Do you get really bummed when you lose a rocket?

Onebadhawk
SilicdyneTRF
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I just lost my estes "viking" about an hour ago. "A" engine worked great, but I had to try a "B". Out of sight.
Not too bummed, I never liked paint on that one and I want to build a new one anyway, this time with lightweight fiberglass reinforcement for the fins so I can run the hottest 18mm engines without losing the fins.
 
neil_w said:
1) There are things beyond your control once you push the button. Things go sideways (sometimes literally) for everyone at one time or another. It is part of the hobby.

2) Another part of the hobby is learning, gaining skill, challenging yourself. Failure comes with that (as it does in any other endeavor in life). It is part of the hobby.

3) In general, humans are fallible. This includes very experienced fliers making dumb n00b mistakes, like forgetting to arm the altimeter or connect the harness. It is part of the hobby.

4) (almost forgot this one) It isn't a rocket until it flies. Suck it up and push the button. :)

If you cannot come to terms with the above, then you will not be on a path to rocketry happiness. That is not to say that you should ever be happy about losing a rocket, but you have to be able to accept that it is a possibility.
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David Schwantz said:
Just gives me something to do when I get home. Build another one. But a rocket is nothing, I fly RC jets, in the blink of an eye my F-18C Blue Angels #6 crashed in front of 10,000 people. Loss was about 12 grand :(
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I had a friend who also flew jets, albeit ducted fans, not turbines.

He stayed with DF saying that he could afford to fly a turbine, but he couldn't afford to crash a turbine.

The other thing with flying a turbine is that what doesn't get destroyed in the crash burns up in the resulting fire leaving nothing but a smoking hole -- literally.
 
What I get upset about, is not so much losing the rocket, but *why*. If it blasts out of sight, or the chute is too big and it catches a thermal to orbit, it's because of something *I* did (I built a really good rocket to start - grin). On the other hand, if it's something NOT my fault like a CATO, that gets me upset.
 
I don't get bummed but I do get mad at myself when I know I made a mistake that caused the loss. Just 2 weeks ago I lost an Estes Astrocam (or should I say, HALF of one) due to a shock cord failure. Did the classic B6-4 / C6-5 break-in routine, and everything was great until the chute deployed on the C6-5 launch. The nosecone and camera stayed way up in the sky, while the remainder of the rocket learned its terminal velocity. We never saw that nosecone again. I will say, though, that the body and fins survived their fall completely intact.

What made me mad is that I was already suspicious of the shock cord mount on the body of that rocket. It's one of those where you pull the cord through a hole in the side of the rocket, and then double-knot the cord so it can't pull back through the other way. Or that's the idea. It had already failed for me in ground testing, but I re-did the attachment and it tested clean. But clearly the stress from flight 1 changed its condition. I should have checked in between, or better yet I should have come up with a better attachment solution rather than just re-doing the same thing that didn't work initially. Dumb mistake.

But if a gust of wind picks up some little rocket that I just put 2000' into the air, and it winds up floating out of range? Nah, no biggie. Unsure how I'll feel when I do that with a bigger bird though...
 
I still wish I could afford a newer Apple iPhone a 11, 12, or 13 model so that I could use the air fob which will take you directly to wherever it is attached to
 
hobie1dog said:
I still wish I could afford a newer Apple iPhone a 11, 12, or 13 model so that I could use the air fob which will take you directly to wherever it is attached to
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How about one of those personal alarm keychain things? They are pretty loud. If you get in the general vicinity of the rocket you should be able to hear it.
 
okay SB, that was the coolest thing I've seen all month! I'm lying in bed, waiting for the sun to rise on my one day off. The Viking Princess is blissfully carrying on with her dreams and I'm eating a pillow, trying not not to thrash around in fits of laughter. You know how they say on Facebook " you win the internet today" , right? Hell, brother, you win a real prize! I know you have medical probs, but maybe I can find a suitable reward for this most excellent post. Open a dialogue with me on my email. 'fyrwrxz@ gmail.com' and we can go from there. You made my frikken day, buddy! I have to find a way to keep that clip. I watched it twice so far, and can't wait to boot up a bluetooth speaker and play it for the wife. She heard all about my butthurt in our nightly long distance calls when Iost that bird in Washington and she and the kids were in Sandy Eggo. I have a hilarious story about it's birth and only one polaroid of the bird after paint I gotta find now. I just bet she'll get a big laff too, given the context. Hit me up!
 
Losing an LPR is not a big deal for me. I lost a 1:200 Saturn V in a tree and only retrieved the bottom half; lost parts off rockets before but never had a CATO (knock on wood).
Losing an MPR or one with a reloadable casing or basic altimeter would be a bummer. I lost my 24mm Miss Riley yesterday but it only had a D12 in it. I almost lost my L1 Zephyr though.
Being a L1, a reload casing, and an altimeter would have really PO'd me since I also drove 6 hours to the field. But because I had newly made friends helping me out, we managed to find it on the second try. Yay!!!
 
Question: I always write my name, telephone number, and email address some where on the rocket (usually on the parachute). I also write, “reward for return”.

Does anyone do the same? If so, have you had a marked fly out of sight and then you couldn’t find it? If that happened, did someone find it and call or email you tell you they had found your rocket?

I am just hoping that writing this stuff on the rocket may one day result in a “couldn’t find it” rocket being returned. I have not had a “could not find” with a marked rocket yet. I have had them crash, but I got the “remains” back.
 
brockrwood said:
Question: I always write my name, telephone number, and email address some where on the rocket (usually on the parachute). I also write, “reward for return”.

Does anyone do the same? If so, have you had a marked fly out of sight and then you couldn’t find it? If that happened, did someone find it and call or email you tell you they had found your rocket?

I am just hoping that writing this stuff on the rocket may one day result in a “couldn’t find it” rocket being returned. I have not had a “could not find” with a marked rocket yet. I have had them crash, but I got the “remains” back.
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I had a couple blow out of my camp at LDRS when the wind picked up. They got returned because they had my name on them.

I haven’t had the same happen from an in-flight disappearance but I haven’t had that happen too many times in the last year, so I guess the jury is out on that.
 
There is one equilibrium when it comes to rockets and that is the more time you take to make a rocket pretty and nice, the higher change you will lose or crash it somehow. I did a killer job on a 5.5" Phoenix a few years back and it crashed on first flight :(
 
brockrwood said:
Question: I always write my name, telephone number, and email address some where on the rocket (usually on the parachute). I also write, “reward for return”.

Does anyone do the same? If so, have you had a marked fly out of sight and then you couldn’t find it? If that happened, did someone find it and call or email you tell you they had found your rocket?

I am just hoping that writing this stuff on the rocket may one day result in a “couldn’t find it” rocket being returned. I have not had a “could not find” with a marked rocket yet. I have had them crash, but I got the “remains” back.
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Yup. I write it on a fin. Lost a rocket last year at High Fronteer (Pawhuska, OK). We headed home. About 30 miles out, I got a text and then phone call that someone had found it. We headed back and picked it up. It's a good idea! I've written the info. A better idea is to laser print it on heavy card stock in small font then cut it out and laminate it onto the body/fins with epoxy. "I don't have bad handwriting, I have a custom font".
 
hobie1dog said:
When you're facing a very limited amount of time left in life, it's best to examine how you choose to " pass the time". I'm still bummed out on losing my MR-1 rocket😭
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The sad and ironic part about examining how you choose to pass the time is that the insight and maturity to choose how to spend time wisely is packaged with wisdom that typically only comes with time (age) or when the notion of its scarcity becomes evident such as news of a terminal health condition or much later in age when the odds of longevity are not in one's favor. I still remember a high school teacher berating us whenever we'd quit paying attention in class - he'd tell us to quit wasting his time and lecture us on the importance of managing time wisely. That lecture fell on my deaf ears due to the ignorance of my youth and never really made much sense to the teenage version of me.

Losing a rocket is always a bummer. There's no qualms about that!
 
I have vinyl stickers I got from Stickershock. They have may name, phone number, TRA and NAR numbers and the all important word, reward. I put them on every rocket I build. I also made some small squares about 1.5" by 1" that I put the rocket length, weight, chute required and what kind of motor mount. It makes filling out the flight card easier. Haven't lost a rocket yet. Almost, but not quite.
 
teepot said:
I have vinyl stickers I got from Stickershock. They have may name, phone number, TRA and NAR numbers and the all important word, reward. I put them on every rocket I build. I also made some small squares about 1.5" by 1" that I put the rocket length, weight, chute required and what kind of motor mount. It makes filling out the flight card easier. Haven't lost a rocket yet. Almost, but not quite.
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I just have phone number and reward. As an L-0 park flyer, sometimes if there is fecal turbine interaction and it ends up in someone’s backyard, I am not sure I want to be associated with the rocket!
 
I am bummed if I lose a casing, or an altimeter (assuming it was more than $20). I had a C to D failure to stage yesterday.
(here https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/personal-launch-report-scra-2022-08-06.174194)
I was way more bummed about the Adept ALTIM1 than the rocket's payload bay. But crushed or lost rockets? I guess, like most of you, I figure I can fly them, or look at them. Doing the former may precluded the latter. But doing the latter definitely precludes the former. :)

In general I try and make my rockets look good once. After that... I fly them.
 
BABAR said:
I just have phone number and reward. As an L-0 park flyer, sometimes if there is fecal turbine interaction and it ends up in someone’s backyard, I am not sure I want to be associated with the rocket!
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If we lose one on the lake bed it might sit out there for a long time. Probably if someone is going to find it they are a flyer too. We found one a year ago that must have been out there for years. The av-bay was still intact. We were unable to open it with out destroying it.
 

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