The Captain's personal launch report, LUNAR Snow Ranch SECOND April launch 04/12/14

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qquake2k

Captain Low-N-Slow
Joined
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It was another beautiful day at the Ranch yesterday, for LUNAR's unprecedented second in a row high power launch. The sun was bright, not many clouds, and great visibility. But the wind was pretty fierce at times, just like the April 5 launch. There weren't as many people in attendance as at a normal launch, but it was a fun day nonetheless.

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I brought three rockets with me, and flew all three. Kind of a record for me! All three rockets got damaged, which is also a record, albeit unfortunate.

First up was my scratch built upscale Vagabond XL, on an H165 Redline. Nice flight, but it broke a fin on landing. It should be an easy repair. As usual, the great launch photos were taken by my good friend Hanna.


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Next up was my scratch built scale Astrobee-D on a fast burn H220 Blue Thunder. Again, a nice flight, but it suffered some pretty bad damage somewhere along the way. The coupler is torn and the body tube is dented and torn. The body tube can be replaced, but I'm not sure yet how to repair the coupler.

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Last of mine was my scratch built upscale Alpha III XXL, on an H123 White Lightning. Beautiful flight. The inside of the body tube is separated, though. I should be able to fix it by flooding it with CA and sanding it. I hope.

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Hanna is such a big help to me, and a lot of fun too. I decided my rocket wench needed a better sun hat. She rocks it!

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Hanna needs to build a rocket! :)

I love the photos of you! Its like me staring back through the computer, only younger.

Hard to tell on the Astrobee D video but it looks like the upper and lower may have slapped each other at deployment. Both the XL and AB seemed to go a bit long. Was that because of the winds? The Alpha looked perfect.

Did you drop and altimeter in any of them?

Great photos and report!!!! :w: :cheers: :clap:
 
John Coker was there with his "box" of eight crayon rockets. It took him a couple of tries, but he got them all lit. He let the kids keep the rockets they found. Very, very cool!

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This is Kit's pink Crayon rocket on an H165 Redline.

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One of david Robb's rockets. I don't remember which one.

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Kit's second flight, one of his tubers on an H148 Redline. Not sure what he was growling at in the first photo. :tongue:

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Ari's unfortunate glider mishap.

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Thanks for the photos and videos, Jim!

The Crayon went up on the H148R and tubefin went up on the H165R. I noticed that my delays were awfully close to the "up" side of the boost. May need to adjust the coefficient of drag in my sims...8 seconds looks better than the 7 seconds I've been using.
 
It was definitely breezy, so I thought, "Oh great, no altimeter testing today," but it turned out to the shortest walking day I've EVER had at snow ranch. Five flights (three StrongARMS on H115 Dark Matters) and two Der Red Max flights on G motors. All within site from the pad. Granted, all below 2000'.

My H flights one week ago (same rocket, same motors, same location) drifted so far that if I hadn't run up to the top of the southern hill in time, I never would have found them each time. Involved creeks and barbwire fences. Not this week, though.

Here's the altitudes from AltimeterThree:

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Ari's unfortunate glider mishap.

Thanks Jim. I think you said that you missed Bluefin Tuba taking off, but just in case, maybe you have something? All I have is the smoke trail.

Ari.
 
Such a beautiful launch site! And great photos of the launches too! Thanks for sharing!
 
Hey Captain you use an Altimeter like a Jolly Logic? Just curious. Or the estes one ($30 on eBay)?

I have an Altimeter One and an Adept Altim1, but I rarely use either. I don't know why. Just like I rarely use one of the three keychain cameras I have.
 
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