Mid-West Power 15 Princeton Illinois

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That 4 stage was one of the coolest flights Friday, hard to surpass the Saturn but was first 4 stage I have seen in person.
 
That 4 stage was one of the coolest flights Friday, hard to surpass the Saturn but was first 4 stage I have seen in person.

There's generally somebody doing a neat small multi-staging project. I saw a cool (and successful) 5 stager there at MWP one year. You try and count the stages by sound after awhile.

Some of the most entertaining large two stagers are when the flier uses a booster that "gets it up there" just enough (safely I might add) so you can appreciate the staging process down low as opposed to seeing the stack disappear and then another streak of smoke up high.

I witnessed that neat profile at a MWP for the first time. Fred Traverni I believe is a practitioner of some flights of that type. If I ever did staging that's something I'd ascribe to. Kurt
 
My Pics

https://michaelzaborowski.smugmug.com/Midwest-Power-15/

Had a nice time.. was good to see old buddys and even made a few new ones.

Thank you to Jason G for all his hard work as well as the QC club and to Tim Lehr as well. The entire club worked super hard.

Thank you Mark Joseph again for you help and kind gifts. I look forward to.. The Blessed Hell Rides first flight.



Grim
 
G:D:DD to see Grim! (and, Bodyguard Big Bryan too) :point:;)

Hey, when your famous- you might need some protection man...just saying.
 
Great launch, even for one day. I got 4/5 of my planned flights on Friday, all dual deploy, and all required tracking. Great field and super-nice people.

I launched my MAC Firestick to about 10,000 ft on a K550 around 1 pm on Friday. Winds were a solid 10-15 mph from the east all day long, so I was not surprised to see a little weathercocking into the wind. However, I was a bit shocked to see the GPS reporting that the landing was 0.7 miles to the east of the launch site - into the wind. I did not see many rockets end up in that direction.

After downloading the GPS track, it looks like my rocket drifted to the east until about 5000' altitude when the surface winds started pushing it back west. Afterwards, I did check the Windy app, and sure enough the winds aloft were pretty stiff from the west, while the surface winds were from the east. Anybody else notice this?

firestick.k550.mwp15.2017.11.04.earth.PNG
 
Rockets do screwy things at altitude. That's what GPS trackers are for. Looks like you just had to ford one of the drainage ditches
or go around it. Stupidhead here ran through three of them before I realized it's better to plan the recovery on a map as long as
you have some positions to go from. Had a 38mm cardboard MD rocket land south of Limerick and just west of the graveyard
a couple of years ago. 1.6 miles away. I picked up another rocket on the way and the flier had a GPS tracker in his too except he
drove to the rocket. I was thankful to be able to hitch a ride back. The 1.6 mile straight line hike was a bear for me. Kurt
 
Just want to say thanks to all the crew at Mid West Power for the great setup and support in spite of the threatening weather forecast. The field was maxxed out with pads on both sides for their famous "keep things moving" strategy to load one side while you launch the other side. It would have been easy to just set up a few pads and wait for the rain to start but they did it right. A real class act. That allowed us to get lots of flights in all day on Friday. I heard some complaints about the wind but most were just flying rockets. It was definitely a good day. Looking forward to next year and maybe MMWP.

Thanks Jason and crew.
 
Just like to toss in my congratulations to djs for his successful L-3! :wave:

With a V-2 also! Not exactly the easiest rocket to fly when it's short and, has an M-Motor in it!
Double points!;)
 
Just like to toss in my congratulations to djs for his successful L-3! :wave:

With a V-2 also! Not exactly the easiest rocket to fly when it's short and, has an M-Motor in it!
Double points!;)

Thanks! and thanks for my twinkie (zinger)! :)
 
Grim,
Thanks a ton for posting your pics - you happened to get me at the RSO table with my rocket, as well as a few great liftoff shots. It is much appreciated!
Tim H.
 
Congrats on ur L3 Glen, was on recovery and missed your flight dang it - but heard it.


Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum
 
Had a good MWP this year.

Helped Fred get his GORGEOUS 4-stage prepped at the Away Cell... Wish I had video, it was awesome.
View attachment 331518
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Thanks for the help at the pad. Sadly, I didn't get on-board video of this one, I forget to erase the files from the previous flight:facepalm:. It would have been cool seeing the stages fall off. All that I have are your photos and the KML from the TeleMetrum. It was an incredibly straight ascent.

Please PM me if you have photos or video of the flight.

Also, have send kudos to QCRS for hosting a great launch. This was my fifth consecutive MWP and each has been a real thrill. The guys did a great job this year keeping things moving on a very busy Friday.

...Fred
 

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Please PM me if you have photos or video of the flight.

Grim Racer's link above had some way cool pictures of the staging. It was an awesome flight- sucks you didn't get video, but at least we have the video from last year :)
 
Thanks for the help at the pad. Sadly, I didn't get on-board video of this one, I forget to erase the files from the previous flight:facepalm:. It would have been cool seeing the stages fall off. All that I have are your photos and the KML from the TeleMetrum. It was an incredibly straight ascent.

Please PM me if you have photos or video of the flight.

Also, have send kudos to QCRS for hosting a great launch. This was my fifth consecutive MWP and each has been a real thrill. The guys did a great job this year keeping things moving on a very busy Friday.

...Fred

Hey, same west to east wind shift I plotted in post #306. Also confirmed by rfjustin. Thanks.

I like how your GPS track from TeleMetrum is nice and smooth during boost. My track (BRB900) is all out of whack from liftoff until 3/4 of the way to apogee.
 
To bad the weather didn't hold out but I was able to meet alot of new people and being still new to rocketry hear all their stories and ideas, making it a very memorable event.
Thanks to Teddy from One bad hawk and Mike from Mac Performance for driving all this way to hang out with us.

The banquet was a great time, food was awesome the door prizes where amazing so thank you for all who donated ESPECIALLY Aerotech and Egg Timer since those are the ones I won :p

Hope to see alot of you back again at mini-midwest or like Jason said if we all show up for the December 9th launch we can set up all the racks again!!
 
Hey, same west to east wind shift I plotted in post #306. Also confirmed by rfjustin. Thanks.

I like how your GPS track from TeleMetrum is nice and smooth during boost. My track (BRB900) is all out of whack from liftoff until 3/4 of the way to apogee.

It's all about the GPS engine. The TM uses the U-BLOX 7. I also have a BRB 70cm GPS that also uses a U-BLOX 7. There's been a few times that I flown both together. They both recorded nearly identical tracks. The BRB seemed a little more accurate. I attribute this to the fact it was in the nosecone and had a better view of the sky, while the TM was in the av-bay where the view was more obstructed.

Since the TM is a flight computer, it knows the flight state and records that in the KML file. Additionally, the TM talks to you during the flight telling you where to look. During this flight it was directing me to the Northwest, then NNW, North, NNE, NE, ENE, and so on until finally the SSE where I saw the main deploy and watched it drift to the ground. Would have never been looking in that direction without it. Once landed, it then talks you to the landing spot. I love flying my TM.

Sent from my Pixel using Rocketry Forum mobile app
 
It's all about the GPS engine. The TM uses the U-BLOX 7. I also have a BRB 70cm GPS that also uses a U-BLOX 7. There's been a few times that I flown both together. They both recorded nearly identical tracks. The BRB seemed a little more accurate. I attribute this to the fact it was in the nosecone and had a better view of the sky, while the TM was in the av-bay where the view was more obstructed.

Since the TM is a flight computer, it knows the flight state and records that in the KML file. Additionally, the TM talks to you during the flight telling you where to look. During this flight it was directing me to the Northwest, then NNW, North, NNE, NE, ENE, and so on until finally the SSE where I saw the main deploy and watched it drift to the ground. Would have never been looking in that direction without it. Once landed, it then talks you to the landing spot. I love flying my TM.

Sent from my Pixel using Rocketry Forum mobile app

Hmm, the BRB900 also uses U-BLOX 7, but the GPS track of my boost phase always looks messed up. This data is stored in the onboard flash memory. Does that matter?

Yes, your flight and the TM KML recording is way cool. Very nice.
 
Oh man,,
Where to start..
Fred's 4 stage,, awesome,, staged the first time so low it seemed you could touch it..
Just awesome, but no surprise..
Fred set the staging record at MWP with a completely successful, perfect 5 stage flight,,
that was last year or the year before,, I don't remember..
EVERYBODY,, how cool is it seeing all the people you speak to and type to all year long..
I want to say it's such a shame we can't all get together more often but I guess then it wouldn't be as special when we do..
Plus Jackie would kill us,, lol...
Tim and Jackie,,
Dude,,
Talk about having company over ??? having a houseful ???
I'd love to know how many Jackie feeds,, and she's done this so many times that now she makes it look easy...
There ain't no way what she does is easy..
Your hospitality is just second to none,, and this has nothing to do with business..
I just can't thank you two enough...
The QCRS crew,,,
Man you guy's ran your tails off,, accommodating everybody and helping wherever it was necessary..
Thank you all so much for your hard work,, it surly didn't go unnoticed..

Thank you,, thank you,, thank you all...
I live for these launches and seeing everyone I don't see all year,,
if I tried to name everyone I'd leave out like half,, lol...

Thank you again,,

Teddy

Ohhh yeah,,,
A big congrats to Nikki and Glen...
Two new level 3's !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I bet this was a memorable MWP for you guy's,, lol...
 
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