LDRS 36 - 2017 reports

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My L3 is MIA.... tracker died.

Man that sucks! I would keep looking, try running your sim with the weather conditions, launch angle, direction, etc., for what it's worth it may provide you with an area to search that you didn't search. Nothing to lose. Good luck, I hope you find it or someone turns it in.
 
Got 3 in today. Pulled 4th after bad igniter. Trying for 2 tomorrow before I leave.
 
Wow, Matt, :(. When I came over this morning to check your tracking, I was going to offer one of my BRB GPS trackers. Sounded like you had it handled though. So sorry to hear.

Oh my goodness! Did Matt use an RDF tracker only? Darn! Should have pushed him into accepting your offer. I'm so sorry to hear this.
Maybe someone will find it and turn it in. Kurt
 
Oh my goodness! Did Matt use an RDF tracker only? Darn! Should have pushed him into accepting your offer. I'm so sorry to hear this.
Maybe someone will find it and turn it in. Kurt
Eggfinder.
 
What motor did the 7" Pershing fly on?

Actually this Pershing didn't fly, although Brian said it has flown multiple times. He did earlier today fly an equally beautiful 7" Pershing II which I believe went up on a K550.
 
I captured a series of photos this morning (Sunday) of a Patriot rocket that Cato'd just off the rail at the away cell. If it's your rocket or you know who's it is please let me know. I am planning on submitting them to "Rocket Magazine" and want to give the correct details about the flight. The photos are high res up close and contain extreme detail of the debris just after the event and the fire ball.
 
I captured a series of photos this morning (Sunday) of a Patriot rocket that Cato'd just off the rail at the away cell. If it's your rocket or you know who's it is please let me know. I am planning on submitting them to "Rocket Magazine" and want to give the correct details about the flight. The photos are high res up close and contain extreme detail of the debris just after the event and the fire ball.

I believe that would be Mike Showalter's Patriot from the Culpeper folks in Central Virginia Tripoli.
Some of the guys post here so you'll probably get more info on that motor shortly.
Sorry to see that one Mike ...it was a research N, not sure of the specs on that - but the motor formula has been tried and true.

The rocket has been flown many times as well.
The fin can looks to be salvageable...maybe some of the forward airframe near the nose cone.
The forward closure let go but I believe the case can be saved, albeit just a tad shorter.
 
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Did any of the King Vipers or Motherlodes fly?

I made a choice not to fly my King Viper III. I experienced significant trouble with the electronic control of MDRA pads/electronics on Saturday (all day) and Sunday morning. As the LCO on Sunday said, "we have flakey switches." Hate to say it, but I believe Tripoli leadership should audit equipment of any club that puts their name in to host LDRS. Although the flight venue was great, the equipment was extremely suspect. I will think twice before attending another LDRS.
 
The organization and running of the event was great. MDRA did a great job with the set up of the field, parking area, and keeping the lines moving. I can not imagine the amount of work which went into holding this event.

I had two unremarkable flights with my EZI-65. Saturday with an I-285, and sunday with a J400 smokey sam.
 
Just got home and unpacked. As bad as the weather was Thursday and Friday, it was better Saturday and today was fantastic. Won't be taking a hot shower for a few days until the sunburn goes away.

Got to fly "Kate" in my L3 from the away cell this morning. It landed close enough to the pads that the truck that was taking us out to the away cells, also gave us a ride back to the flight line. Talk about service! Vern was very happy with the Kate flight because since it was the last one from the away cell as folks were reloading the A - D racks, he was allowed to put the whole flight over the PA, all the way to landing. Apparently many times they only allow the audio until apogee then shut it down and go on to launching other rockets.
 
I took advantage of the perfect weather today to set a new personal altitude record, flying my Frenzy XL to 7,384 ft on a K750 Red Lightning. It was originally going to be a big Skidmark but after they banned sparky motors this afternoon Gloria let me swap reloads.
 
Glad they finally cut the sparky motors.

After fire #4 at the away cell it started to get a bit boring putting all the fires out. ;)

DSC_4033.jpgDSC_4034.jpgDSC_4306.jpg
 
I flew my Level 2 Certification flight on Saturday.

My rocket "Something From Nothing" Flew to 6575 feet on an Aero Tech J540 Red. It was a great flight, I lost it at apogee. Good thing I was flying with an eggfinder on board and was able to see it was descending nicely. I landed about .75 miles from the pad and the wife and I had a nice walk to the recovery. A fellow flier was in the field and saw it come down just past the drainage ditch and was kind enough to gather it up so it didn't run away in the wind!

We had a great time at LDRS 36!

SomethingFromNothing-CertFlight-LDRS36.jpg

If anyone else happened to capture photos of this flight I would love to see them.
Thanks
Mendal
 
My daughter Megan and I had a wonderful time at LDRS! Great job MDRA. Even though the first two days were pretty much a bust with a few going up; it was great meeting folks and hanging with our Battlepark crew. We got off three successful flights, her Madcow Momba "Eat Mor Chickin"....whoever turned that in, THANK YOU! You made her day!! My new Tyrannosaur flew on a CTI J380, and my RumbleBee while simmed at just below 11K only hit 9490. Still a personal best, and the max velocity was 1350ft/s.

So I had a very interesting situation with that final flight. The tracker quit working even though we'd put new batteries in it, but I had a pretty good idea where it went down. Thankfully I'd also put a Screamer on it. Somone on the board pointed this out to me many months ago and I've forgotten who. I could HEAR this thing a LONG way away so I knew I was on the right track. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NSOA1ZY/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
When I got to the rocket, I went to turn off the screamer and noticed my Nosecone was GONE! Oh nuts. As I began winding everything up, two feet away from the lower section was the nosecone laying on it's side. Upon review of the video; it was laying on the ground as the rocket was landing. The ONLY thing I can think of is I failed to tighten the quick-link. Learning lesson, but thankfully with a good outcome.

Finally, my daughter is also going to do the Tripoli Mentoring program so she wanted the Door Knob that AMW was selling so it's now sitting in the basement! Here's a couple from our point of view from the trip. Thanks again MDRA!
Megans Momba at LDRS.jpg Megan and Dad Max.jpg Megan trex.jpg Ready to FLy.jpg

Here's a quick video with the 9k flight as well:
[video=youtube;ofXBOtmNH9I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/ofXBOtmNH9I[/video]
 
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So this morning I had to be in Easton for an early appointment and decided to go to Denny's for breakfast. Sitting at one of the large tables was a group of power company workers winding down from working an overnight outage. There was a bucket truck operator telling stories about getting rockets of the power lines Saturday afternoon at LDRS and how there were some really cool rockets being launched.

One of the younger people in the group pipped up and said if they were landing in the power lines its a good thing they weren't flying the space shuttle... I had to go over and tell him that the shuttle had been retired for years now. They all had a good laugh and I barely made it to my meeting on time telling them about rocketry.
 
I made a choice not to fly my King Viper III. I experienced significant trouble with the electronic control of MDRA pads/electronics on Saturday (all day) and Sunday morning. As the LCO on Sunday said, "we have flakey switches." Hate to say it, but I believe Tripoli leadership should audit equipment of any club that puts their name in to host LDRS. Although the flight venue was great, the equipment was extremely suspect. I will think twice before attending another LDRS.

How would we audit the launch equipment? I do think it's important for us to understand what root causes of the issues actually were.


Steve Shannon
 
How would we audit the launch equipment? I do think it's important for us to understand what root causes of the issues actually were.


Steve Shannon

I was not involved, but I know the guys at MDRA, and I can guarantee you that they did not field any equipment without checking it. But stuff sat out in the rain all day Thursday and part of Friday. It was covered, but with 100% humidity, something that worked perfectly on Wednesday may have developed some issues by Friday afternoon.

Don't sweat it, Steve. Even if you had audited the equipment, it could still have failed. Meanwhile, batteries die, generators run out of gas, launch clips break off the wires -- and then there are self-centered flyers who are careless and cavalier about the equipment they use.

But, maybe Tim has some fool-proof ideas. He's been at this a lot longer than I have, and I know he wouldn't complain without offering some viable suggestions for improvement.
 
I was not involved, but I know the guys at MDRA, and I can guarantee you that they did not field any equipment without checking it. But stuff sat out in the rain all day Thursday and part of Friday. It was covered, but with 100% humidity, something that worked perfectly on Wednesday may have developed some issues by Friday afternoon.

Don't sweat it, Steve. Even if you had audited the equipment, it could still have failed. Meanwhile, batteries die, generators run out of gas, launch clips break off the wires -- and then there are self-centered flyers who are careless and cavalier about the equipment they use.

But, maybe Tim has some fool-proof ideas. He's been at this a lot longer than I have, and I know he wouldn't complain without offering some viable suggestions for improvement.

Exactly.


Steve Shannon
 
Just curious, was all the set-up MDRA's or did they borrow some stuff from other clubs?
 
I made a choice not to fly my King Viper III. I experienced significant trouble with the electronic control of MDRA pads/electronics on Saturday (all day) and Sunday morning. As the LCO on Sunday said, "we have flakey switches." Hate to say it, but I believe Tripoli leadership should audit equipment of any club that puts their name in to host LDRS. Although the flight venue was great, the equipment was extremely suspect. I will think twice before attending another LDRS.

What was the launch system that was being used?
 
... launch clips break off the wires -- and then there are self-centered flyers who are careless and cavalier about the equipment they use....

As near as I can tell, I had the 2nd launch off B4(Left) on Sat and someone before me had scorched the leads so bad that one clip came off in my hand. I called for a Pad Manager and ... (I'm terrible with names) showed up a moment later and got new leads on such that I was still ready to launch while the C-rack gang was still prepping.

Kudos to MDRA all around (and to the Higgs family)
 
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