MDRM L1 Success!

Successfully flew and recovered my MDRM at the NARAM 57 sport range today! Beautiful flight on a CTI H175 Smokey Sam. Deployed right after it arced over on a 7 second delay. Wind made for a bit of a walk, but the bird was found laid out nicely with its laundry with nary a ding.

Special thanks to Tim Van Milligan, Mr. Apogee himself, for signing off on the flight, as well as helping pick a delay (even though I was using OpenRocket ) and lending a 3rd hand with the 'chute in the breezy prep tent. Thanks as well to everyone at SARA and NAR for putting on a great event, Mike of BAR for setting me up with the cert motor and case, Teddy at Onebadhawk for the fantastic 3-loop Kevlar harness, and Sirius Rocketry and Railbuttons.com for various sundries. And of course to several of you here for providing advice and inspiration.

Congratulations!

Congrats!

Congrats! In case you didn't hear it dozens of times on the field, get ready to open your wallet!

Excellent! You really brought in an all-star cast for the supporting roles --- Mike, Teddy, Tim, and the rest --- aren't they all great? Congratulations!

Nice Job!

Well done! It is a wonderful feeling to walk out on the range and find your rocket lying on the ground just like that, eh? What's next on your list?

Congrats! MDRM is a great L1 rocket!

Congrats! Here's a few photos I got of the launch:

Thanks for the pics SCRocketfan! It was good to meet you at the launch site. And thanks for the congratulations (I've definitely heard "now open your wallet..." more than once - I celebrated by picking up a trio of L1 reloads from Mike's trailer). There is definitely a great group of people involved in the hobby. I'll do my best to pay it forward - I'm pretty sure I sold at least one Onebadhawk harness.

I must say I was more nervous than I expected (probably had to do with the lawn dart that happened last time I tried to launch an MDRM. Plus the LCO waited out a gust for 30 rather agonizing seconds (appreciated of course, but man that wait is hard).

As for Bat-Mite's question (what's next?) I'm going to start tinkering with electronics. I have a PSII Argent and a 3" LOC IRIS that I want to make dual deploy, plus I'd like to build an altimeter bay into the nose of the MDRM. The guy with the office next to me has been working on a home-grown Arduino based GPS transmitter, and needs something to fly it in. And of course there's the LPR backlog of a couple dozen kits, the star of which is a lovely Estes Saturn V that I've been afraid to build.

Longer term, maybe pick up an L2 bird at one of the Black Friday sales. A Frenzy or Darkstar perhaps (I'm a sucker for split fins)? LDRS 36 is temptingly drivable from Phoenix...

Congrats on the L1!

Now that you have an H motor under your belt, when is the I motor flight going? When the wallet opens?

Enjoy!