Anyone Flown The Blackhawk 54

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Taz
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Has anyone flown the Blackhawk 54? If so, what kind of motors and what kind of performance? Thanks.
 
I haven't flown one, but a quick sim has me intrigued. A Pro54 L935 at + Mach2 and 25 - 30K ft. Sound like fun!

Cool. I am sure that it hauls. Just wondering how the fins would hold up with an L935 with no tip to tip. I am guessing that the fins would hold up fine if attached via the same method that CJ attaches fins for the Space Cowboy.
 
Chris, I built mine with the Binder Design Max-Q aluminum fins, but haven't flown it yet. It was supposed to be my Balls project, but unfortunately I cannot be there this year. Perhaps at October Skies?

On the CTI L265 Mellow motor is sims out at 17.6k feet.
 
Chris, I built mine with the Binder Design Max-Q aluminum fins, but haven't flown it yet. It was supposed to be my Balls project, but unfortunately I cannot be there this year. Perhaps at October Skies?

On the CTI L265 Mellow motor is sims out at 17.6k feet.

Thanks Bill. I am sure that Mike's Max-Q fins can handle any commercial motor and more. I am definitely interested in a set for serious extreme, when I get there. Am trying to get to October Skies for awhile anyway if I can clear it with my wife. Have AP and rockets. Need to launch! Best of luck.
 
I'm reviving this thread in the hope that it will develop some interest in the Blackhawk 54. I purchased the limited edition of this rocket last year and built it last summer. First flight was at Airfest last August on a CTI J430. Results of that flight are in my thread "Reflections on Airfest XX":
https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?69259-Reflections-on-Airfest-XX

Most of you that read my threads know that they can be quite "bloggish", so if you don't want to relive the entire event, look at post #28 and #30. Short story is the wind was a factor but the rocket exceeded my sims and flew to 6794 ft. I re-adjusted the Cd in Thrustcurve to .4 to compensate for the tailcone rear closure and flew it again at ROCStock with a K160 long burn to 14,701 ft.
This flight had some issues when the ematch failed to fire the apogee drogue charge and the rocket returned ballistically to 700 ft. where the main was deployed. This caused a catastrophic failure of the 36" Top Flite chute and when I found the rocket, all that was left was shroud lines and a 6" zipper in the payload tube. It also caused the Eggfinder GPS to fail and broke two fins off on landing. Since I had originally attached the fins to the aft edge of the fincan, I decided to rebuild it with the fins 1 caliper forward of the original position. This required me to remove the remaining fin. I now appreciate how well the Rocketpoxy holds surface mounted fins. No tip to tip layup on this rocket, the fins were mounted with little preparation, sand area with 220 grit sandpaper, clean with acetone and apply Rocketpoxy. I also modified the avbay to include an RRC2+ to my existing Stratologger for a redundant system. This was quite a challenge in the 54mm avbay, since it's only 6.5 inches long.
I like this rocket so much that I contacted Tim at Wildmans and queried him about a new version using the thin wall tubing and new 54mm nosecone. He asked me to build the prototype and sent me materials for this build, so look for a build thread on a new lighter version of this rocket in the near future.
After the rebuild and the addition of the redundant altimeter, my old rocket now weighs in at 4.8 lbs. with two 9v batteries, a CSI tracker in the drogue compartment and an Eggfinder in the nosecone.
I now have my own tower, copied from Kaycee's tower pictured in my "Airfest" thread above, so I will be flying this rocket at the TRA/PHX launches which have a 50k waiver. I have a couple of motors that should take this rocket over 20k ft., but haven't decided if I will do a test flight to a lower altitude first. Stay tuned for updates, next launch is Feb. 28th.
 
I'm reviving this thread in the hope that it will develop some interest in the Blackhawk 54. I purchased the limited edition of this rocket last year and built it last summer. First flight was at Airfest last August on a CTI J430. Results of that flight are in my thread "Reflections on Airfest XX":
https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?69259-Reflections-on-Airfest-XX

I like this rocket so much that I contacted Tim at Wildmans and queried him about a new version using the thin wall tubing and new 54mm nosecone. He asked me to build the prototype and sent me materials for this build, so look for a build thread on a new lighter version of this rocket in the near future...

... haven't decided if I will do a test flight to a lower altitude first. Stay tuned for updates, next launch is Feb. 28th.

Looking forward to the NEW build thread..hope you go Bonzai CJ style and include the bays and flight prep . Maybe you don't have to move the fins forward if you commit to always flying the engines tapered cone.

This rocket is a sleeper, from a distance it blends in with the 'Junior' type rockets ..I almost didn't notice your 'secret project' hanging with the others at your encampment . Congrats on the proto-rites , nice to see some Wildman tasks out here in the West .

I don't think a shakedown flight with a target of 1/2 mile or so is ever wasted - just packing the things and seeing your electronics deploy in the playa is worth the engine price.

When you get the kinks worked out you can start the STAGED prototype !

Kenny
 
I'm reviving this thread in the hope that it will develop some interest in the Blackhawk 54. I purchased the limited edition of this rocket last year and built it last summer. First flight was at Airfest last August on a CTI J430. Results of that flight are in my thread "Reflections on Airfest XX":
https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?69259-Reflections-on-Airfest-XX

I am sorry about your flight.

This flight had some issues when the ematch failed to fire the apogee drogue charge and the rocket returned ballistically to 700 ft. where the main was deployed.


Any more thoughts on the ematch failure? Did you check the ematch for continuity before flight? Altimeter usually beeps this anyway. No firing at all, or fired and did not separate?

After the rebuild and the addition of the redundant altimeter, my old rocket now weighs in at 4.8 lbs. with two 9v batteries, a CSI tracker in the drogue compartment and an Eggfinder in the nosecone.

I have been debating one vs. two altimeters for 54 mm MD rocket to save space and make setup easy. Plenty of successful flights with one altimeter on TRF. Enough issues, such as yours, to convince me to use two.
 
I do a lot of dual deploy flights, and all of the rockets I fly that are 3" or more have redundant systems. 54mm is a cross over for me, mainly because it's hard to fit two complete separate systems into that size avbay. My smaller lighter cardboard rockets have a single altimeter and I use the motor ejection charge as a backup. This was my second MD rocket, and I wanted to keep it as light as possible, so I went with a single altimeter. The ematch was black, like the internal part fired, but the pyrogen did not burn, and therefore the black powder didn't ignite. This is the second one I have seen do this after over two hundred firings. I thought about just adding another ematch to each charge cup, but the cups supplied with Wildman's aluminum avbay lids won't hold much BP, and even less with two ematches in them. So I stuffed two altimeters, two magnetic switches and two 9v batteries into the avbay. It's a hassle to prep, but worth it.

Kenny,
It's hard to find a 54mm motor small enough to keep this rocket under a mile, I have a J250 Skidmark that will take it to 6000 ft, but it's a 2 grain, so it takes all the little Aeropac extensions to mount it. The new version will have a simple bulkhead with a nut mounted on it for internal motor retention. Takes up much less space and is easier to work with. Should be starting that build thread in a week or two....
 
So I stuffed two altimeters, two magnetic switches and two 9v batteries into the avbay. It's a hassle to prep, but worth it.

.

I stuffed two Schurter switches into my Space Cowboy. Pretty tight. But I had an 8 inch av bay. I did have two 9V batteries. Maybe I should go with mag switches. RRC2+ is good for backup altimeter, small and keeps expenses down. I agree that two ematches per charge holder is not very reasonable for 54 mm MD. Belated congratulations on your L3. I read your report. Great job. Your thin walled Blackhawk 54 should rock. The fins seem a bit large to me, but I will follow your reports. Maybe I will put them on something. They are high quality.
 
So I ordered the Blackhawk 54 from Widman early this April. Just got it earlier this week. It does look like the new thin walled version noted above. The nose cone also seems to differ from the current image on the wildman site. I plan on building it over the course of the next few months and flying it on a J360 for my level 2 certification flight.

IMG_0656.jgp.jpg
 
So I ordered the Blackhawk 54 from Widman early this April. Just got it earlier this week. It does look like the new thin walled version noted above. The nose cone also seems to differ from the current image on the wildman site. I plan on building it over the course of the next few months and flying it on a J360 for my level 2 certification flight.

View attachment 261026

I just finished mine, I'm waiting to post up a build thread until after I have finished writing the instructions. Wildman sent me the kit a couple of months ago and asked me to write it up. I also built the earlier version with the FWFG Nosecone.

004%204.jpg


You better have a big field with a waiver over 10k, a J360 will probably do at least that much.
 

I just finished mine, I'm waiting to post up a build thread until after I have finished writing the instructions. Wildman sent me the kit a couple of months ago and asked me to write it up. I also built the earlier version with the FWFG Nosecone.

004%204.jpg


You better have a big field with a waiver over 10k, a J360 will probably do at least that much.
I plan on launching from the MARS site in arizona. They can go to 14k. Id reckon that there there would be a few differences between the rocksim file posted vs what it should be. Do you by any chance have the rocksim for new version?
 
Good choice, Red lake is the nicest dry lake I have ever flown from. I don't have Rocksim, and didn't build the new version in Open Rocket. I weighed the new version right next to my "Silver Streak", and input the weight into Thrustcurve. If you use a Cd of .4, you will be pretty close.

002%204.jpg
 
Haven't really made any progress on my build but my friend is in the middle of a wildman extreme build. Here is the blackhawk next to it.
 
I never got around to doing a build thread on the second thin wall Blackhawk 54, but both of mine have been flown since my last post. My older, heavier "Silver Streak" flew on an L935 to 23,230 ft. and was recovered with some minor burn marks on the holographic decals near the nosecone.
First flight with the new thin wall Blackhawk was with a J250 Skidmark. I watched the entire flight to 6321 ft. and everything worked perfectly. I'm taking both of these rockets to Hellfire, and plan to fly them with a couple of dual thrust motors, the K590 and the L640.
Interesting that both of these motors sim higher with the heavier Silver Streak. Mass and momentum at work.
 
I just flew mine yesterday on a CTI J355 3-grain motor. Nothing too terribly crazy. I was a bit surprised as it flew just past 10k feet (recorded by the on board GPS); on this it had simmed to be closer to 8700-9k. I suspect par of this was the extra effort in polishing out the paint job - however it still seems too far off. I am going to re-build the sim design file to see if something might be strange inside of it..

Now i am thinking about a nice long burn 6 grain in there would really get up there ;)
 
Thrustcurve says 11,086 ft. on a J355 for my 3.8 lb rocket, how much does yours weigh? I'm always surprised by how these rockets always seem to exceed expectations. It's hard to find a motor that will stay under 10k.
I'm looking forward to seeing how mine handle the dual thrust motors.
 
Mine is a tad heavier than yours - about 3.9lb. I did use an Aeropack minimum diameter retainer to help with drag - but i do have a few rivets to hold the AV-bay into the upper section which i am sure create some drag (i didn't put those into the sim file, probably should). I did get it off on a slight angle given the winds of the day, so i am sure it didn't achieve max height that it could have given a straighter launch. The strange thing is that on this j355 motor i had some spin on the way up- while on the previous flights it flew very nice and straight with little spin. I am not sure why that was....
 
I never got around to doing a build thread on the second thin wall Blackhawk 54, but both of mine have been flown since my last post. My older, heavier "Silver Streak" flew on an L935 to 23,230 ft. and was recovered with some minor burn marks on the holographic decals near the nosecone.
First flight with the new thin wall Blackhawk was with a J250 Skidmark. I watched the entire flight to 6321 ft. and everything worked perfectly. I'm taking both of these rockets to Hellfire, and plan to fly them with a couple of dual thrust motors, the K590 and the L640.
Interesting that both of these motors sim higher with the heavier Silver Streak. Mass and momentum at work.

I just flew mine yesterday on a CTI J355 3-grain motor. Nothing too terribly crazy. I was a bit surprised as it flew just past 10k feet (recorded by the on board GPS); on this it had simmed to be closer to 8700-9k. I suspect par of this was the extra effort in polishing out the paint job - however it still seems too far off. I am going to re-build the sim design file to see if something might be strange inside of it..

Now i am thinking about a nice long burn 6 grain in there would really get up there ;)

Good stuff guys. You are getting me excited. I am building a 54 mm md from scratch. I might have to start a build thread and kick the build in gear. I am interested in all of the details of these kinds of flights. What kind of tracking are you guys using? What kinds of velocities were you going?
 
I'm using Eggfinders in the nosecone on both of mine. The older metal tipped N/C was easier to fit, because it has a removable coupler. The newer Polycarbonate N/C is lighter, but that might not be an advantage, depending on weight distribution. Like I said earlier, my older 4.7 lb. rocket sims higher than the newer 3.8 lb. rocket does. I will have more data after Hellfire, I'm flying both rockets there.
 
Here's a simple mod I did to convert the polycarb cone so it can do head end deployment.

Cut shoulder down to 1 in. glue on short section of airframe, to act as receiver for coupler.

Do vent band thing on coupler.

Shear pin modified cone to av-bay/shoulder.

Glue recovery loop in tip.

Voila DD out of the NC.

DSCN4800.jpg

Working on a ...........
 
You must have gotten a good CP/CG relationship with the new lighter nosecone. I am a bit concerned with it and large motors. I don't want to have to add weight to it for the big motors. I have the new light one and the older heavier one. I might use the light one for velocity and the heavy one for altitude, provided I get good CP/CG for both. The new one is cool and smaller than the old one. Less room in it if you like to cram stuff in there.
 
Here's a simple mod I did to convert the polycarb cone so it can do head end deployment.

Cut shoulder down to 1 in. glue on short section of airframe, to act as receiver for coupler.

Do vent band thing on coupler.

Shear pin modified cone to av-bay/shoulder.

Glue recovery loop in tip.

Voila DD out of the NC.

View attachment 268049

Working on a ...........


I used your method of cutting part of the body tube and gluing on to nosecone, then sanding nosecone unit. Very smooth transition. Looks really fast.
 
I just flew mine yesterday on a CTI J355 3-grain motor. Nothing too terribly crazy. I was a bit surprised as it flew just past 10k feet (recorded by the on board GPS); on this it had simmed to be closer to 8700-9k. I suspect par of this was the extra effort in polishing out the paint job - however it still seems too far off. I am going to re-build the sim design file to see if something might be strange inside of it..

Now i am thinking about a nice long burn 6 grain in there would really get up there ;)
Could you upload your sim file? I'd like to check it against mine.
 
I flew both of my Blackhawks recently, one at Hellfire last month on an L640 dual thrust. Won the altitude contest with a 23,230 ft. flight. Recovery was a bit tricky, it landed in a muddy area on the salt flats. We had been told that even a 4x4 could get stuck in some places, so we walked out to pick it up. This was my older, heavier BH, with the thicker tubing. It flew out of my tower:
037.jpg


Found it about a half mile away:
041.jpg


One of the beautiful things about the salt is you can see rockets laying out there a long ways away.

My newer BH flew at Airfest this month on a K160 long burn. It's gradually getting up there with larger motors, this flight took it up to 14,561 ft. A bit harder to find, but both rockets have Eggfinders in them, so it's not that hard. This one landed in some deep grass about a mile South of the launch area:
IMG_6134.jpg


We drove to the field where the Eggfinder said it was and used the CSI tracker to determine where to walk in. The EF RX picked back up the signal and took us right to it. This flight was done in a steady 15 to 20 mph wind.

Later that day, I flew my heavier BH on another L640 dual thrust, with dramatically different results. The motor ignited and immediately blew the top plug through the top of the CTI casing. The plug smashed into the Aeropac MD retainer and not only destroyed it, but pushed it up into the bottom of the avbay, through the drogue and shock cord. The motor exited out the bottom of the rocket and slid back down the tower and smashed into the 1/4" steel plate I used for the blast deflector. Sheared the tab off the top and bent the deflector and tube it was attached to. It didn't stop there though, it continued down and smashed the 1010 rail I used to adjust the tubes. I'm still trying to get the avbay out of the payload tube, and if I can do that and remove what's left of the Aeropac retainer, I should be able to rebuild this rocket.
The grains came out of the casing and started a fire, but several grains never lit and were recovered. Wildman warrantied the motor, casing and tailcone retainer. I picked up an L265 Mellow longburn from him for my next Blackhawk 54 flight. Stay tuned....
 
Wayco,

I'm looking forward to hearing how the L265 works out for you. Mine flew great but it didn't reach the altitude I thought it would. The lower altitude may have been caused the wind.
 
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