"College Funds" Yet another scratch build.- Up in flames at Hellfire 18

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Aksrockets said:
The boost was NOT pretty. At about 60% of the burn the top half of the rocket separated and I could see flame coming out BOTH sides of the booster.
Classic burn-through. It was pretty embarrassing to have that happen in front of a big crowd. I might have lost some trust and respect in the club. :(

Alex
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I'm sorry to hear that! It was a cool rocket.

And I'm sure nobody in your club judges you that bad. CATOs happen. It's the nature of what we do. Sounds like you did everything in your power to prevent it as well, so I say if someone looses respect for that... They weren't worth getting respect from.
 
Thanks again for testing my motor for me. Now you have an excuse to build a new one.
 
awseiger said:
I'm sorry to hear that! It was a cool rocket.

And I'm sure nobody in your club judges you that bad. CATOs happen. It's the nature of what we do. Sounds like you did everything in your power to prevent it as well, so I say if someone looses respect for that... They weren't worth getting respect from.
Click to expand...
I know, It's probably all in my head but I had a Perfect 4 year record flying at UROC. No lawn-darts, no catos, no shreds. A few small recovery failures but nothing like that.
flynfrog said:
Thanks again for testing my motor for me. Now you have an excuse to build a new one.
Click to expand...
Thank YOU for letting my fly it! You make a better motor then Aerotech!
daveyfire said:
Hey, despite the issues on the second flight, this one makes it a banner weekend. Congrats, you've arrived ;)
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Thanks! I now feel very comfortable with flying dual deploy. I feel like I can really trust my altimeters now. I think I've turned a corner in that regard.

Alex
 
Alex, let it go dude....crap happens. If you assemble the motor correctly, there really isn't much else you can do. Now it may be something else if you forget the ejection charge, forget to arm altimeter, crash alot of rockets, etc. One out of 4 years? Not much of an issue. You've got skills way beyond a lot of older people.
 
Aksrockets said:
The boost was NOT pretty. At about 60% of the burn the top half of the rocket separated and I could see flame coming out BOTH sides of the booster.
Classic burn-through. It was pretty embarrassing to have that happen in front of a big crowd. I might have lost some trust and respect in the club. :(
Click to expand...

Unless you have chronic problems with motor failures, in no way, shape or form should you lose trust and respect.

Failures happen. It doesn't make it fun, but they do happen.

-Kevin
 
I would expect, given the attitudes of most rocketeers, to get sympathy for having experienced a motor failure.
 
Video!
[video=youtube_share;yfDCS1SMH1g]https://youtu.be/yfDCS1SMH1g[/video]
This shows both flights.

Alex
 
Aksrockets said:
The second flight was a lot less pretty. I loaded her up with an AT I600 Redline (one of my favorite motors up until yesterday) I got her loaded on the pad, armed the altims and walked back.

The boost was NOT pretty. At about 60% of the burn the top half of the rocket separated and I could see flame coming out BOTH sides of the booster.
Classic burn-through. It was pretty embarrassing to have that happen in front of a big crowd. I might have lost some trust and respect in the club. :(

I showed the motor to Jack Garabaldi, who verified that it was assembled correctly. I have no idea what happened to cause the burn through. Maybe I got a bad delay grain or something. I'll be contacting Aerotech tomorrow. I'm fairly certain that it will be covered.

I'm afraid that the booster is toast. The good news is that my upper section and my altimeters were untouched. Burn-through occurred at 447 feet, or so my Adept 22 reports.

Video and pictures to come tomorrow!

Alex
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What was the code on the motor? I had one do that not too long ago.
 
we didn't lose any respect for you Alex but you may have to wear the hat of shame or something
 
Loss of respect??? Whatever! I've had 2 I800's fail to ignite the delay grain, an H410 blow out the fore end, 3 salt darts and one desert dart! I don't get no respect... Just kidding. It's all good. What's embarrassing in my opinion is when you forget to screw on the aft end of the motor and shortly after ignition, the whole thing falls out and burns in front of the pad. FYI, it wasn't me that pulled that one. Walking to the pad after that may be the walk of shame!
-Ken
 
kenstarr said:
Loss of respect??? Whatever! I've had 2 I800's fail to ignite the delay grain, an H410 blow out the fore end, 3 salt darts and one desert dart! I don't get no respect... Just kidding. It's all good. What's embarrassing in my opinion is when you forget to screw on the aft end of the motor and shortly after ignition, the whole thing falls out and burns in front of the pad. FYI, it wasn't me that pulled that one. Walking to the pad after that may be the walk of shame!
-Ken
Click to expand...

With CTI's, though, you know it's not your fault.

...unless you don't screw in the aft closure. Then it is your fault.
 
Ohhhhh kayyyy,
Who wants to see the damage?
DSC06628.jpg
Here is what's left of the booster. The internal damage was terrible. I scrapped the rocket earlier this week and the only thing salvageable was the Aeropac motor retainer. The tubes were out of round and completely bubbled, the fins were cracked and even the CRs had small cracks from a hard fall.

Here is the floating forward closure:
DSC06619.jpg

The seal disc:
DSC06621.jpg

And the top of the casing:
DSC06623.jpg

I emailed Aerotech earlier today. Twice actually. Both emails bounced. I'll keep trying. If I need to, I'll just call them. Heck, they're only 4 hours away from me. I could just drive down there if I wanted too.

Alex
 
No problem, Alex! BTW I think you were trying to tell me that the Double Shuttle had one motor cato from a review of your video cam. I guess I was in such a tizzy from the failure, I didn't know what you said. When I picked up the short flying glider, I saw that the E12 motor had cato'ed. It was missing the clay nozzle. Also, the next day I was looking through Nadine's proofs and sure enough she captured the "cato" in her still pictures.
 
Here's a few more pics of the paint damage that I forgot to post from earlier.
DSC06625.jpg

DSC06626.jpg

DSC06631.jpg

Alex
 
A few days ago, a big package showed up on my doorstep. Aerotech sent me all the damaged motor parts! It took awhile, but I got my stuff.

Alex
 

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