That sounds like it should work well. At that point, though, couldn't you just make a card stock shroud rather than the 3D printed part?
That sounds like it should work well. At that point, though, couldn't you just make a card stock shroud rather than the 3D printed part?
Dang, this project has certainly been fighting back.
Shockingly well.At least you got one good flight out of it. I'm curious how the electronics survived after such an impact.
This project has been a bear.
I went for L2 with it in late October. Took the test (100%, woo hoo!), slapped a nice 3-grain 38mm I motor in it as a shakedown flight and ... Chute Release opened at apogee, it drifted half a mile and ended up in a tree. Called a tree guy, he climbed about 80' up (!!) and retrieved it.
Those were dark times. I actually said to my wife "You know... occasionally I see one of these 'getting out of the hobby, selling everything' posts on the forum. This may be my time". Naturally, I came to my senses
Saturday I decided: I've had enough of "shakedown" flights - I've successfully launched it on an H (did great) and failed twice on an I (but both failures were recovery related; the "up" was fine). I was done with shakedowns, it was time to bite the bullet and go for it.
I got a low-end J (J270, a 5 grain CTI 38mm; the 13s maximum delay was perfect and meant I didn't have to mess with drilling it). Brought my checklist and followed it. Plan the work, work the plan, as they say. Everything went great. Conditions were about as ideal as they come. Got my witnesses; launch went beautifully. Nice straight boost; lost it in the clouds... and as we all squinted and looked around for signs of the rocket.... someone said "Hey, uh, it's over there". We all turned and it was drifting down lazily on its chute. Perfect landing 1500' from the pad. No damage. L2 has been achieved. Nice way to close out the launch season.
Lessons learned from that launch:
-A printed checklist is WAY better than an electronic one.
-My "8 feet of surveyor tape and a chunk of mylar" visibility streamer did nothing. Couldn't see it and the surveyor tape twisted terribly.
-Project for the winter: Drilling out the nose cone, maybe? I don't need the weight.
-The rocket absolutely can handle the power; with a larger field, a 6GXL 38 would be fine, I think.
-IF YOU'RE USING A CHUTE RELEASE, USE A NEW RUBBER BAND! That was what made me fail last time - my band that I'd been using since 2015 had failed during the previous launch. Don't blame the CR, it was my own fault for not inspecting a 2 year old band before each launch.
-I need a new 808 camera. This one worked but cut out about 3/4 of the way through the flight. No idea what happened, but I'm tired of cameras that mostly work. Going to put some LiquidFyre goodies on my xmas list.
Anyway, I'm happy, flight went well, and here's most of it:
[video=youtube;ll7Pi9902wQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll7Pi9902wQ[/video]
Congratulations indeed! What was the altitude?
This rocket gas given you quite the adventure from project start to finish!
(I also just broke a CR band at apogee.....3600' up -> 3/4mi from the pads......)
Congratulations! Nice flight.
I had a key fob camera freeze on me on a flight before too. It still recorded audio but the video was hung on one frame. It has flown since and worked fine though. 8 bucks so not expected too much.
Again.. Congrats..finally. Whew
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