Balls 22...Any worthwhile news?

Title says what I am wondering about...Big TRA launch and I haven't seen a thing about it..From what I understand this launch is 2nd only to LDRS..Anyone got any stories to tell? Or even better yet, some pictures/videos of the activities this last weekend??

Come on now..I KNOW for a fact one TRF'er(Tom Binford) was there! Anyone else? Fess up!:wink:

Some news from the our Australian guys - https://www.ausrocketry.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3923&start=60

Thursday night was full moon, cloudless and windless. Driving on 447 past Gerlach, I could switch off my headlights and drive by the moonlight. Moonlit playa looks surreal and most resembles Apollo moonscape photos. The photo accurately captures the lighting--that's how bright it was. It was also close to freezing.

Weather outside of that night was disappointing. I barely got two flights in, both of them failures. A J575 overperformed and the higher pressure extruded the delay grain though forward closure's touch hole, preventing ejection charge from lighting. Gary Rosenfield who was on hand, helped diagnose the issue and graciously offered to warranty the reload. The rocket seemed to go higher than I expected, but I don't how high it got, as the crash destroyed my Alt2.

A vendor was selling vintage SU motors. I bought some late-1980's ATs and Vulcans. Since they are long de-certified, I wanted to fly them while I was at a research launch. With a 3,500' ceiling, a 52mm Vulcan J250 seemed the perfect choice. It lit, came to pressure and blew its forward closure. Happily, having lost the pressure, it flamed out. With 2 out of 2 flight failures, I decided to keep the bigger stuff on the ground.

Weather did improve somewhat Saturday towards the end of sunlight, and a number of flights got off the ground. We left at sundown. I gather that Sunday morning was the best weather of the launch. I know Gerald Meux set an O altitude record--he has some photos on Facebook and I expect he'll post here as well.

Ari.

I did see a few impressive flights, and photographed two of them.

Dave Schafer maidened his 1/4 scale X-2. He has a build thread here: https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1607888

USC launched a very large (R?) rocket. Sadly, it made it only part of the way up. Motor landed while takeoff smoke was still covering the pad.

Ari.

Nice pics, Ari! Hopefully more begin to trickle to the forums, I've heard some second hand knowledge of some pretty cool projects that flew.

What other old SU motors were you able to get your hands on? I had an opportunity to get a Vulcan J250 a year or two ago, but just didn't want to spend the $80-100 that it was offered to me for. Sorry to hear that yours popped, those old motors can be touch and go based on age, propellant type, storage conditions, etc. etc. etc.

For all you Balls 22 fliers....go to the ROCKETS Magazine website, down load a Data Sheet from the front page, fill it out, tell us the good, the bad and the ugly and send it back. We got the up part, but want to know how your project performed and what you thought of the event.

Neil

:flyingpig:

Pantherjon said:

Title says what I am wondering about...Big TRA launch and I haven't seen a thing about it..From what I understand this launch is 2nd only to LDRS..Anyone got any stories to tell? Or even better yet, some pictures/videos of the activities this last weekend??

Come on now..I KNOW for a fact one TRF'er(Tom Binford) was there! Anyone else? Fess up!:wink:

Click to expand...

Jon
We had quite a contingent from Orangeburg at BALLS22. My Dad and I were there along with Tom B, Jim H and Mark Canepa.
I had 3 minimum diameter projects but only was able to fly one (due to various reasons).

On Sunday, I flew a modified Carolina Composite Rocketry CCR54 on a K300 to over 28k.
I will add more of the data after I have a chance to analyze.

Here are a few of my better photos.....

Steve H's ARCAS - sorry for the OOF:


Todd H's 98mm minimum diameter rocket:


USC's Traveler:

Great pics Fred, thanks a bunch for sharing!

FredA said:

Here are a few of my better photos.....

Steve H's ARCAS - sorry for the OOF:
View attachment 146839

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Are those wires hanging out?

The aussies flew a all composite , no tip to tip on a N5800 to well over 50,000.

Jim Jarvis is reporting a flight to 118,600 with a successful recovery.

patelldp said:

Nice pics, Ari! Hopefully more begin to trickle to the forums, I've heard some second hand knowledge of some pretty cool projects that flew.

What other old SU motors were you able to get your hands on? I had an opportunity to get a Vulcan J250 a year or two ago, but just didn't want to spend the $80-100 that it was offered to me for. Sorry to hear that yours popped, those old motors can be touch and go based on age, propellant type, storage conditions, etc. etc. etc.

Click to expand...

Thanks Dan. I did get to meet a few people from the forum in real life, including Crazy Jim and David Schafer, which was way cool.

The guy had 29mm's for $5, 38mm's for $10 and went up to $20-$50 for 52 and 54mm's. He even had a 75mm SU M. I drooled over it, but it was faster (M3200?) than any rocket I fly. Besides the J250, I bought a K420 (52mm x 20"), a couple of 38mm H115s, an H76 (this one has an offset nozzle, my guess is it's under the offset moonburning core is (green nozzle paper plug, top center), 3 G45s and 6 F30s. They all have 1987-88 date comes. $150 for the lot.

I'm fully aware of the odds of successful flights with motors that are as old as my van :=) I may be able to plug the front of that J250 and fly it yet, just don't know when I can make it to a research launch.

Ari.

iter said:

Thanks Dan. I did get to meet a few people from the forum in real life, including Crazy Jim and David Schafer, which was way cool. The guy had 29mm's for $5, 38mm's for $10 and went up to $20-$50 for 52 and 54mm's. He even had a 75mm SU M. I drooled over it, but it was faster (M3200?) than any rocket I fly. Besides the J250, I bought a K420 (52mm x 20"), a couple of 38mm H115s, an H76 (this one has an offset nozzle, my guess is it's under the offset moonburning core is (green nozzle paper plug, top center), 3 G45s and 6 F30s. They all have 1987-88 date comes. $150 for the lot. I'm fully aware of the odds of successful flights with motors that are as old as my van :=) I may be able to plug the front of that J250 and fly it yet, just don't know when I can make it to a research launch. Ari.

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Jackpot! That's awesome! 1988 is a good vintage...those things are as old as me...

FredA said:

Here are a few of my better photos.....

Todd H's 98mm minimum diameter rocket:
View attachment 146840

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Awesome Fred! What a hectic week mixing, machining and prepping that rocket. Thank god Todd got the paint job done in time too!

It was good seeing you - I am looking forward to your project next year!

Are those wires hanging out?
Yes, Steve's idea of "twist and tuck" .....

Good seeing everyone this past weekend.
Wish we would have seen more of the sun!
Here's hoping for better weather next year.
Sorry for all those who came all that way and didn't get to fly -- we had 7 more flights planned.

Todd, awesome launch photo. Great job Fred! I'm curious, how did your liner look after removing the internals, or have you got that far yet? I'm glad it got there in time.

Todd left the case out here on the west coast. I can take it apart this weekend and get back to you with some pictures. I was wondering myself.

Based on the shape of the Al exit cone compared to the motor I flew last year - UV is a bit of a cooler propellant. Though the entire bottom half of that liner was gone. Are 98mm liners getting thicker? Recent one's I've seen seem far more robust.

A few videos -
The Aussie's Drama Queen demoing a soon to be certified 6" Gorilla O4450BL: [YOUTUBE]V18jycYwVUE[/YOUTUBE]
Charlie Ogino flew a K300 to over 28,000 feet: [YOUTUBE]ATDwFwDpYvU[/YOUTUBE]
Jim Hendrickson's altitude shot suffered when my N1000 catoed: [YOUTUBE]MHLdf28NtIc[/YOUTUBE]
An O3100 in a 4" rocket reached 59,000 feet AGL: [YOUTUBE]p0h1az9tRVw[/YOUTUBE]
A 4" rocket boosting on an O3400 to N1100: [YOUTUBE]02dlrv4_DBw[/YOUTUBE]

Are 98mm liners getting thicker?

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Not that I was aware of, but in measuring a pre 2009 98mm liner VS one from my last order, the latest ones are .008" thicker, but they don't have as much phenolic in them as the old ones did so it'd be a coin toss to say one is better than the other. Different manufacturers.

I'd be very interested in seeing some photos.

mjhall said:

Jim Jarvis is reporting a flight to 118,600 with a successful recovery.

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That is indeed the case. Here's a screenshot just before apogee.

I'm hoping someone got a video of the flight.

Jim

I arrived just before the flight went up. No video. The launch layout resulted in very difficult filming conditions. Besides the extreme distances, with pads scattered and vague information on which pad was launching, I took very little video.

JimJarvis50 said:

That is indeed the case. Here's a screenshot just before apogee.

I'm hoping someone got a video of the flight.

Jim

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That is epically cool. Congrats on the flight.

JimJarvis50 said:

That is indeed the case. Here's a screenshot just before apogee.
I'm hoping someone got a video of the flight.
Jim

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Great flight! How far away did it land?

Threemorewishes said:

Great flight! How far away did it land?

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It landed about 9 miles out, which isn't all that bad. The tiltometer showed a maximum of 10 degrees, but I need to (and will be able to) analyze the gps data to determine the actual flight path. My guess is that the angle will not be as much as it appeared to those of us who actually saw the flight (my WAG is about 5 degrees at the point of sustainer ignition, but we'll see). I believe the 17 mile radius waiver was in effect for the flight (but I wouldn't swear to it).

Jim

pictures from my camera: balls 22 september 20-22, 2013. originally had 2,000 photos, reduced to 565 pictures. had a great time and it was nice seeing everyone.

https://picasaweb.google.com/100407756744853308407/BALLS22September2013#

Good photos there Skippy! And thanks for the crack bacon you brought with you, wish we could buy the stuff here!!
Here's the video of my N5800 launch on the Friday.
[video=youtube_share;79sgWXSgdj0]https://youtu.be/79sgWXSgdj0[/video]
Cheers
Nic
NSW, Australia

I was able to get a couple shots of your rocket Jim. Here you go.

On the pad.


And on the way!


Well done sir.

Great shots so far; thanks for posting!!!

I took photos when I was able to...quite simply if my camera was available when a rocket was announced, I took a photo or two. Here they are:

The flightline Thursday morning while early arrivals set up:


Skeekie's tire:


Geoff's Boosted Dart...not sure if it flew???


A family first: father kicked son's butt in the altitude department; congrats Tom!


While out searching for "Air Train", we recovered three separate pieces of Bill Goods' two stager in various areas North of the pads; this being one:


Jim's 2 stager 118,000' below apogee poised for flight:


A memory test for me here, maybe Bob Yanacek's Alphabet Project rocket??? Leaving the pad:


...and picking up momentum:


One of my favorite flights of the weekend; Skippy's O25,000 powered 6" aluminum bird. Sitting peacefully:


Rocking my world:


to be continued...

-Eric-