Apogee Aspire

[Gus]

Thermo,

Looks great! Really looking forward to the flight reports.

Have fun,

Steve

 

[Thermo]

First flight coming up this Sunday. Weather finally looking good.

It's my first time using a streamer. How do you prep those? I coiled mine up and inserted it without any wadding (just storing, not launching) and it uncoiled and extended all the way down the long tube...just like a parachute DOESN'T do. So I put in some wadding just above the tube coupler, and re inserted. It immediately uncoiled again...darn it...but I was able to stuff it down far enough to fit my altimeter and nosecone in.

Will such a coily beast actually deploy cleanly when the BP charge goes off at apogee? Won't the g's at launch pull the entire load (wadding and all) down to the bottom of the rocket where it won't want to come out? Frankly, I'm concerned...:eyepop:

 

[Wayco]

If you have the Mylar streamer,you need to use dog barf to protect it from the ejection charge. Mylar melts easily, and won't open up when it does.

 

[Zeus-cat]

A buddy of mine launched his on the F10-8 the first time he put it up. The exhaust trail told us that it corkscrewed on the way up. Five or six seconds after it left the pad was the last anyone saw of it.

It rained hard a few days later so it is probably a pile of mush now.

 

[Thermo]

A buddy of mine launched his on the F10-8 the first time he put it up.

I've no intention of using my F10-8 on flight #1. Got some engineering details (see above) to work out...using a D12-7.

It's a flight test, not a firework :rofl:

 

[Thermo]

If you have the Mylar streamer,you need to use dog barf to protect it from the ejection charge. Mylar melts easily, and won't open up when it does.

Thanks for the tip. Will fireproof toilet paper (aka Estes wadding squares) do the job or must I go get some dog barf?

 

[Gus]

Thermo,

Estes wadding should do fine. Really looking forward to the flight report. Best of luck!

 

[WizardOfAZ]

Those are both very good questions, which I have no answer for. My Alt. 2 did not record the flight. I have had very little success with that altimeter, about half the time it wouldn't work, and it was recently destroyed when my Vagabond lawn darted.

What? I have 100% success on data retrieval on my Alt2. When you had it in the Vagabond, was it protected, or just dangling on the nose hook? I read or saw somewhere an idea to use one of those little lip balm cases. Supposedly they are made of neoprene or something protective, and fit nicely around the Alt2. I have to admit, I've never used protection, but I also didn't have that kind of power in my rocket.

G80 - Possibly will go supersonic, but hard to verify.

It seems to me, that more people overpower the Aspire and shred it before they take the opportunity to go for the altitude. I haven't built one, but have been doing my research. I'd try the F10 before the G80.

Generally speaking, I like everything I read here. My only issue is,,, I want to run my Alt2, and I want to get it back... I think when I do mine, I'll build it strong enough to safely bring my Alt2 and Big Red Bee back to Earth, even if I'm sacrificing altitude performance.

I'll be starting mine soon and post plenty of build photos...

 

[Thermo]

Hi all,

Perfect day for flying. Variable light winds frequently changing direction, a high-cloud, cuttlebone pattern sky. 60 degrees.

It was not only my Aspire's first flight, but also my first D engine. Loaded in my second Altimeter 2 with foam rubber rings around it to keep it from moving around too much in the body tube. (I attached it to a knot in the kevlar shock cord just under the nose cone, and opened three small altimeter ports about 1.5 inches below the top of the BT.)

Liftoff was clean, straight and neat. The engine made a very good sound and the rocket didn't spin...the fins are apparently nice and straight. The streamer came out fine (I had been quite worried) at apogee, earning me a "great flight Tom!" from the club President :smile: and it came down almost horizontal, landing just 200 feet beyond the pad. It was the first streamer recovery of the day and I heard lots of positive comments, it looked flashy and nice. When the range opened, I walked a short distance to pick it up and all appeared to be well. :horse:

Then the issues started.

(1) Stupidly, I had failed to zero out the data in the altimeter 2 before flight. I hadn't flown with an altimeter in a couple months and forgot that step. So, rather than being gratified by seeing about a 1200' altitude (my first 1000' + data) I had garbage data from the factory. Argh. OK, no biggie, a simple do-over is in order. Load another D.

(2) Umm...I now notice that one of the fins has a crack running around the right and left sides and the rear. Fin is a bit loose. (See image.) Heck, it must have cracked on landing. The fillets are attached to the fin but came loose off the body tube. Launch director confirmed it couldn't fly again without repairs.

I suppose I'll pull the fin off, trim off some of the paint around the edges of the fillets, sand the bottom gently, sand the area where it is to be reattached to remove old adhesive, and I suppose I'll smear epoxy on it and stick it back on. Not sure how I'll repair the paint job, but if it looks reasonably smooth I'll brush on some more red and apply clear enamel.

Is there a better way to do a fin reattachment? How about repairs to the paint job?

(3) Issue #3 seems relatively minor: The streamer end shredded a bit (probably from flapping aggressively in the breeze of recovery) and the attached end separated from the kevlar shock cord for about one inch of its attached length. This was not a big surprise, seeing that I held it on with cheap plastic tape. I'll try something sturdier such as the fiber-reinforced packing tape next.

Next report coming in about two weeks at (hopefully) the next flight!

 

[Wayco]

I've had real good luck with superglue when a fin is just cracked and still attached. Just put a little pressure on it to open the crack, squirt a small amount of CA in there and press it closed for a few seconds for the glue to adhere. Sometimes it comes out so nice, it doesn't even need to be touched up with paint. Mylar streamers will always do that, even when you use packing tape on them. I patch them with clear packing tape and fly them again and again, until they are shredded too short to be useful.
I consider any Aspire flight successful if I get all the pieces back, and bonus points if they are still attached!

 

[Thermo]

I've had real good luck with superglue when a fin is just cracked and still attached. Just put a little pressure on it to open the crack, squirt a small amount of CA in there and press it closed for a few seconds for the glue to adhere. Sometimes it comes out so nice, it doesn't even need to be touched up with paint. Mylar streamers will always do that, even when you use packing tape on them. I patch them with clear packing tape and fly them again and again, until they are shredded too short to be useful.
I consider any Aspire flight successful if I get all the pieces back, and bonus points if they are still attached!

THANKS!

I will definitely try the CA method. And clear packing tape.

-Tom

 

[WizardOfAZ]

Bummer about the fin, but like Wayne said, sounds like a successful flight!

 

[Thermo]

Well, fin glued back on just fine, but the F10-8 failed to light using the included copperhead igniter...3 attempts in a row. The aggressive alligator clips were biting through the layers of tape I had attached to the igniter, resulting in shorts each time (burned igniter and tape). Then I tried one of the RSO's home-built, Cesaroni-type igniters. It lit fine but the engine failed to ignite. So...no go. 4 hours of driving out to the boonies for this. Argh.

(Meanwhile, my larger, more complex rocket using CES reloads flew great, so at least my L1 certification attempt was successful. So it was a good day after all!)

 

[EeebeeE]

The more I read about this rocket the more I wish someone would upsize it. Can you imagine one of these with a 98MM tubeflying on an N engine? Probably would need a carbon fiber tube a nose cone with an aluminum tip and some aluminum fins. I would definitely want a camera on board because that thing would really scoot up there.

 

[Sully]

I'm hoping to launch my aspire on the AT G77 in the next few weeks. I've never used copperhead igniters before. I guess it works by using the two sides of the copper strip as the equivalent of two leads...? I'll admit I stared at this thing for a few minutes after unwrapping it, then looked in the bag for the lead I assumed had broken off.

I think it was somewhere here on TRF that I read the tip of using the little cardboard tube that it ships in as an insulator. Cut two segments of tube, one for each alligator clip, and you can insulate opposing sides of the igniter.

I think this sounds like it should work, maybe better than the tape method, but I'll admit I haven't tried it yet and it's a bit abstract. Does anyone know if the AT first fire igniters will work in place of the copperheads? I've got a few of those I could use too.

Keep us posted on the Mach/altitude data! Unless there's just no wind at all, I'll probably be chicken to put my Altimeter2 in the Aspire.

 

[Rex R]

a first fire jr should work

 

[Sully]

Well, got the Copperhead figured out and the rocket launched on the F10. It was a mildly windy day, gusting maybe 5-8mph, although the weather had been changing and perhaps it was windier higher up. Rocket went basically straight up, and up, and up...long enough that a bunch of people working on their prep kept looking up and asking "is that still burning?"

I never saw it deploy or come down. One of my son's friends thought he saw it deploy but lost sight of it. We were on a big field, so we would have seen it if it landed anywhere close. Fun launch, but wish I'd tried the G77 mach flight first. That will have to wait for a new build.

Next time around, I'll use more tracking powder, hold off for EXTRA low winds and a clear day, stand with my back to the sun (as opposed to 90 deg) for better visibility, and let someone else hold the camera.

Fun rocket, exciting launch, we'll do it again!

[YOUTUBE]FfPk7Zs08fM[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Handeman]

and bring along some good binoculars.