Do you YOLO? =D

I never quite understood the popular usage of the term "YOLO" (You Only Live Once)...I mean, if you only have one life, you should really be careful with it, right?

However for this thread, I'm referring to a different definition:

You
Only
Launch
Once

This meaning you've got an incredible rocket or motor and you know that if you launch it it may never come back...you have a gut feeling of this, but you basically do the "YOLO" and put it up anyway. Any of you ever do this? :bangpan:

No "unsafe" stories please!

My one full rocket loss this year (so far), a scratch built Monsters Inc Art Cup rocket. It flew great on D12s, but I just had to launch it on an E9 on a small field (which I knew may be a YOLO, but I just had to try). Launch was breathtakingly good with a nice smoky spiral all the way up, but I lost it after that.

I've since rebuilt...with hair! Then I launched it again on an E9 on our club field... YOLOx2! This time, even though the field was bigger, due to the angled launch rods, it flew verrrry far away into freshly plowed fields (the announcer said over the mike "good luck finding that!"). After a lot of mud marching, I...spotted it across a gully in the next field...and then lost it again once I got to that field since it was behind rough plowed rows of dirt, but eventually found it again. :grin:

BTW - finding a cup in a farm field of freshly plowed dirt is very much like a needle in a haystack.

Here's a pic of the MKII from the winter.

Estes Crossfire +D10w. Awesome flight. Got it back too
Once I also slapped together a 2 stage 3fnc to use up a D12 booster I had no use for. D12 to E12. I ended up finding that one as well. I have an Estes guardian that's had more than it's share of D13s and 24s, and I've always managed to find that with some help from a little screamer alarm. It gets about 1100 ft and 260mph according to my prrfectflite firefly.

These are one of my favorite kinds of flights, because you can just throw a motor in the rocket, and go. They're awesome for testing the higher level winds, and if you lose it, no biggie.
It's also very satisfying if you can find them after such a fight

Nate

Estes Eliminator XL ready to "fry"... center of the three tubes removed. Aerotech EconoMax F44-8. It was gone. The package said 1400 feet with an E9-8, I'm thinking it was likely a 2500 foot flight. I just never really like the ready to fly anything, but the kit was 20 bucks and came with the "E" launch pad, both rods and a launcher. The rocket was just a bonus.

I flew an E9 minimum diameter rocket, predicted to ~3000 ft. After the first flight, I recovered the nose cone and chute (~9 in? Can't remember.) about 1/2 mile away. On the second flight the rebuilt rocket flew in a park, I thought I had about a 50% chance of finding it. It was found 50 yards away with a fin broken at the root. (The fins were papered 1/16 in. basswood and very strong.) The parachute was a 4 line chute but one of the lines broke so it streamlined as it was falling. I believe that is the only reason I recovered that rocket as nobody had seen it come down.

More recently I flew a larger rocket carrying a camera payload flying on a D12-5 or E9-6, with the payload inline with the shock cord (100 lb kevlar). The kevlar between the payload and anchor point in the mmt broke. All I recovered was the nosecone, chute and the payload bay containing the camera.:bangpan:

Loc Legacy with an H45W . Estimated altitude over a mile. Stuck a sticker on it that had my phone number. Got a call five days later. Got it back.

See that thing in my avatar? That's my model of the WW2 German rocket "Rheinbote". Four stages, starting with a 6xC6-0 cluster leading to two more boosters each with a C6-0 and topped with a sustainer with a C6-5. This was never going to end well. At best the chances of getting the whole lot back were approximately 0, and that's assuming everything went right. Which it didn't, and that's when I learned about the danger of cross-ignition. Five of the first stage motors lit as intended, then they lit the sixth from the front end, so stage 1 perished in fire. But not before sending stage 2 on its way. That worked fine and so did stage 3. Stage 4 was alright up until its shock cord came loose, so the nose went off with the streamer and ended up over the hills and far away. Stage 3 ended up in a nearby forest. Stage 2 was recovered intact and stage 4 was recovered intact apart from the missing nose and shock cord.

The thing about YOLO is that once is never enough, so I rebuilt the missing bits and flew it again. This time stage 1 was partitioned, half the motors now being C6-3 with a rear-ejecting compartment holding a small parachute. It flew well enough and I got a couple of the boosters back.

The thing about YOLT is that twice is never enough, so I rebuilt the missing bits and flew it again. I got stage 1 back. The rest were scattered somewhere around the field in Germany where I'd launched it, and since that field has (a) been partly covered by a solar power farm and (b) participated in the great European flood of 2013, there's not much chance of ever finding them again.

I haven't got round to rebuilding it again. Yet...

One rocket I'd classify as YOLO, but it was purpose-built and served that purpose.

(It's the one on the right)

It was a 24mm MD rocket (basically 3FNC) built for a D-motor drag race. Maybe 12" long in total. It sim'd to about half a mile high, so I stuffed all the free space in the body with as much crepe-paper streamer as I could find (probably ~10 meters), and requested help with keeping eyes on it during the launch.

It actually beat the saucer off the pad, and won the drag race (only time I've ever beat Rob Appleton in a drag race, despite repeated attempts)!

I can still remember Keith Packard turning to me after we'd spotted the rocket (or rather the ample streamer) and asking "Just how much streamer did you put into that thing?"

There were a bunch of kids at the launch, and I never planned to fly it again, so it went home with one of them, with the warning to use small engines and a big field...

I didn't do it, nobody saw me and you can't prove it!

Bart Simpson