Airfest XXII

Preston, those are great. I'll PM my email address.

Thanks

FredT said:

I'm working my back home to NJ after spending the night in Indianapolis, should be home tonight.

I'd like to thank the KloudBusters for once again hosting an outstanding event.

Also I'm hoping someone got photos of my 4-stage flight on Friday. Please PM me if you have something you're willing to share with me. By the way, the final altitude was 21,000 (my personal best) and all stages were recovered with no damage.

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So impressive Fred!! I love watching the videos of your flights. Hope to see a video of this one for sure. What were the motors? Looked a lot bigger than your others!!!

marcusSRG said:

So impressive Fred!! I love watching the videos of your flights. Hope to see a video of this one for sure. What were the motors? Looked a lot bigger than your others!!!

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The rocket is a combination of airframes I've flown dozens of times in various configurations. This was the second attempt as a 4-stage. The first was at URRF with a smaller motor load, but the fourth stage didn't light.

The Airfest configuration was 17 and a half feet tall and weighed 55 pounds ready for flight. The booster airframe was 4 inch diameter, thick-walled fiberglass; the others 3 inch.

It boosted on a CTI L3200, then AT K1275R and K550W, and finally a Loki K350 white long-burn. That's the biggest motor load that'll fit in the tubes.

I use Ravens for staging and backup deployment on all stages. The top two had Telemetrum's for GPS tracking and primary deployment. The bottom two used StratoLoggers as primaries. The second stage also had Beeline transmitter for RDF tracking.

I had a Hobby King video camera strapped to the side of the top stage but the video file is corrupted. I'm hopeful I'll be able to recover at least part of it. If successful will post it here.

FredT said:

I had a Hobby King video camera strapped to the side of the top stage but the video file is corrupted. I'm hopeful I'll be able to recover at least part of it. If successful will post it here.

Click to expand...

If it makes you feel any better I built my avbay with a GoPro inside but when I had the rocket on the rail I couldn't quite reach the button to start recording through the hole I made so it took a 30,000 foot ride and recorded nothing.

Big thanks to the Kloudbusters crew for their tireless efforts to produce a great launch! Mission accomplished! Looking forward to next year!

Jim Ballard
Blackwell TX

FredT said:

The rocket is a combination of airframes I've flown dozens of times in various configurations. This was the second attempt as a 4-stage. The first was at URRF with a smaller motor load, but the fourth stage didn't light.

The Airfest configuration was 17 and a half feet tall and weighed 55 pounds ready for flight. The booster airframe was 4 inch diameter, thick-walled fiberglass; the others 3 inch.

It boosted on a CTI L3200, then AT K1275R and K550W, and finally a Loki K350 white long-burn. That's the biggest motor load that'll fit in the tubes.

I use Ravens for staging and backup deployment on all stages. The top two had Telemetrum's for GPS tracking and primary deployment. The bottom two used StratoLoggers as primaries. The second stage also had Beeline transmitter for RDF tracking.

I had a Hobby King video camera strapped to the side of the top stage but the video file is corrupted. I'm hopeful I'll be able to recover at least part of it. If successful will post it here.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the details. Very impressive. Hope you are able to get the video working and hopefully one will surface on YouTube.

Edit: and look what I found! Not the best vid, but it's a start!

[video=youtube;dQB7Msr-wpo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQB7Msr-wpo[/video]

My wife Sandy and I are home..
What a wonderful time we both had..
It's just impossible to thank this club enough..
The Kloudbusters puts on an event that is simply not to be missed...
The flights are just the coolest most fantastic flights you've ever seen,,
one right after another....
It seems like every rocketeer in the country waits all year to put their best flight of the year up at this launch...
It's really tough to even assemble a rocket,,
every time the LCO announces a flight you think,, what !!,, no way !!,, I've got to see this one,, lol,, this is all day long, day after day....

Each and every one of you,, Thank you so much...

I just don't know what else to say..

Teddy

How'd the airstart go Teddy?

FredT said:

The rocket is a combination of airframes I've flown dozens of times in various configurations. This was the second attempt as a 4-stage. The first was at URRF with a smaller motor load, but the fourth stage didn't light.

The Airfest configuration was 17 and a half feet tall and weighed 55 pounds ready for flight. The booster airframe was 4 inch diameter, thick-walled fiberglass; the others 3 inch.

It boosted on a CTI L3200, then AT K1275R and K550W, and finally a Loki K350 white long-burn. That's the biggest motor load that'll fit in the tubes.

Click to expand...

Your rockets are some of the coolest flights I've witnessed... that sounds like an impressive stack of motors....

bill2654 said:

How'd the airstart go Teddy?

Click to expand...

Well Bill,,
I have the rocket in perfect condition home with me now...
But,, not too hot,, lol..
I made it past assembling it,, all the way to the pad,,
everything ready to go,,
rocket's on the pad, solid as a rock,, time to are the primary altimeter first,,
the Marsa 54 L said I don't see continuity on one of the 3 channels set to fire during the flight..
Powered down,, powered back up,,,, same...........
Scrubbed the flight,, brought rocket back to table,,
On disassembling the rocket--
I use a JST connector to do the airstart because it yanks apart on separation with such consistent tension,, quite reliably....
That connector is subjected to the apogee separation charge on every flight..
So I change it every now and again.....
Well--
It's time to change it,,, lol...
It looked perfect when I made it while assembling the rocket...
Something so simple,, so easy to happen...
No matter,,
The Marsa said scrub,,
So I scrubbed it...
Now I still have the rocket,, I'm happy,, though I have some loads already built that I can't fly anywhere else,, lol...

Teddy

FredT said:

The rocket is a combination of airframes I've flown dozens of times in various configurations. This was the second attempt as a 4-stage. The first was at URRF with a smaller motor load, but the fourth stage didn't light.

The Airfest configuration was 17 and a half feet tall and weighed 55 pounds ready for flight. The booster airframe was 4 inch diameter, thick-walled fiberglass; the others 3 inch.

It boosted on a CTI L3200, then AT K1275R and K550W, and finally a Loki K350 white long-burn. That's the biggest motor load that'll fit in the tubes.

I use Ravens for staging and backup deployment on all stages. The top two had Telemetrum's for GPS tracking and primary deployment. The bottom two used StratoLoggers as primaries. The second stage also had Beeline transmitter for RDF tracking.

I had a Hobby King video camera strapped to the side of the top stage but the video file is corrupted. I'm hopeful I'll be able to recover at least part of it. If successful will post it here.

Click to expand...

I'm familiar with "a combination of air frames flown in various configurations"! Very nice flight - wish I could have been there to watch.

Jim

onebadhawk said:

My wife Sandy and I are home..
What a wonderful time we both had..
It's just impossible to thank this club enough..
The Kloudbusters puts on an event that is simply not to be missed...
The flights are just the coolest most fantastic flights you've ever seen,,
one right after another....
It seems like every rocketeer in the country waits all year to put their best flight of the year up at this launch...
It's really tough to even assemble a rocket,,
every time the LCO announces a flight you think,, what !!,, no way !!,, I've got to see this one,, lol,, this is all day long, day after day....

Each and every one of you,, Thank you so much...

I just don't know what else to say..

Teddy

Click to expand...

Thank you Teddy. I definitely feel blessed and spoiled to live an hour away from the Rocket Pasture. I think you are right that people wait all year to launch their big projects at AirFest. I attempted an L3 cert last year and had a drogue deployment failure that cost me the cert and the rocket. Was going to rebuild for AirFest but decided I just wanted to have a relaxing and fun weekend to watch and help the club put on the launch. It was definitely an awesome weekend. I have never seen so many multi-stage rockets and especially a 4-stage attempted let alone successful. Thanks again for the kudo's and we look forward to another great AirFest next year. Hope you can make the long trek from New Jersey next year.

Well guys, Airfest was great like always. I do have one complaint....I had some reloads stolen from me at the launch. I never thought I would have that happen in this tight community of wonderful people. If you happen to have picked up a K2045 from me at the launch and forgot to pay for it, please do the right thing and email me([email protected]). I won't share who you are and will assume it was an accident. We as vendors are not big box retailers, and this kind of stuff really hurts us. This kind of loss affects our lively-hoods. I now have to look into cameras to keep an eye on people, which in turn will cost more money, be another thing I have to setup..ect. The loss of the motor occurred Sunday or Monday.

That substantially sucks! Hopefully it was an innocent error. I certainly didn't have anything that big, but felt pretty comfortable leaving all my stuff out, even when we went to dinner. Hopefully the error will surface and thins can be made right. I know you certainly treated me well in our dealings.

Wow! Just Wow!!

In 20yrs of doing this I almost never lock my stuff up. Only once have I had something stolen.

Yeah, I still can't believe it. I'll be doing a full inventory to see what else is missing...But this load I know because I pointed them out to a friend on sunday that I was surprised I still had 2 in stock. I even made sure it wasn't moved. I'm going to go through every box, bin, crack, drawer again to double check..

The optimistic side says you'll get an answer by the end of the day, the other side says THAT SUCKS!

Horrible! I leave stuff laying around all the time. Hard to believe. And utterly sad.

Sry to hear about that - shocking actually , at a rocket launch, really?? Hope for the best,?but face it some people are crazy, I deal with them .
At a rocket launch I would assume you leave $100 bill out, it would b there at the end of the day

On another note, seams there is a lack of pics and videos , please?

Chris,,
I'm really sorry to hear this and I'm really surprised too..
At the end of each day there I put all of my stuff back in the totes and boxes
just so nothing would get wet or damp,, but left all of the totes and boxes right on my tables all night....

Never would have thought a problem...

Teddy

Here's a positive article about Airfest. It's about myself and my club Tulsa Rocketry that I belong to.

https://www.examiner-enterprise.com...keteers-take-to-osage-county-skies-sept-24-25

tbonerocketeer said:

Well guys, Airfest was great like always. I do have one complaint....I had some reloads stolen from me at the launch. I never thought I would have that happen in this tight community of wonderful people. If you happen to have picked up a K2045 from me at the launch and forgot to pay for it, please do the right thing and email me([email protected]). I won't share who you are and will assume it was an accident. We as vendors are not big box retailers, and this kind of stuff really hurts us. This kind of loss affects our lively-hoods. I now have to look into cameras to keep an eye on people, which in turn will cost more money, be another thing I have to setup..ect. The loss of the motor occurred Sunday or Monday.

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That's really horrible. Last weekend at ROC I was chatting with Mike from BAR, and a flyer came up to him and said, "Oh you weren't here a little while ago, so I took a motor, how much do I owe you?". THAT is what rocketry people are like... hope it was just something that somebody forgot about at the time.

cerving said:

That's really horrible. Last weekend at ROC I was chatting with Mike from BAR, and a flyer came up to him and said, "Oh you weren't here a little while ago, so I took a motor, how much do I owe you?". THAT is what rocketry people are like... hope it was just something that somebody forgot about at the time.

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Motor was located and squared away guys. Thanks.

Great!

Glad to hear it Chris.

tbonerocketeer said:

Motor was located and squared away guys. Thanks.

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Inquiring minds want to know ... misplaced or "borrowed"?

llickteig1 said:

Inquiring minds want to know ... misplaced or "borrowed"?

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Found in a box, taped shut. I think someone was trying to be funny

Better late than never; I finally got around to compiling my Airfest 22 footage. I decided to take a page out of Justin's book and put it into one video. As always, watch in 1080p for the best viewing experience. Enjoy!

[video=youtube;0xxwV6izJqQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xxwV6izJqQ[/video]

Thanks for sharing! Great video, I hope to make my first airfest this year