July Whitakers meet

[Jase]

Got back from Whitakers last night exhausted but elated over the day we had.

Myself, Buckwheat, KenParker, his son Kent, PhilGerringer, his son Jonathon and MarkBrown all showed up early Saturday morning for a day of launching.

Ken has the detailed flight log which he'll post when he gets back from the second day of launching.

We all had a great time. It was HOT! High was around 93 and the sun was brutal.

We saw many great flights, but were disappointed when an anticipated L3 attempt was declined by the TAPs.

We all made sacrifices to the rockets gods in the afternoon.

Phil started it (as usual) with his Stygian Witch that was way underpowered on the Pro38 H153 motor (that appears to have been defective after investigation) as it went up, arced over and came down with ejection happening after it was already a few inches in the ground.

Ken continuted with his brand new Mirage rocket glider's second flight that went way squirrely and came down nose first to cartwheel a few times and broke into pieces. Thanks to Courtney for finding Ken's R/C RMS casing.

I discovered that a 7 sec delay on a G64 on my L1 Mace was waayyyyyyy too long. Ejection occured about 75 ft. off the ground and the chute never filled. It came down sideways and slammed into the ground. It's crunched a little, but is fixable and will fly again.

Mark's first attempt at launching his scratch built Hermes hybrid motor never made it off the pad due to filling issues and then running out of liquid for the hybrid tank.

We thought Phil was going to do a second sacrifice with his #3 Mustang but thankfully, Mark found it in a canyon (about 5 feet deep) and it was recovered unharmed.

All in all, we did have a good time and had a lot of successful flights.

Here are the pics that I got

Jason

 

[rstaff3]

Er...did I lose a month?

In spite of a few problems, sounds like a fun day! I shoulda come down! Shoulda, woulda, coulda....

Next month your launch overlaps ours in MD and I think I'm on VACA in August. Oh well

 

[Jase]

Originally posted by rstaff3
Er...did I lose a month?

Whoops.

 

[MarkABrown]

Well, I guess I'll start since I had one of the more spectacular events. Attached is a picture of my scratch-built Hermes rocket that was built to fly my Hypertek hybrid motor. I had the Hermes loaded with an "FX" motor grain, a 0.125 orifice, and a 440cc tank. This gives the motor a rating of "J270". I had a pair of Sky Angle chutes (29" drogue and 52" main) for recovery that would be deployed with a G-Wiz MC for a main altimeter and a Missile Works RRC²X for a backup altimeter. As you can probably tell, not all went as planned. On Saturday, I prepped the rocket and set up the launch equipment. However, we had too many extension cords to reach all the way out to the pad. The Hypertek launch equipment has the battery at the launch controller and not at the pad therefore, the current drop over the long run was too much to allow the solenoids to open and fill the tank. After getting permission from the RSO, we removed one of the extension cords and I was permitted to move a little closer to the pad while the rest of the spectators remained behind. This was enough to allow the solenoids to work properly. However, during all of our testing to find out what the problem was, we used up too much of the N₂O to get a completely full tank. So we had to scrub the launch. Fortunately, another Whitakers flyer, Bill Shamblin, had a small tank of N₂O that he was willing to let me use. So, Sunday the launch was back on. I set everything back up on the pads and this time we got a good fill. The launch was beautiful! The flight was perfect straight up. That's when things started to go wrong. I think that many things went wrong: the drogue was too tight in the upper body tube, the ejection charges weren't large enough, and the shear pins for the main payload bay were too big for the size ejection charges I used. The rocket came in ballistic and "core sampled"! It was a spectacular crash though! It reminded me of one of those crashes you see on the LDRS videos. We saw the crash from where we were standing and pieces flew everywhere. When we got to the crash site, it looked like a 747 had hit! Amazingly, I wasn't nearly as upset as I thought I would be. Most of the components would be salvaged. The motor was ok, the chutes, quicklinks, and nomex was still good. The electronics got hosed however. Some of the flyers at Whitakers said that Missile Works was good about repairing their altimeters so, I'll give them a call. I don't know about the guys at G-Wiz but I'll give them and Doug Pratt a call since it certainly can't hurt. Even though it crashed, I was really impressed with the motor and I'm already thinking of what I did wrong and how I can build a new rocket to fly the motor again.

PS. Ken Parker and Phil Gerringer have got some pictures of the wreckage. We'll have to wait for them to post their pics for you guys to get the full impact of the carnage.

 

[Brian Barney]

The J270 is a neat motor, huh? I got my L2 certification on that motor I really like the J317 though.... Its great because when I am the spotter for the fill, I get to run to the min safe distance so I am nice and close and can actually feel the "farting" in my chest

Thats too bad about the crash! I wonder if the Gwiz guys can get the flight data out of the crashed MC. Were all of the ejection charges fired in the rocket? Thats why my theory is blow it out or blow it up!

I hope it can be rebuilt, and that it will go well.

-Brian Barney

 

[PGerringer]

Well, here are my pics:

https://www.cybergatetech.com/phpgraphy/?dir=Rocketry/launch 6-29-02/

I haven't had a chance to label them but will tonight. Even though we had some serious mishaps, fun was had by all.

Points of interest:
V-2 being launched: https://www.cybergatetech.com/phpgraphy/?display=Rocketry/launch 6-29-02/img_2756.jpg
The Witch: https://www.cybergatetech.com/phpgraphy/?display=Rocketry/launch 6-29-02/img_2772.jpg
My son putting out the fire that the Witch caused : https://www.cybergatetech.com/phpgraphy/?display=Rocketry/launch 6-29-02/img_2773.jpg
The Mace launching: https://www.cybergatetech.com/phpgraphy/?display=Rocketry/launch 6-29-02/img_2787.jpg
Paper Space Shuttle: https://www.cybergatetech.com/phpgraphy/?display=Rocketry/launch 6-29-02/img_2790.jpg
Dave Morey's 2 stage: https://www.cybergatetech.com/phpgraphy/?display=Rocketry/launch 6-29-02/img_2816.jpg
My Mustang: https://www.cybergatetech.com/phpgraphy/?display=Rocketry/launch 6-29-02/img_2817.jpg
Dave Morey's ill fated mission: https://www.cybergatetech.com/phpgraphy/?display=Rocketry/launch 6-29-02/img_2821.jpg
Missed the Hybrid but here is the wreckage: https://www.cybergatetech.com/phpgraphy/?display=Rocketry/launch 6-29-02/img_2844.jpg
The Mirage flies again: https://www.cybergatetech.com/phpgraphy/?display=Rocketry/launch 6-29-02/img_2851.jpg

I will try to label most of them tonight and will let you know when they are done. Till then... Enjoy!

 

[Jase]

So did Dave Morey ever find his UpArreaux? I remember they were looking for it when we were trying to find your Mustang.

 

[dmorey]

I found the Upscale Arreaux upper stage about 3/4 mile upwind in the cotton fields to the north of the launch site. The Altacc failed to fire either drougue or main charges. It must have lost power or disarmed due to faulty wiring or switch. It had about 50 successful deployments on it. The only thing I can think of that was different about this flight was that the arming switch was so high off the ground I may not have screwed it in tight enough. For a guy who is afraid of height, I was not happy on top of the ladder!

I got a great liftoff pictures and some pictures of it in the ground. I'll post them in a couple of days.

I recovered the motor casing, two safe eject canisters and Liz's chute. Eveything else was in lots of little pieces. The toll was one Altacc, one G-Wiz, a 35 mm camera and a camera timer.

It will be rebuilt and return in a couple of months.

Dave

 

[PGerringer]

OK, I've done the labels on my pics...

Dave, did you see the pics I had of your arreaux? It was a beautiful launch dude....

 

[dmorey]

Pictures are at:

https://www.fototime.com/inv/B5BB53572F8BF6E

under New.

Dave

 

[PGerringer]

Oh, man!!! You got a great picture of my Pterodactyl Jr. Way to go...

 

[dmorey]

I take it your Pterodactly Jr is EPSN0005 on 6/29/02? What motor did you use?

Dave

 

[Jase]

Hmmmm. Ya know, Ken Parker was taking lots of pictures that weekend like us. Wonder when he's gonna let us see them?

 

[PGerringer]

Dave,
Yes sir it it. I used a pro38 2 grainer which was 244H153. That was a great load.

 

[KenParker]

but, just for fun, I'll go ahead and post the pictures I have from Whitakers. After Phil's, Jase's, and Dave Morey's, the few pictures I have are not much to add. I was concentrating on launching, so most of the pictures on my camera were taken by "OP." (Other People)

I tapped Jase's friend Courtney to run my vidcam, so that really left no one other than "OP" to use my digi-cam for still shots.

Oh well, here they are...

https://www.rocketryforum.com/kparker/album/?dir=w062902

 

[swimmer]

Great pics. We'll take them no matter who takes them.

Swimmer