Hellfire17 - Launch Review

[Aksrockets]

As many of you know, a week ago was Hellfire17 (almost legal). Hellfire is UROC's (Utah Rocket Club) Regional launch. It's held at the Bonneville Salt Flats - The same place where the land speed records are set. It's called Hellfire just because of the heat. The sun's light reflects off of the salt, making it even hotter (as if 95f wasn't hot enough) However; despite the high temperatures, it's almost never humid. Hellfire is Thursday through Sunday, with Friday as a Tripoli research launch and everything else as a NAR Sport launch. This year we had over 300 flights from 1/4A to O.

I arrived on Friday morning at about 9 AM, just in time to set up my easy-up and table before the daily safety meeting. The first HPR rocket off the pad was Ken's (Kenstarr's) 4in Little John on a J1055VM, I hadnt seen a HPR motor in a few months, so the noise and speed startled me. It was awesome. Following that was a 4in Nike Smoke, which shredded on an AMW L motor. Some how, both of these flights are burned into my brain. Flying continued through out the day. I had a great time talking with other rocketeers and fellow forum members (stealth6, flynfrog, kenstarr, aerostadt, lawndartman, rocketjoe13 etc.). There were a lot of great success and a lot of great failures. I saw a J800 cato and take out a pad (that happened last year too!) an (almost?) Minimum diameter M motor and plenty of other cool things.

The day's climax was the O10,000, home-brewed by Jerry Hughes for the rocket "Aces High". Aces high was a 7in wide all fiberglass (from what I can tell) rocket. It's projected altitude was around 16K. There was some trouble with the launch system so the first time it didnt light. Sadly, the second time the button was pressed the motor cato'ed on the pad. Disappointing. I had never seen a motor that large.
[YOUTUBE]pbTgXVyf3vU[/YOUTUBE]

Towards the end of the day I wanted to fly something. It was a research day so I couldnt fly anything myself. Fortunately, Tim Thomas (lawndartman) was there and willing to fly for me. I loaded up my 4in Little john with a 38/240 H79J (I think). It was a nice flight to about 1600ft. HUGE thanks to Tim for flying that for me.

I went back to the hotel, had a nice cool shower followed by a generous amount of aloe to cover all of my sun burns.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was back at the launch site at 9 AM, ready to fly some rockets.

First up was my Shockwave29 on an H410. That thing was GONE.
[YOUTUBE]eBUlO3wBkzw[/YOUTUBE]

I filled the inside of the NC with Tracking powder. It left a little orange "Puff" hanging in the air. Without that, I would have never found my rocket. The NC hit the ground first and snapped the tip clean off, I dont know if it is reparable, I'll contact Shockwave rocketry for further instruction. (pictures to come).

Flying continued throughout the day. There were lots of great flights and I just kept the camera rolling:
[YOUTUBE]AGQGQNT_E54[/YOUTUBE]
This is Aerostadt's Double shuttle, as seen on RP. A real crowd pleaser.

[YOUTUBE]Q0XBcbC7pXo[/YOUTUBE]
Got some great footage of this compeditor on an M motor

[YOUTUBE]FJVk6hdZra0[/YOUTUBE]
Aerostadt's Orbital Transport, perfect flight except for some landing damage if I'm not mistaken.

[YOUTUBE]bfXzdSMrVHk[/YOUTUBE]
Flynfrog's (Ryan's) Mariah on an J640DT. The BT crumpled and it shredded towards the end of the burn.

[YOUTUBE]zdsZNxWBAfQ[/YOUTUBE]
Flynfrog's V2 flying on a J motor for his L2. Congrats!

[YOUTUBE]X_FIIuRkClU[/YOUTUBE]
Kenstarr's (Ken's) 4in darkstar on a 5 grain skidmark. It was one of those flights that you could feel in your chest. Gotta love skids!

_____________________________________________________

Towards the end of the day, I started getting rockets ready to launch. I threw a H178DM (38/360 motor) in my 2.6in stub. The motor stuck up all the way into the NC - Just the way I like it.
Heck why not turn it into a drag race! I drag raced against flynfrog, who had the same motor in his 4in V2. My was first off the pad by a good second. Plenty faster too. Sims said about mach 1 and 3500 feet. I belive that it got every inch of that. Unfortunately, at apogee the kevlar snapped and the main part of the rocket came in fast. The NC drifted down and landed a good 40 feet away from our prep table.
I shattered two of the fins and wrecked the BT on impact. The rocket isn't reparable but it had an awesome first flight, none the less.


Damage from landing.

That same group of flights, I flew my MachMobile38 on the H400vm. What a flight. This thing got out of there in a hurry!
The booster separated from chute (my cord mount failed) the booster tumbled all the way to the ground. I only saw the payload section come down and I followed that , hoping to find the booster. They were both about 100 feet away from each other. The payload section showed no signs of damage. Unfortunately, that wasnt the same for the booster. It landed hard on the fins, destroying one of them and breaking off another one. The force of the impact snapped right through the carbon fiber fillets. No damage to the tube though. I could rebuild but I might not. It wont ever look as pretty or be as strong.
[YOUTUBE]QKoj58WYwN0[/YOUTUBE]



This just gives me the excuse to build another 38MD!

The largest motor flown on Saturday was an N10,000 in a 6in fiberglass rocket. Unfortunately, that had problems too. It might look like a motor failure but in fact, I think this would be classified as a shred.
[YOUTUBE]X1kpMxFbI6w[/YOUTUBE]
I talked to Bruce after the flight. He suspected that a fin came loose, resulting in instability. I was dissapointed that this did not work as planned also.

We packed up and left at about 4:00. I said goodbye to everyone and headed out.

All in all a great launch.
I'll include more details in another post, my hands are getting tired from typing.

HUGE THANKS TO:

My parents:
For supporting my in my hobbies and taking me out to hellfire! It's not easy for them to take two days out of their schedule. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Uroc:
Pad managers, LCO, RSO, everyone in the UROC staff that spent hours planning for hellfire! It was the best part of my year (yes, that includes Christmas and my B-Day)

..and finally thanks to:
Motor Joe and Tim Thomas.
Huge thanks for coming to Hellfire and selling motors. Joe was able to give me some great deals on motors and Tim helped fund and fly some rockets. I wouldnt have had as much fun if you guys didnt show up. You got yourselves a life time customer! You can drain my wallet every Hellfire!

For more pictures including some awesome take off shots follow these links:
Gallery 1
Gallery 2

For a full video of all of the flights I filmed watch this:
[YOUTUBE]HJ-SmoVeUSA[/YOUTUBE]

Congratulations! You made it to the end of my post! It's about time for a snack break, dont ya' think!

For all of you other guys that made it out to hellfire, what did YOU think?

Alex L.

 

[dixontj93060]

Hmmm... Another Mariah tube crumpling?

 

[stealth6]

Excellent report Alex. Hellfire17 was a blast for sure. I'll probably chime in with more details later.

It was cool meeting TRF folk in person, however I'm disappointed I missed a couple - lawndartman and rocketjoe13.

In that last video, that's my L1 cert flight at 5:24 (with kenstarr on the mic and launch button).

Just another note for the general TRF public: folks around here sometimes find themselves....ummm..."challenged" when dealilng with some teens on the forum. Alex here is a perfect example of a "teen done right". This kid is smart, respectful, talented, well spoken, AND he builds and flies some dang cool rockets.
And Alex, well done on the shout out to your Mom&Dad....you're absolutely right in appreciating them. You got a couple of good ones there.

s6

 

[kenstarr]

I spent way too much money, but I had so much fun. Most of my flights were successful. I learned my home sewn chutes need some more reinforcement, especially if they are to deploy late. I learned I need to do a better job setting up my electronics, I was using a missile works alt and set the main to deploy at 1000' AGL instead of apogee. I could have either put the charge on the drogue terminals or played with the menu to reconfigure it for single deploy. Oh well. I also learned if your ejection charge is not well contained, it doesn't work well. The Speed of Money came down from 6000' on a "streamer" consisting of kevlar cord because the main charge container had broken open. Battery was destroyed but electronics were OK! Base of rocket had a little kink in it I'm fixin' to fix soon with some scrap carbon sleeve.

For next year I want to fly a guitar themed rocket (think Bad Axe, just a different kind of axe!), an upscale "Blackhawk 66", and maybe go for broke and special order an I 1299 warp 9 for the Speed of Money. Both vendors didn't carry the reload because of the CATO's people have had with it. Maybe just an H999 or tame it down with the H400Vmax which I love.

The Skidmark is fantastic in all sizes. LOVE IT! I want to do some research motors as well. I've got a Brand X 54mm case, and have done some computer simulations. Ran out of cash or I would have done something this year with research.

One thing I love about the salt, it doesn't heat up on the ground like something darker. Temperatures out there weren't nearly as bad as July 3rd setting up Freedom Fire on the asphalt all day long.

I went to the banquet afterwords, won the beauty contest! (not me, the rocket!) They announced next year there will be an altitude contest on a c motor. I've already been toying with simulations for optimal rocket length, fin shape, weight. If it will be allowable, I'll use electronic ejection in an 18mm scratch carbon fiber tube, seeing as how a 6 second delay would not be long enough. What do I know though, I've never done a small rocket altitude contest before so I could easily tank it.

 

[Rocketjunkie]

and maybe go for broke and special order an I 1299 warp 9 for the Speed of Money. Both vendors didn't carry the reload because of the CATO's people have had with it. Maybe just an H999 or tame it down with the H400Vmax which I love.

I've flown several H999's with no trouble but yet to fly an I1299 but do have one on order.

 

[JDcluster]

I haven't heard of anyone having trouble with the I1299.
There was a problem with the J or K equivlant.

JD

 

[stealth6]

Ken, congrats on winning the beauty contest (I obviously did not go to the banquet). I'm assuming it was for your Darkstar, yes? That there was one purdy rocket.

Any other details on next year's C altitude contest? That sounds like fun.

s6

 

[Aksrockets]

Excellent report Alex. Hellfire17 was a blast for sure. I'll probably chime in with more details later.

It was cool meeting TRF folk in person, however I'm disappointed I missed a couple - lawndartman and rocketjoe13.

In that last video, that's my L1 cert flight at 5:24 (with kenstarr on the mic and launch button).

Just another note for the general TRF public: folks around here sometimes find themselves....ummm..."challenged" when dealilng with some teens on the forum. Alex here is a perfect example of a "teen done right". This kid is smart, respectful, talented, well spoken, AND he builds and flies some dang cool rockets.
And Alex, well done on the shout out to your Mom&Dad....you're absolutely right in appreciating them. You got a couple of good ones there.

s6

Thanks, S6 that made my day.

Here are some of the better pictures I took.










more to come in the next post.

 

[Aksrockets]

more pics:

 

[Aksrockets]

two more:




Alex

 

[Aksrockets]

Found a few more that I didnt upload previously:







Alex

 

[jshattell]

Great Launch Report. It is my dream to travel to West to launch at such ranges like the Bonneville Salt Flats. Out here in the Northeast there are few open enough spaces where we aren't dealing with crops or trees. Maybe I will see the Utah Club members at a future Hell Fire. Can I bring an RV out to the Flats?

 

[kenstarr]

Technically you can't camp ON the flats but a few miles away OFF the flats it's OK.