grass that way. Just keep walking until you see a chute or streamer on the surface of the tall grass or corn.

I live in the Midwest and time spent running down an errant rocket is less time I have to fly other projects. It's stupid to drive a zillion miles to lose one rocket. Best to fly a bunch and that ain't going to happen if one is trudging around a hilly cornfield "looking" .:surprised:

My Wildman Jr. has "disappeared" five times. Stupid J motors! :jaw: I walked up to the rocket all five flights in no time "cause" the Beeline GPS/APRS tracker told me where to look. I was able to get back and do more flying and less "looking". Even though everybody was "looking" in the "right" direction for the main chute, nobody ever saw it all five times. I walk up to the rocket and it's obvious the recovery system performed nominally.

Now Nick said he knew it might be an "iffy" flight but at least there are some economical tracking solutions out there one doesn't have to be a Ham radio operator to use. I went that route 7 years ago because 70cm band APRS was cheaper as opposed to the "unlicensed" RDF trackers available at the time. Spend more time flying than recovery and use a tracker. Spend even more time flying if one has room for a GPS tracker and even less time for recovery. Get yourself an EggFinder with the LCD receiver and if you find your large expensive project one time, the system has essentially paid for itself.

One final advantage to GPS tracking: If the flight is less than nominal, one can usually receive position packets during the descent so they have a very good idea where to look for the remains. The tracking receivers used generally keep the last known position in memory so the last position of the rocket when it was at 50 to 200' above the ground is saved. One goes to those coordinates and it's likely what's left of the rocket is nearby. So even if the GPS tracker is destroyed, one has a better idea where to look. If the RDF tracker is destroyed in the "anomalous" event, unless the flier has a very good bearing to the rocket and can "walk the line" the remains might be lost if there is no way to get a final bearing to the rocket. That would be more of a problem if the rocket lands far away and out of sight. Sure, if any rocket smacks the ground within sight, easy to get to and recover unless is smacks into a deep lake. Kurt

RKeller said:

can you put an X on a map where you saw it? if it is sticking out of the ground we want to get it out before it causes damage to farm equipment.

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Aiieeeeee, this is a perfect scenario to put a handheld mapping GPS on your belt. One can go to the position, in this case the rocket sticking out of the ground, hit "mark" to save the waypoint/position for posterity.

I did that exact same thing in one of the Midwest Powers. I was "way out" on a recovery of a small rocket that went far, B.T. (Before Trackers for me) and found a very large project in a depression. Too large for me to recover by myself.
I folded the main chute under the upper bay so the wind didn't take it out farther and intended to go the LSO/RSO to try to find the flier. I marked the "waypoint" in the GPS (Etrex Vista HCX) so it could be called up to navigate back to the rocket and intended to give the flier the Garmin to get to his rocket and he could get the Etrex back to me later. I wanted to get back in and fly more rockets.
I found my rocket and got half way back to the flight line where a fellow was wandering around looking for the "lost" rocket I had "located". I just called up the waypoint and took him back to a point where he could easily see the rocket and recover it. He was impressed to say the least.

Just about any handheld mapping GPS can mark a waypoint/position so it's a good tool to have if one is going to be running around at a major launch. Might end up helping someone else find their rocket. Least of all, report the position to the launch organizers so they can get the remains to avoid damage to farm equipment if that's the venue where the launch is held. (One can get 'em used on the cheap on ebay now. A Garmin Legend can
mark waypoints "and" be used for APRS rocket tracking to find a lost project)

I would imagine if a fiberglass rocket dorks a combine, it would likely be the last time a launch would be held at that site. That would really PO a farmer
and can't say I'd blame 'em for being mad. Kurt

I wish I had some marking flags and my handheld GPS with me.
IF someone can post a map of the field I can mark it for you.
otherwise:

It's in the field that is right side of the cluster of trees past the away cells
about 200 yards from the road right of the trees.

I found the Sub-lime there as well.

JD

Thanks Guys for continuing to look for this. Would hate to piss of the farmer.
I appreciate all the advice. GPS will be the next thing on my list to learn about and purchase

I will say the same as Delta - which I think is Boris.....

If my rocket is found, I would gladly mail a check for $100 to the URRG member kind enough to ship it to me.

Or proof that I went over a mile . Never recorded a mile flight and that simmed to 6K but I can't prove it if I didn't retrieve that data .

JDcluster said:

I wish I had some marking flags and my handheld GPS with me.
IF someone can post a map of the field I can mark it for you.
otherwise:

It's in the field that is right side of the cluster of trees past the away cells
about 200 yards from the road right of the trees.

I found the Sub-lime there as well.

JD

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Hi JD, is there a chance you can show someone on a map where you saw my vindicator?
Thanks let me know