It is with great sadness that I announce my 1st "D" engine launch since the early 80's was not so great. The launch was awesome. The flight up was great. It went higher than I expected on that D12-3. The flight back down...well... It was straight and true. I think the ground shook when it dug a nice hole with the nose cone. It made a nice boom on impact. Sounded like what the ejection charge should have sounded like.
So...I used home-made wadding (2 paper towel sheets treated with Borax) and the stock chute and cord (chute clipped on with one of those ball-bearing tackle jobs). I have a 9x9 Nomex I was going to use, but it felt heavy and I never used one before, so I thought I would start simple. I know now that it would have been fine...or in this case, no worse off. I don't know what happened. I was more worried about the nose cone falling off as it was popping up a little on it's own. I used a little masking tape to make it a little tighter, but believe me...it was not tight and still was moving up on me slightly. I have no idea what went wrong. The ejection charge happened as my wadding was wasted and I have a couple of burns on the chute. I have never experienced this. The "C" engine charges are usually violent, so I thought the D would be more so. Could it be that the charge was not enough? Heck, my son's Wizard shot back a good ways when his charge went off on a B6-4 today. The streamer came out and so did the engine, and I had that thing in tight! The next flight was a B4-4, not in as tight, and everything went normal and engine stayed put. Only difference was that I used my wadding on his first flight and estes on the second. Could my wadding have caused the issue? I can't think of anything else out of the norm from my other launches.
I know I am not using my wadding again. It passed some torch tests in the kitchen, but it burned too much in the real world. My Baby Bertha suffered some chute burn from it as well.
I want to save it. The bottom end is still perfect and nose cone just scuffed. My thoughts are to cut it down to the launch lug and splice in a new piece of 3" tubing. I will make it a little longer than stock to make a little more room for the chute. I don't think I can cut lower than that, or I won't have enough room for a coupler.
Sound OK? Suggestions on where to get the tubing?
So...I used home-made wadding (2 paper towel sheets treated with Borax) and the stock chute and cord (chute clipped on with one of those ball-bearing tackle jobs). I have a 9x9 Nomex I was going to use, but it felt heavy and I never used one before, so I thought I would start simple. I know now that it would have been fine...or in this case, no worse off. I don't know what happened. I was more worried about the nose cone falling off as it was popping up a little on it's own. I used a little masking tape to make it a little tighter, but believe me...it was not tight and still was moving up on me slightly. I have no idea what went wrong. The ejection charge happened as my wadding was wasted and I have a couple of burns on the chute. I have never experienced this. The "C" engine charges are usually violent, so I thought the D would be more so. Could it be that the charge was not enough? Heck, my son's Wizard shot back a good ways when his charge went off on a B6-4 today. The streamer came out and so did the engine, and I had that thing in tight! The next flight was a B4-4, not in as tight, and everything went normal and engine stayed put. Only difference was that I used my wadding on his first flight and estes on the second. Could my wadding have caused the issue? I can't think of anything else out of the norm from my other launches.
I know I am not using my wadding again. It passed some torch tests in the kitchen, but it burned too much in the real world. My Baby Bertha suffered some chute burn from it as well.
I want to save it. The bottom end is still perfect and nose cone just scuffed. My thoughts are to cut it down to the launch lug and splice in a new piece of 3" tubing. I will make it a little longer than stock to make a little more room for the chute. I don't think I can cut lower than that, or I won't have enough room for a coupler.
Sound OK? Suggestions on where to get the tubing?