The Captain's personal launch report, TCC October Skies, 10/18/14

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

qquake2k

Captain Low-N-Slow
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
13,574
Reaction score
65
This was my third trip to a TCC launch, and my second October Skies. The weather was nice, albeit a bit breezy at times.

IMG_2428.JPG

IMG_2435.JPG

IMG_2436.JPG

IMG_2446.JPG

IMG_2450.JPG
 
I only ended up flying one, the maiden flight of my scratch built Awareness. H165 Redline motor drilled to 8 seconds. Recovery on her "Double D" parachute (two 30" nylon chutes sewn together on one side). It was an awesome flight and a great recovery. Photos by my friend Hanna.

[YOUTUBE]ykpXuqUfyyY[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]aT3Ztr2jztk[/YOUTUBE]

IMGP5627.JPG

IMGP5650.JPG

IMGP5653.JPG

IMGP5654.JPG

IMGP5666.JPG

IMGP5667.JPG

IMGP5673.JPG

IMGP5680.JPG
 
Great recovery, that is, until she landed in a muddy field. Not just muddy, but suck your boots off your feet muddy!

IMGP5683.JPG

IMGP5684.JPG

IMGP5685.JPG

IMGP5686.JPG

IMGP5687.JPG

IMGP5688.JPG

P1050564.JPG

P1050574.JPG

P1050575.JPG

P1050577.JPG
 
It was a nice flight. Is it safe to assume you had to contend with a little bit of irrigation mud across the road?

Yeah, just a little bit. Well, my son Joe and friend Hanna had to contend with it. It was a mess!

P1050568.JPG

P1050569.JPG

P1050570.JPG

P1050571.JPG
 
In spite of the mud, we had a good time. There were a lot of great flights to watch! Here are some random photos Hanna took.

IMGP5550.JPG

IMGP5551.JPG

IMGP5552.JPG

IMGP5553.JPG

IMGP5575.JPG

IMGP5576.JPG

IMGP5595.JPG

IMGP5600.JPG

IMGP5605.JPG

IMGP5610.JPG
 
This is Ari's first flight of his Have Pink. Unfortunately, I didn't know he was going to launch it again, and didn't have my camera with me the second time.

[YOUTUBE]Q4Rs6RU6mOw[/YOUTUBE]

P1050602.JPG

P1050603.JPG

P1050605.JPG

P1050607.JPG

P1050612.JPG
 
Nice pictures, Jim. You/Hanna are getting pretty good at capturing the ignition shots and deployment zooms.

Hey, I didn't realize you snapped a couple of the Old "Goat" Dude hisself.

For those who have never met Ari and to put the size of Have Pink into perspective, he's about 6'5" or better. In about 15 years or so I expect his daughter Leah will getting offers from big name colleges to play volleyball or basketball. She's a little bean pole already.

Of course, Ari was just showing off when he landed Big Pink right in front of the LCO table. LOL!
 
I'm watching Aliens :dark: right now... I happened to pull up the video of the launch just during the dropship sequence (as the Marines were coming in to LV426)... If only I could edit the video to include that audio. :lol:
 
Lucky for me, I didn't have to worry about the mud field :=)

Have Pink is 7' long.

Ari.
 
I appreciate adhering to a theme for a good cause, but really "Mud Wrestling" is a bit much! :eek:
 
Last edited:
Nice report, Captain! I witnessed the flight of Awareness from launch through the deployment of the lingerie. The girl put on a great show!

I was hoping to meet up with you and your crew and Kit, but I didn't see you guys. I did meet up with ChrisAttebery and his family, and I saw his awesome L2 cert flight. I saw SCrocketfan and witnessed his L1 flight as well as a few others --- he does not mess around and gets lots of flights up. I also saw Ari fly the amazing Have Pink glider a few times --- there was one really fantastic flight and one unfortunate disaster. And I also met Robbdm. It was great to see everyone.

I got my L1 on Friday before I had met up with most of the TRF members. Good flight with the pod rocket on H115DM drilled to 6 seconds. I prefer to watch my own rockets fly with my eyeballs and not watch a small viewfinder screen. So I have no pictures. If anyone has any photos or video of the pod rocket, that would be great.
 
Your Awareness flight was great. everyone that saw it got a chuckle out if it. Too bad it landed in the swamp. :facepalm: We cut our flight program down to 2 flights after my son's Apogee Avion landed about 200' out there. He managed to keep from getting completely covered in mud, but it still took him a while to clean up his shoes.

I have a couple more items to throw in the car for the next launch: rubber boots and insect repellant. I got bit by the flies a few times.
 
Wow, that's some recovery range you folks have out there. Too much water and not enough, you might say ! Great photo journalism as always Capt.
 
Nice report, Captain! I witnessed the flight of Awareness from launch through the deployment of the lingerie. The girl put on a great show!

I was hoping to meet up with you and your crew and Kit, but I didn't see you guys. I did meet up with ChrisAttebery and his family, and I saw his awesome L2 cert flight. I saw SCrocketfan and witnessed his L1 flight as well as a few others --- he does not mess around and gets lots of flights up. I also saw Ari fly the amazing Have Pink glider a few times --- there was one really fantastic flight and one unfortunate disaster. And I also met Robbdm. It was great to see everyone.

I got my L1 on Friday before I had met up with most of the TRF members. Good flight with the pod rocket on H115DM drilled to 6 seconds. I prefer to watch my own rockets fly with my eyeballs and not watch a small viewfinder screen. So I have no pictures. If anyone has any photos or video of the pod rocket, that would be great.

Sorry, I missed this post and didn't upload pics earlier. Here are the pics from the MDRM drag race, unfortunately I didn't get any of your other pod rocket flights.

MDRM4.jpg

MDRM3.jpg

MDRM2.jpg
 
Sorry, I missed this post and didn't upload pics earlier. Here are the pics from the MDRM drag race, unfortunately I didn't get any of your other pod rocket flights.

Thanks for posting these, SC! The pictures turned out great! That drag race was a lot of fun.

I'm going to have to get a suitable camera for rocket photography and take a few pictures and videos myself. All the decent photos and videos I have of my rockets in flight were taken by other people.
 
Thanks for posting these, SC! The pictures turned out great! That drag race was a lot of fun.

I'm going to have to get a suitable camera for rocket photography and take a few pictures and videos myself. All the decent photos and videos I have of my rockets in flight were taken by other people.

It was a really fun drag race. I'm still wondering why mine banked towards to road while your's flew straight up. I think the pods probably add a lot of stability.

The glue on the silver fin on my MDRM got weakened landing after the drag race. I just finished drilling the back CR and adding internal epoxy fillets, and some epoxy fin fillets, so I think the fins are reinforced well now. Hopefully it's moffet ready now! I also want to try an H54 (3 grain motor, 3 second burn) at snow ranch, maybe in december if there's enough rain.

Here's a few pics from your Leviathan G74 launch, and also one of your big daddy night launch (I think this was the first E12 flight and second night launch). My stealth is on the pad in the leviathan launch pics, but the G74 igniter chuffed and I had to leave so I'll probably fly it at moffet. G74 is a cool motor, can't wait to fly a few in the MDRM at moffet.

CIMG1198.jpg

CIMG1197.jpg

CIMG1133.jpg
 
So bummed we didn't make it this year.

Ever since the move from Elk Grove to Lincoln and opening the new law practice rockets have taken a back seat. But no more. Got the garage cleaned up and hanging the shop lights this weekend. We will be building/repairing a number of rockets and hope to be at LUNAR Snow Ranch in December.

Nice report qquake :)
 
So bummed we didn't make it this year.

Ever since the move from Elk Grove to Lincoln and opening the new law practice rockets have taken a back seat. But no more. Got the garage cleaned up and hanging the shop lights this weekend. We will be building/repairing a number of rockets and hope to be at LUNAR Snow Ranch in December.

Nice report qquake :)

I can't wait for Snow Ranch to open up! Do the rain dance!
 
I can't wait either! I'm planning to fly an H159 (Green3) in the Magg and maybe an H54 (or another skidmark) in the Max in december if there's enough rain.

I showed my wife the pictures you posted of the drag race, and now she wants to see the pod rocket fly on that sparky motor. She might come out to Snow Ranch the next time I go to a launch. I really haven't done any rocketry work since October Skies. I still need to glue the foam landing pad on one of the pods back into place. And I haven't decided whether to try to fix the Big Daddy and MAIII or just salvage the NC and recovery gear and move on.
 
I showed my wife the pictures you posted of the drag race, and now she wants to see the pod rocket fly on that sparky motor. She might come out to Snow Ranch the next time I go to a launch. I really haven't done any rocketry work since October Skies. I still need to glue the foam landing pad on one of the pods back into place. And I haven't decided whether to try to fix the Big Daddy and MAIII or just salvage the NC and recovery gear and move on.

Estes might send you a new big daddy, they sent me a new one after it exploded. I haven't done any rocketry work until now, and I have a lot more damaged rockets than I thought!
 
Thanks for the great report Jim. Especially liked your Awareness flight.
 
Back
Top