Welp, flight day for the Shadow has come and gone.
I had planned on flying it on an H-180 with dual deploy first, then DD on an I-211. The wheels quickly fell off of those plans once I learned that our Aerotech dealer was not there, and our other dealer (who handles the CTI stuff) was out of ematches.
After some begging and scrounging of fellow members' range boxes, I netted myself an H-180W, and I-211W, and 4 ematches.
So I prepped the recovery system to ready it for flight. Once prep was complete, I got altitude greedy and decided to go for it on the I-211W instead on the H-180
I assembled the motor, buttoned it up with a PML motor retainer and took it down to the pads.
Ignition and liftoff were normal.......then it happened. The payload section ejected at 1370ft, (under full power) and *bad* things happened. The rocket came down in two pieces, the booster by itself hitting the ground with a sickening THUD! The payload section and altimeter floated down gently on the main 'chute.
The damage is fairly bad, a nice 3" zipper, and the shockcord was completely burnt out of the booster. The booster is nice and crispy inside. The payload section and altimeter bay survived intact. The good news is the booster is repairable, so I'll get a good flight out of this bird yet.
Post-mortem revealed that the cause of the crash was forward closure blowby. The blowby was severe enough to seperate the rocket even though I did not put any BP in for ejection. (was flying it electronic)
The reload was really old (dated 1999, though still fresh in the package) with the old-style forward seals and Copperhead igniter. I guess there's a reason why AT changed the design.
Well, stuff happens once in awile and that's how flying is!
First pic....preflight...I look like such a dweeb!
