Hi everyone,
I sort of introduced myself in the beginners forum last week so I thought I'd show off some of my son's handiwork. For those that didn't read it I got back into rocketry about 3 years ago when my sons were in Cub Scouts and we did a launch with the whole pack. I was original member of the Estes Aerospace club when I was a kid from around 1980 through 84. I found catalogs and lists I'd made of my rockets from back then. I still have two of the rockets that I should fix sometime.
Since the sub pack launch my son's (who are now 11 and 13) have stayed into the hobby and continued to build more rockets. My oldest had to build and launch a new rocket for his boy scout merit badge for Space Exploration so that was the excuse for the launch yesterday. We launched the following rockets in the picture below. (from left to right)
1. Mini Honest John - A4-10T
2. Big Bertha - B6-4
3. Alpha - B6-4 (this is first rocket my youngest son built)
4. Viking - A8-3 (this is the first rocket my oldest son built) - We launched it with a 30+ year old engine and it worked great.
5. Reflector - B4-4 - First flight and the new rocket my oldest built for his merit badge - Nothing in the payload section
6. Seeker - B6-4 - This is the quest E2X rocket that came with our launch kit
7. US Army Patriot - B6-4
We kept the rockets lower as there was a lot of cloud cover. There was a small 2-3 MPH wind but we accomodated it and the patriot landed 6 feet from the launch pad. That was by far the best launch. Here are two slow mo videos my son took on his phone of the Patriot and Big Bertha launches.
All in all it was good launch with only one issue. We'd put a new parachute on the Alpha and it must have been larger (and with too small of a hole cut in the center) as it literally took 2 minutes to float back down and it traveled about 200 yards from the launch site. It just missed a building and landed in the parking lot next to it. When we returned home to put a larger hole in the center of the chute...
[video]https://youtu.be/iP6P7xIRLOA[/video]
[video]https://youtu.be/eaV1t8y0gvI[/video]
Looking forward to learning/sharing more with you all.
Eric Finn
I sort of introduced myself in the beginners forum last week so I thought I'd show off some of my son's handiwork. For those that didn't read it I got back into rocketry about 3 years ago when my sons were in Cub Scouts and we did a launch with the whole pack. I was original member of the Estes Aerospace club when I was a kid from around 1980 through 84. I found catalogs and lists I'd made of my rockets from back then. I still have two of the rockets that I should fix sometime.
Since the sub pack launch my son's (who are now 11 and 13) have stayed into the hobby and continued to build more rockets. My oldest had to build and launch a new rocket for his boy scout merit badge for Space Exploration so that was the excuse for the launch yesterday. We launched the following rockets in the picture below. (from left to right)
1. Mini Honest John - A4-10T
2. Big Bertha - B6-4
3. Alpha - B6-4 (this is first rocket my youngest son built)
4. Viking - A8-3 (this is the first rocket my oldest son built) - We launched it with a 30+ year old engine and it worked great.
5. Reflector - B4-4 - First flight and the new rocket my oldest built for his merit badge - Nothing in the payload section
6. Seeker - B6-4 - This is the quest E2X rocket that came with our launch kit
7. US Army Patriot - B6-4
We kept the rockets lower as there was a lot of cloud cover. There was a small 2-3 MPH wind but we accomodated it and the patriot landed 6 feet from the launch pad. That was by far the best launch. Here are two slow mo videos my son took on his phone of the Patriot and Big Bertha launches.
All in all it was good launch with only one issue. We'd put a new parachute on the Alpha and it must have been larger (and with too small of a hole cut in the center) as it literally took 2 minutes to float back down and it traveled about 200 yards from the launch site. It just missed a building and landed in the parking lot next to it. When we returned home to put a larger hole in the center of the chute...
[video]https://youtu.be/iP6P7xIRLOA[/video]
[video]https://youtu.be/eaV1t8y0gvI[/video]
Looking forward to learning/sharing more with you all.
Eric Finn