3" Darkstar revisited

Coming up on one year since Wildman introduced the Black 3" Darkstar and I'm curious how many of these kits have been flown. I have three flights on my "Blackstar" with the first flight at Airfest on a K454 Skidmark to 5787 ft. Second flight at GHS on a K456 Dark Matter to 5044 ft. and Third flight at RocStock 38 on an L935 Imax to 12,934 ft.
Sharon used hers to get her L-2 cert. at RocStock on a K540 Metalstorm to 7288 ft. Awesome first flight!


I know CJ has built and flown his "Black Pearl", and Griffin has flown his, I would like to know more about flights on this wonderful rocket. What did you fly it on and how did it go?

Mine is still in the box, alaong with all of the other kits I bought over that weekend.....

I have 2 flights on mine. First was with an I243 & it only went 700 feet. Main & drouge deployed instantly.
2nd flight was with a J360, still not enough motor but it stayed in sight & was really pretty. I think 3,600 ft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSgEbDrsbDU

I have four flights on mine, all on CTI Pro54 motors: J760 3G White Thunder, 4661 feet; K740 4G CStar, 9338 feet; K454 4G Classic, 7872 feet; and K650 5G Pink, 9680 feet. The K740 flight landed about 15 feet from the pad, it was really quite remarkable!

Just one so far...on a sparky research load to a little over 7000'. Great flight though! LOVE my Darkstars :grin:

Three flights so far.
First flight was on a 4g ex motor, 2nd & 3rd flights on 5g ex motor.
It is setting here prepped and ready to fly this weekend but both launches I was planning to attend are a no go due to weather.
I like the look of the split fins but alt. does suffer due to them.
My Darkstar has a tailcone my 3" Wildman does not. Still the Wildman out does the Darkstar on alt.
Max alt. not always being my goal and the price of the Darkstar made it to good to pass up.

stay tuned. working on it right now as a matter of fact.

s6

stealth6 said:

stay tuned. working on it right now as a matter of fact.

s6

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me too am close to the finish on mine .

J340M to start off - then ?? - go for it flight for me will be a K260 long burn..

Kenny

This past weekend my dad flew his to a little over 10k on a K1440 WT. Awesome motor with and awesome flame!

Only one flight, on an Aerotech H178 Dark Matter without the payload bay. Blew the laundry out at about 300 feet or so at speed, chute threw a shoud line and came in hard, crushed the Alt 2 I had tied to the NC. opps. I really like this rocket. Plan is to setup some tracking and put some bigger loads in it next summer.
I really had a lot of fun building this one.

Mine has had one flight solo and 3 flights as a sustainer to a 3" Darkstar booster.

Solo- Albino Assault (EX) 6 grain 54mm- 10,930
2 Stage K2045-K160-------------------- 10,420
2 Stage K2045-K1440-------------------13,993
2 Stage K940-J250---------------------- 7776

Great rocket, great price. Wait till you see what Tim has in store for the 2013 Black Friday deal :grin:

I'm seriously tempted to try and wedge a loki 54/4000 in this thing.

DizWolf said:

I'm seriously tempted to try and wedge a loki 54/4000 in this thing.

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No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.
-Yoda

I have 6 flights all great.

1st @ Bong on j250 to 2381 ft

2nd 6-29-13 @ Nowthen MN on j1299 to 3108 ft

3rd 7-28-13 @ Bong on j275 to 3110 ft

4th 7-28-13 @ bong on j825 to 3216 ft

5th 8-10-13 @ North Branch MN on k1050 to 10,510 ft Note one grain only burned 75%

6th 11-2-13 @ MWP on k1050 to 12,050 ft

Glad ya brought this back up, Wayco!

Been kicking around the idea of stuffing a 54-2800 in mine for KLOUDBurst. Probably go with my "Psycho Purple" propellant and see what we'll see :wink:

These truly ARE great rockets. I also have the 4" 54mm MMT version and a Mini. Just ordered the Darkstar Jr with 2-Stage kit also.

jpummil said:

Glad ya brought this back up, Wayco!

Been kicking around the idea of stuffing a 54-2800 in mine for KLOUDBurst. Probably go with my "Psycho Purple" propellant and see what we'll see :wink:

These truly ARE great rockets. I also have the 4" 54mm MMT version and a Mini. Just ordered the Darkstar Jr with 2-Stage kit also.

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I picked up the 2-Stage upgrade for my Darkstar Jr. at Airfest, just need to fit it in with the other Wildman kits I'm building. Hope you can get some video of that flight, should be spectacular!

Seven Flights on my DarkStar 3.



Motors: 1 - K456DM, 4 - J401FJ, 1 - J180, 1 - J340M.

First filight January 2013 - Lunar, then flights a monthly SARG and LUNAR launches. Flew at 2013 TCC's Daire Aire and October Skies. Flew in Nevada at MMWR Nov and XPRS August launches.

1 launch MWP? K350 skid ex.

What are folks using for chutes on these? Size/type/etc. for both main and drogue (assuming you are not going drogue-less)?

Wayco, I'm specifically interested in what you've been using, as you seem to have a lot of flights with yours, and your landing conditions are similar to mine (meaning: none of that weird fluffy soft green stuff on the ground).

If any of you have been flying either a Wildman DualDeploy, Intimidator 3, Competitor 3, or the new Shredder, I'd be interested in what you are using for recovery laundry on those as well (seeing as they are pretty much the same rocket with different fins).

I'll be making my own chute(s) for mine and I still haven't decided on exactly what size they will be. I almost always go MUCH larger than "normal" or "standard" sizes for most of my rockets, due to very hard landing surfaces in my flying zones. But I still want to go with as small as I can get away with. This will be my largest/heaviest rocket to date, and I don't have any chutes large enough in my fleet yet. At least I don't think I do.

thanks for your input - Happy New Year everyone, s6

I go with a Skyangle 44" or an ultraX 70" from TopFlight. Both have worked flawlessly every time. No drogue use on this size for me

40" Wildman chute for the main. 2' RM or 20" Skyangle for the drogue. The 2' RM is smaller in size than the Skyangle.
Put one more flight on mine since last post.
4 g ex motor = K503 according to my ARTS 2.
With a 40" WM for the main and the 20" Skyangle for the drogue.
Descent rate under drogue = 61 ft/s
Descent rate under main = 30' ft/s.

40 inch Reacon chute from Wildman has worked well for me. I haven't used a drogue chute yet but I did use a Top flight recovery 8x100 Ultra Streamer once. I thought it might help with tracking it visually. It didn't this time but winds were blowing at 15MPH on ground and while clouds were up at the 10,000 foot level, they were quite abundant. Flight was just under 8000 feet. Good thing I had tracker on it. Found it with no problems

6 flights;
1 J250- successful
2 J760 successful
3 2 stage configuration- L805 staged to K360- partial success (my avatar)
4 K360 successful
5 "short" configuration I800- successful
6 2 stage configuration L640- J140- unsuccessful

My only flight was short, both in configuration and duration. H178DM popped right after burnout. I had a top flight 45" chute, that I seem to have missed a loop while attaching. seemed fine when I tugged it, but blowing out at speed pulled it loose. Landed fast but fine, only damage was crushing my alt2. And it was 30 feet from the pad

Here is mine on a 38mm 5 grain J316 pink. Nice flight to 2000 feet. She could definitely use more power! Launch site is with MMMSC in Berwick Maine.

I'm just about start on building mine.
I went looking for the Roc Sim file of the 3" version and all I came up with is; a Space Cowboy from Rocket Reviews.
It was even labeled as a DarkStar 3.0"
Does anyone have a bone stock file that they could post or upload to Rocket Reviews?

Thanks!

JD