Punching holes in the sky with the N5600

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mannyskid

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A couple months ago, I got wind of the new CTI motor, the Pro98-6G N5600 White Thunder. After I saw Gary T's awesome flight with his F200, I knew I needed to fly one for myself. I picked one up from Wildman, but quickly realized I needed a rocket to fly it in. I had an Ultimate Darkstar that had been in the box since black saturday two and a half years ago. I built it in a week before the QCRS June launch; however, the weather was not in my favor. Since I didn't have time to finish the rocket I had planned to fly at the Kloudbuster's july launch and I had already promised a friend that we would drive down (he was to attempt his level 1), I figured I would bring this bad boy out. I glued to motor on Thursday night with the help of my dad. This one was a little different as I was told I needed to use a lot of glue. I had glued two pro98-6GXL motors before, but didn't use nearly as much glue as I did on this one. I used about 3 Oz. of gorilla glue in total. Prep was kind of a hassle with this fat rocket, but I had it on the pad by mid afternoon on Saturday (thanks to ClayD for helping me carry it to the pad). I called the rocket "Turducken", which is a chicken stuffed inside a duck, stuffed inside a turkey. Bob interpreted it as being german for "Manny built this, everybody get back". The motor came instantly to pressure and got the 75 Lb rocket up in a hurry! The rocket flew arrow straight for the short burn. By the time the rocket had arced over, we noticed something strange, a huge yellow dot in the sky, the 10' main parachute had come out. I got in my car and started driving. I could see it the whole way and got within 100 yards by the time it touched down over 5 miles away. It missed the power lines by only a couple feet. The wind was blowing a bit by the time it landed and decided to take my rocket for a little ride across 60th street. I had to wrestle the parachute to get it down and stop my rocket from blowing across the field. An interesting, but successful flight in my book, and also my first successful N motor flight. The missile works RRC3 was beeping out 14,280', a bit lower than I expected but still respectable for such a big rocket. I'll download and post the Raven data file tonight. Thanks for loaning the case for this flight Gus, it has been cleaned and will be returned to you this Sunday.

Manny


[YOUTUBE]kfC7g_iKmnk[/YOUTUBE]

photo-2.jpg

IMG_1465.jpg

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Awesome!

Please explain to me about gluing the motor. That is new to me. Thanks.
 
Again Manny congrats on this flight; glad I was there to see it. Really like the middle recovery picture. I did not realize that the main came out at the top… that always makes for an interesting recovery.

Awesome!

Please explain to me about gluing the motor. That is new to me. Thanks.

Gluing the grains into the liner.
 
Great flight! Its always awesome when big rockets land near the road!
 
Right down Broadway with ALL candles lit! :D Awesome flight Man-well! ;)
See you at "The Bong" this weekend and, I get my case back...intact too! :eek:
 
Awesome!

Please explain to me about gluing the motor. That is new to me. Thanks.

On big fast motors, the grains experience large forces that could cause them to collapse and fail catastrophically. Gluing them to the liner prevents the force from adding up and squashing the bottom grain and clogging the nozzle.
 
Basically, what happened is that I forgot to glue the nose cone shoulder in, it was just snug fit in. When the apogee charge went, the cone rattled off of the shoulder an the parachute came with it since it was attached at the tip. It's all good, everything was still attached. I'll glue it in before I fly it this weekend.


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Here's the Raven data file, max speed of Mach 1.57 and a max altitude of 14,290' AGL. It's a little lower than I was expecting, but still impressive to me nonetheless for such a big rocket. Overall, I'm happy with the flight overall and may be flying it at LDRS on an M3700.

Manny

View attachment Ultimate DS N5600.FIPa
 
Basically, what happened is that I forgot to glue the nose cone shoulder in, it was just snug fit in. When the apogee charge went, the cone rattled off of the shoulder an the parachute came with it since it was attached at the tip. It's all good, everything was still attached. I'll glue it in before I fly it this weekend.


Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum

Really, there is someone really strong packing these kits. the UIUC USLI team has a Ultimate Darkstar and didn't notice the shoulder wasn't glued in until a late charge test the night before the first test flight. They come with the shoulder in so tight you end up thinking they're glued!
 
Congrats manny! I wish I could be at LDRS to see this fly again, but Friday was the only day I could go. It's annoying knowing I will get my license in a month, and am missing out on all of these launches!
 
Manny flew the rocket on Sunday, and got some help from his "friends" at the pad. :)

Other than that main at apogee thing, everything went well!

IMG_0289.jpg

-Kevin
 
Thanks for the picture Kevin, I'll paypal the $125 over to Deb tonight :)

Jackson Lubin got a sweet shot of my take-off. He has pictures of several other flights on his flickr page.

The M3700 kicked the rocket up to 7,491'. One of the interesting things that I have noticed on my past few flights: I have been flying one RRC3 and one Raven, and every flight those two altimeters are never more that 10' apart in their readings. For this flight, they were only 7' off of each other.
I figured out that the main at apogee thing is just due to too big of a charge and not enough shock cord, that will be fixed before I fly it at AIRfest.

Manny

View attachment Ultimate DS M3700.FIPa

14516076577_8ed54d2024_k.jpg
 
I figured out that the main at apogee thing is just due to too big of a charge and not enough shock cord, that will be fixed before I fly it at AIRfest.

Manny
Manny, have you been pinning the nose cone? Big rocket fiberglass parts are heavy and the jerk is substantial when the parts come to the end of the harness. For that big rocket I would consider 3 or 4 #4 nylon screws and a couple ground tests. A pressure bleed hole in the airframe is a must as well.

--Lance.
 
Manny, have you been pinning the nose cone? Big rocket fiberglass parts are heavy and the jerk is substantial when the parts come to the end of the harness. For that big rocket I would consider 3 or 4 #4 nylon screws and a couple ground tests. A pressure bleed hole in the airframe is a must as well.

--Lance.

Hey Lance, I have been using 3 #2 screws, I don't think these are enough and will bump them up to #4's and will downsize the charges. I'll have to do some more ground testing before the next flight.
 
There was a hole under the pad from many large motors that had blown the dirt away. 3-4 ft deep.
Probably had 5-6 gallons of water in it, that's the spray from water being displaced due to motor blast.
 
............The M3700 kicked the rocket up to 7,491'. One of the interesting things that I have noticed on my past few flights: I have been flying one RRC3 and one Raven, and every flight those two altimeters are never more that 10' apart in their readings. For this flight, they were only 7' off of each other.

Manny
Over the past 5 years hobby rocket altimeters have switched from analog MEMS barometric sensors to digital MEMS barometric sensors. Analog barometric sensors required an external ADC which was typically an 8 to 16 bit ADC and required the altimeter microcontroller to perform the conversion from pressure to altitude. Digital barometric sensors have a internal 24 bit sigma delta ADC and an internal microprocessor that takes the pressure data and converts it to altitude and sends the altitude digitally to the flight computer microcontroller.

Digital barometers with sigma delta ADCs actually sample the MEMS sensing element ~500,000 time per second versus the 10-200 time per second of the ADC in an analog barometer system. The digital barometer then averages between 256 to 4096 samples which makes the pressure reading 4 to 6 bits more precise than the traditional analog system. Because the added precision, the resolution is significantly better than the analog barometers, and because the digit barometer has a dedicated microprocessor that also measures temperature and performs temperature corrections, the accuracy is greatly enhanced as well. We calibrated several digital MEMS barometric sensors against an FAA standard altimeter and the standard deviation was only 11 feet which is amazing for a $5 sensor!

Bob
 
Over the past 5 years hobby rocket altimeters have switched from analog MEMS barometric sensors to digital MEMS barometric sensors. Analog barometric sensors required an external ADC which was typically an 8 to 16 bit ADC and required the altimeter microcontroller to perform the conversion from pressure to altitude. Digital barometric sensors have a internal 24 bit sigma delta ADC and an internal microprocessor that takes the pressure data and converts it to altitude and sends the altitude digitally to the flight computer microcontroller.

Digital barometers with sigma delta ADCs actually sample the MEMS sensing element ~500,000 time per second versus the 10-200 time per second of the ADC in an analog barometer system. The digital barometer then averages between 256 to 4096 samples which makes the pressure reading 4 to 6 bits more precise than the traditional analog system. Because the added precision, the resolution is significantly better than the analog barometers, and because the digit barometer has a dedicated microprocessor that also measures temperature and performs temperature corrections, the accuracy is greatly enhanced as well. We calibrated several digital MEMS barometric sensors against an FAA standard altimeter and the standard deviation was only 11 feet which is amazing for a $5 sensor!

Bob

I now work for a high-end pressure sensor manufacturer... ~$1000 a pop typically.

Costs arise due to survivability and lifetime requirements (temperature, high pressure, corrosion, vibration), not particularly from a need for accuracy.
 
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