n5wd
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2009
- Messages
- 1,036
- Reaction score
- 3
It's been about 15 months since I got seriously involved with model rocketry again. I was going to be teaching a new high school class this last school year, a survey course on engineering, and was going to include major segments of robotics and rocketry to go along with The Infinity Project, a digital electronics curriculum produced by SMU and Texas Instruments. Had to get my knowledge level up to par very quickly!
Luckily, Texas Tech's College of Engineering ran week-long teacher training sessions in both robotics and entry-level rocketry last summer, so between weeks in Lubbock, trips to the Hobby Lobby, getting introduced to the local club, Dallas Area Rocket Society (DARS), and a large field/parking lot at the local junior college, last summer was pretty busy. Oh, and spending every other available moment online (thanks to the folks here on TRF!).
Of course, seeing my kids fly the models that they designed and built (site licenses for RockSim for my 20-computer engineering lab) and working with the kids in the TARC teams that I sponsored (one of our teams, an all-girls team, qualified and went to the nationals - not bad for our first year, I think!), the challenge of bigger, better, faster, higher began to infect me.
So, naturally, I've wanted to get started in high power for a while... and now that school was out, it was time.
After reading many, many, many build threads, I decided on the BSD 38 Special. Good choice! Great documentation, good parts, could easily fly as a "mini" for the first time out (see, I DID reinforce that K-I-S-S principle by reading everyone's message traffic here!).
I've got a reputation at DARS for flying nekkid rockets - don't know why but paint on the outside hasn't interested me as much as the innards, but this time she at least got a coat of Krylon primer, and will get a better coat of finishing Duplicolor later...
Missed the DARS high power launch in May due to family obligations, so we head down to McGregor, Texas (just south of the President's ranch in Crawford, and held just over the hill from the Space-X motor test facility) for June's launch...
The obligatory souvenir shot with the rocket.. (in another thread, I mentioned I had been busy doing checklists for my Lev 1 so I wouldn't forget anything - of course, I left them at home! So, one of the folks, being helpful, put some tape up near the nose cone - marked "This Side Up!)
It's a BSD 38 Special without the payload tube - and has a Cessaroni H153 loaded inside... for some reason, the LSO put us out in the back 40... was he trying to tell me something? :lol: With me is my L1 sponsor, Royce Frankum, the VP of DARS. He was also my recovery team, with another gent (didn't get the name) in a Gator... turns out to have been a good deal for me!
5-4-3-2-1 and poof, it's gone! None of this chuffing and huffing stuff I've seen on the others loads. Just poof! (This, by the way, is the first rocket launch picture my wife has ever taken. I STILL can't get most rockets coming off the rod like that!)
RockSim said it'd fly about 3315 feet AGL - more experience eyes than mine suggested that it hit every bit of that mark, and maybe then some. Straight up, maybe just a bit into the wind, deployment at about 1 second after apogee, and then it started drifting... and drifting... and drifting... and drifting...
Winds at the ground were about 10-12 mph at the time. The rocket landed about a mile away in a rock-strewn field, all together and with just a little chunk of fin sacrificed to the rocket gods upon landing on one of those rocks. Minor damage to one of the fillets on that fin, easily repairable - probably could have flown it right away, but as it was I got the last of the certification loads that the club offers, free of charge I might add, to folks who are wanting to certify! That definitely paid for my dues for last year and this one, too!
So thanks to everyone in DARS and especially Jack and Suzy Sprague, our TARC mentors who've spent so much extra time with me!
The other really cool thing about yesterday, is that one of the students who was on the TARC Team that I sponsored, Tyler Olsen, was also going for his Junior Level 1 at McGregor. His first attempt had a bit of a problem, nose cone separated from the shock cord (just almost exactly like my Big Daddy had the week before at Frisco), but it worked just fine for him on his second try and, sponsored by Jack Sprague, he's now sporting his Junior Level 1 credentials! If there was a Junior Level 2 and Level 3, he'd be working for them as well! Congrats Tyler!
So, onwards and upwards! Next time the BSD flies, she'll have some more paint, and an altimeter and Beeline radio tracker in the payload going up with her, as well! That Gator (an all-terrain 4-wheel drive thingie for those that aren't aware) might not be available at next month's launch!
Luckily, Texas Tech's College of Engineering ran week-long teacher training sessions in both robotics and entry-level rocketry last summer, so between weeks in Lubbock, trips to the Hobby Lobby, getting introduced to the local club, Dallas Area Rocket Society (DARS), and a large field/parking lot at the local junior college, last summer was pretty busy. Oh, and spending every other available moment online (thanks to the folks here on TRF!).
Of course, seeing my kids fly the models that they designed and built (site licenses for RockSim for my 20-computer engineering lab) and working with the kids in the TARC teams that I sponsored (one of our teams, an all-girls team, qualified and went to the nationals - not bad for our first year, I think!), the challenge of bigger, better, faster, higher began to infect me.
So, naturally, I've wanted to get started in high power for a while... and now that school was out, it was time.
After reading many, many, many build threads, I decided on the BSD 38 Special. Good choice! Great documentation, good parts, could easily fly as a "mini" for the first time out (see, I DID reinforce that K-I-S-S principle by reading everyone's message traffic here!).
I've got a reputation at DARS for flying nekkid rockets - don't know why but paint on the outside hasn't interested me as much as the innards, but this time she at least got a coat of Krylon primer, and will get a better coat of finishing Duplicolor later...
Missed the DARS high power launch in May due to family obligations, so we head down to McGregor, Texas (just south of the President's ranch in Crawford, and held just over the hill from the Space-X motor test facility) for June's launch...
The obligatory souvenir shot with the rocket.. (in another thread, I mentioned I had been busy doing checklists for my Lev 1 so I wouldn't forget anything - of course, I left them at home! So, one of the folks, being helpful, put some tape up near the nose cone - marked "This Side Up!)
It's a BSD 38 Special without the payload tube - and has a Cessaroni H153 loaded inside... for some reason, the LSO put us out in the back 40... was he trying to tell me something? :lol: With me is my L1 sponsor, Royce Frankum, the VP of DARS. He was also my recovery team, with another gent (didn't get the name) in a Gator... turns out to have been a good deal for me!
5-4-3-2-1 and poof, it's gone! None of this chuffing and huffing stuff I've seen on the others loads. Just poof! (This, by the way, is the first rocket launch picture my wife has ever taken. I STILL can't get most rockets coming off the rod like that!)
RockSim said it'd fly about 3315 feet AGL - more experience eyes than mine suggested that it hit every bit of that mark, and maybe then some. Straight up, maybe just a bit into the wind, deployment at about 1 second after apogee, and then it started drifting... and drifting... and drifting... and drifting...
Winds at the ground were about 10-12 mph at the time. The rocket landed about a mile away in a rock-strewn field, all together and with just a little chunk of fin sacrificed to the rocket gods upon landing on one of those rocks. Minor damage to one of the fillets on that fin, easily repairable - probably could have flown it right away, but as it was I got the last of the certification loads that the club offers, free of charge I might add, to folks who are wanting to certify! That definitely paid for my dues for last year and this one, too!
So thanks to everyone in DARS and especially Jack and Suzy Sprague, our TARC mentors who've spent so much extra time with me!
The other really cool thing about yesterday, is that one of the students who was on the TARC Team that I sponsored, Tyler Olsen, was also going for his Junior Level 1 at McGregor. His first attempt had a bit of a problem, nose cone separated from the shock cord (just almost exactly like my Big Daddy had the week before at Frisco), but it worked just fine for him on his second try and, sponsored by Jack Sprague, he's now sporting his Junior Level 1 credentials! If there was a Junior Level 2 and Level 3, he'd be working for them as well! Congrats Tyler!
So, onwards and upwards! Next time the BSD flies, she'll have some more paint, and an altimeter and Beeline radio tracker in the payload going up with her, as well! That Gator (an all-terrain 4-wheel drive thingie for those that aren't aware) might not be available at next month's launch!
