It was a pretty bad launch, I passed L3 but there was a lot of ****.
So first I changed the backup ejection charge from NC wool to BP since the amount of NC was immense.
So I bought a spactec safeeject on the field and put it in the upper part of the channel, unfortunately the safeeject seems to be slightly larger than the channel since the recoil of the ejection charge destroyed the channel.
So I had to remove one channel on the field. Since the broken channel was blocking the path for the Dbag. I then packed the 9 g BP for the backup charge in a Latex glove finger and lead the wires through the second channel. I needed all the time on Friday for the changes and tests and had to launch on Saturday. Looking back this was a bad decision and I should have cancelled the launch.
So the rocket was ready on the pad, and I put some CuO thermite igniter in, unfortunately the igniter had so much pyrogen, that the heat generated by the resistance wire in it was not enough to ignite it, the launch controller could supply a lot of current but automatically fires only 2 seconds.
We tried the backup igniter but had the same problem. We changed the launch controller, but had again the same problem. I had testest two of the igniters the day before on the same launch controller and they worked.
Then I got some help from a former TAP who brought one of his smaller thermite igniters wich was attached to blue thunder. The igniter fired in the rocket but did not light the blue thunder. We then applied one of those igniters to my pyrogen and placed it again in the rocket.
The pyrogen ignited, but the igniter was spilled out of the rocket, probably because the vent hole in the cap was not large enough.
Unfortunately on its way out the igniter managed to light the bottom of the motor, and the rocket was sitting on the pad with a burning motor for a few seconds, before the motor finally got to full power and lifted the rocket.
The whole procedure took us 1 h which was enough to fill the SD card on both on-board cameras, and the video decided to stop shortly after apogee.
During the whole time we had a german TV camera team, filming us and they asked us several times to repeat steps or give interviews (not during the igniter insertion of course). The TAP had to repeat the CG determination two times, holding the 55 lbs rocket one one arm, since it did not look nice on the ground.
The rocket flew nicely to apogee and then there was the first shock, the main was deployed at apogee, which seemed completely strange to me since it was hold back by the releases and the releases had not opened yet.
Later we found the problem. I had used a b2 deployment bag and it has a tubular nylon line at the top of the bag. So I had a line from the drogue to the line on the bag and from the connection point of these two lines a line to the releases, which was parallel to the dbag.
The drogue could not pull the bag out, but the main could move inside the tube by the length of the nylon line at the top of the bag and this was long enough to allow the bag to move out of the tube.
So I had a main at apogee, which was not so problematic, since I had 2 GPS trackers and apogee was at only 3300 feet. And the TAP calmed me down that everything was ok, since the rules were changed, so flown as designed was no longer required.
Unfortunately the direction of the wind had changed from Friday to Saturday and was blowing right into the direction of a small lake directly connected to the range. The rocket landed less than 1000 feet away from the launch pad, but in the lake about 15 feet away from the shore.
Some members of the TU Wien space team did not hesitate to jump in the water and pull out my rocket, for which I was really grateful.
We then emptied out all the sand and water from the rocket and transported it back over the sand cliff.
And after I reached my tent and tried to get the battery disconnected from the watered electronics I had a TV camera in my face asking me how it feels and if I am happy or if this is a drawback. I told them it was a successful failure.
The rocket was not damaged, so I passed L3.
We have a bunch of videos from the launch which will follow soon.
Btw. I had energy absorbers installed both for the main and the drogue which would start to break a 2,2 kN , they did not start to break so the main shock was much less than calculated from the model with infinite rocket mass.
- a good 4800m NOTAM/waiver. 
