What did you do rocket wise today?

Bought a Jolly Logic 3... in anticipation of a local HP field.

shreadvector said:

Today I got the California state model rocket laws changed.

Signed by the governor today.

It goes into effect January 1, 2016.

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Thank you SO much for this. I was unaware of the effort, being fairly new to getting back into things. Glad to see it pass!

Began work on a 3x 18mm cluster rocket.

Also sanded for about a 1 1/2 hour on the first coat of Primer of the Hydac

Gonna start assembling my Eggfinder TRS.

These surface mount components are teeny. This'll be a Fun solder job. I wonder if any of my friends have a circuitboard vise I can borrow...

EXPjawa said:

Well, its cousin Photon Disruptor is already gone, and now the Photon Probe is on the major mark-down list. I'm just making a deduction based on the evidence. It might not be discontinued, but it looks likely to be on the bubble to me...

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Yes, the Photon Probe is discontinued. It hasn't been in Estes's Price List for retailers for some time. There seem to be quite a few left, however, left in the pipeline.

-- Roger

Flew my scratch built Ester Advanced Target Drone. Flew like a champ, even with a Jolly Login Altimeter Three shoved in the BT-50. Flew a C6-5 for an altitude of 538 feet and a duration of 48 seconds.

Also flew my Estes Alien Invader. Darn thing keeps going into a flat spin at ejection. What the hell? I thought it was early ejection, but the same thing with a B6-6. Is the parachute too small?

swatkat said:

Bought a Jolly Logic 3... in anticipation of a local HP field.

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Tried mine today. It is a little funky with my phone, the phone keeps locking up and I have to restart. The A3 does keep all of the data so no worries there. I attached the spreadsheet it creates via email.

View attachment flightReport.xlsx

I finished assembling my PS2 Argent. Just the vinyl decals remain. The stripe pattern will be the same as shown on the face card, but recolored. My decals are dark red and gold, and the base rocket is champagne colored.


I started gluing up the motor mount / fin can of my PS2 Leviathan. And while waiting on the glue, I assembled my new kite:

EXPjawa said:

I finished assembling my PS2 Argent. Just the vinyl decals remain. The stripe pattern will be the same as shown on the face card, but recolored. My decals are dark red and gold, and the base rocket is champagne colored.
View attachment 267801Love the color of the Argent. I'm amazed at how fast you are at completing rockets like an Arms Race.

I started gluing up the motor mount / fin can of my PS2 Leviathan. And while waiting on the glue, I assembled my new kite:
View attachment 267802View attachment 267803

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Love the color of the Argent. I'm amazed at how fast you are at completing rockets like an Arms Race.

Epoxied the motor mount and fins in my Punisher. 3D printed fin alignment guide is clamped on and everything is aligned. Finished the major repairs on my 3" Darkstar. It suffered a terrible cato last fall that blew out and torched the filament wound body tube several inches above the fins. A new kevlar shock cord was installed and a coupler epoxied in to mate the fincan and airframe. With these repairs, I emptied my first full can of Proline 4500. It's a good thing there are more cans ready to be opened.

Hopefully, tomorrow will see the completion of the Darkstar. I would like to send it up Saturday at the THOR launch. I doubt the Punisher will be ready; internal and external fillets take more time than I have. It will maiden at the August THOR launch or AIRFest.

Doug

Launched this evening. After a bit of a snafu at our preferred field, we caravanned over to a local park and put about 30 birds up. Sorry Ken on the first field, I'll get another launch on the calendar in a few weeks and send it out via email. The tube fin Super Neon XL's were remarkably stable. The flutter bys actually went up 4 times each with no issues, even with the nose cones glued on. Successful outing, even after a double booking at the normal field...

Put another layer of glass on the switch band of my 4" avionics bay, as it was undersized just enough to mess up the evenness of the airframe. The addition should make the airframe transitioning between booster and payload seamless... after much sanding of course.

Attempted, and failed, to win an Estes Black Brant II on the auction site. I swear this rocket is my Eleanor - I'll never be able to handle it.

CrazyOB said:

Flew my scratch built Ester Advanced Target Drone. Flew like a champ, even with a Jolly Login Altimeter Three shoved in the BT-50. Flew a C6-5 for an altitude of 538 feet and a duration of 48 seconds.

Also flew my Estes Alien Invader. Darn thing keeps going into a flat spin at ejection. What the hell? I thought it was early ejection, but the same thing with a B6-6. Is the parachute too small?

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My screaming eagle does the exact same thing at apogee it just starts flat spinning down. I thought the same thing so I put a larger chute in it but have not yet had a chance to test it.

Flyfalcons said:

Attempted, and failed, to win an Estes Black Brant II on the auction site. I swear this rocket is my Eleanor - I'll never be able to handle it.

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Just got a second chance to buy this, so I did! Very excited to get building once it shows up.

Flyfalcons said:

Just got a second chance to buy this, so I did! Very excited to get building once it shows up.

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Congratulations!

Sanded some more on the Hydac, and scratch built a BT-60 cluster rocket with an interchangeable booster.

I soldered together an Eggfinder LCD

Cool project. The big ground/thermal tabs of the voltage regulators were a bit tricky to solder well, the through-hole components were super easy, and the surface-mount rx unit was actually really simple once I figured out the right way to wet both pads. The SMA antenna mount was also really irritating since both it and the board ground planes were acting like giant heatsinks.


Seems to work okay, but I can't know for sure until I get the Eggtimer TRS soldered up and order a rubber duck antenna. I was saving the TRS for second because it's a much more intimidating solder job; however the ease which I did the surface-mount voltage regulators and rf unit makes me not worry anymore. You can actually do them a lot faster than through-hole since you don't have to keep flipping the board over!

Just "donated" 140 bucks to more Estes rockets on sale. A lot of them. Looks like several more "build parties" will be in short order.

swatkat said:

Just "donated" 140 bucks to more Estes rockets on sale. A lot of them. Looks like several more "build parties" will be in short order.

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Thought I was content after my 3rd purchase, but this 4th of July sale keeps dragging on and now I made a 4th purchase. I now have doubles and triples of most of everything in that sale. Every time I become born again for something, I go full board on fire and then quickly burn out.

Making a list before heading out to the local (s)Lowes home improvement center for some much needed hardware. Working two rebuild projects and one new build at the same time... it is good to be alive and well in rocketry!

Today, I'm painting my PML AAMRAM 3 and putting fins on my TLP Matra Magic Missile.

launched a few little rockets at the tripoli wisconsin launch at Bong. My wife fell victim to the sweet sweet siren song of the Wildman trailer and bought herself one of the 29mm patriot rockets to fly as a planned L1 rocket.

Started working on my Estes Vagabond with sanding, CWF on fins and BT spirals. One of the short body tubes came with raised spirals, so no filling required. Since nobody carries Kevlar cord, I will be going stock with a longer elastic shock cord (3x BT length) and paper fold. No big deal because in all the years I have flown rockets, I have never had an elastic fail. I had to replace just one elastic after about a dozen launches because it was getting charred and brown. I just cut and sanded the old one off and mounted a new one on. Most of my rockets I retire after a dozen launches for surviving and gives me an excuse to buy and build more.

Ground tested ejection charges on my 4" Intimidator. Success with ~3 grams. 3 2-56 shear pins, 25ft harness and the 60" chute popped out perfectly.

JERRYR708 said:

Thought I was content after my 3rd purchase, but this 4th of July sale keeps dragging on and now I made a 4th purchase. I now have doubles and triples of most of everything in that sale. Every time I become born again for something, I go full board on fire and then quickly burn out.

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LOL, then I'm not the only one! At least I can justify them saying they are "For the scouts".

Uploaded a video of one of my flights from this month. The car was okay, and my dad picked up some flowers from the farm on the way out, so things are okay with my mom, too

[video=youtube;pSpuBH8__60]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSpuBH8__60&feature=youtu.be[/video]

I also flew my 4" Pike on a J825R. It was a great flight, and my first flight with redundancy. It was nice to see everything fire right on cue, even my altimeter that got a little wet.

[video=youtube;2QHY8NNMhmc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QHY8NNMhmc&feature=youtu.be[/video]

It's a beautiful evening in upstate NY, and wind is calm. Put my phoenix bird up twice on a C6-3 and landed it within 30 feet of pad both flights.

Love living out in the country to be able to fly LPR/MPR on a whim

JERRYR708 said:

Thought I was content after my 3rd purchase, but this 4th of July sale keeps dragging on and now I made a 4th purchase. I now have doubles and triples of most of everything in that sale. Every time I become born again for something, I go full board on fire and then quickly burn out.

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I fell prey as well. Like the estes build pile isn't big enough already. But those bundles are killer!

Managed to grab 4 fletcher kits before they went out of stock, so happy with that.

Just spent a little while taking inventory of the shipment - looks like everything is in order! Hard to believe getting like 25 kits for $160 shipped including 4 PSII builder kits ...

Helped setup, run, and takedown the Tri-City Rocketeers July launch. It was fairly busy the first half the day as we had a large Cub Scout pack show up. Flew my new (P.O.S) Maxi-Alpha 3 I picked up from the current Estes sale, was seriously disappointed when it didn't break a fin on landing like everyone elses on TRF seems too. Might have to break it so I can rebuild it as proper Maxi-Alpha 3 with wood fins, until then it flys nekked. Got to observe a great L1 cert flight by one of our junior members, and quite a few HP launches with some great flights.