Some Flights

[aerostadt]

Our local UROC had our semi-annual NAR Competition last weekend. Our organizer Bruce had a good qualification flight as usual with his scratch-built E-Boost Glider. I finally got a qualified E-Boost Glider for the first time using a J&H Aerospace Wind Lance. I first painted it with fluorescent orange, then sanded it, and then gave a slight clear coat to seal the balsa. I had one E9 left in my inventory, so I took the risk and launched it. It was from lot number A 09 15 14, which has been known to have Cato's. Josh at J&H recommends using a D12 for this model, but he does say that the adventurous can try an E9. So, I figured what the heck. That was my last E9. Others said that the flight was a little wild on the boost, but then settled down. I had a long guide wire that may have had a little bit of rod whip. I told Josh that my Wind Lance did not do so well in hand toss trials, so he said that it was time for down-flap. So, I built some down-flap into the forward canard. I got a good qualified flight with a time duration of 3:44. It was a fun flight. My thanks to Bruce for timing the glider and retrieval.

 

[aerostadt]

We had the A-Rocket Glider competition, which is a NRC Event for this year. Bruce went with a scratch-built model that had a tail up-flap (decaledge) activated by a burn-through thread. I went commercial with an Apogee Cirrus Breeze also activated with a burn-through thread to pull a sliding wing forward. From hand tosses I decided to put in a lit bit of decaledge on the rear tail by bending up the end of the tail by hand. After failing twice to get the sliding wing back far enough by tying the burn-thread in place, I put a small drop of CA to hold the thread in place and finished tying. The burn thread worked good on both gliders and Bruce got a qualified time. I would have had a time of about 36 seconds, however, when I got to the model, I found the nose come was blown off for a DQ.

 

[aerostadt]

It was a beautiful day with clear skies and no wind. Doug launched several helicopter rockets that worked good with long hang times. However, they were test flights and no time duration were taken. Unfortunately, I did not get any flight pictures. I tried an Apogee Thermal Sailor in an Apogee Tower for a straight up flight for the 1/2A Parachute Duration. Unfortunately, the parachute did not come out. I packed the chute with paper wadding. Afterwards, Bruce pointed out that I should have used a foam plug. When I got home, I found that I had some foam plugs in my inventory. Live and Learn.

 

[aerostadt]

Bruce had a successful Egg Loft flight test using just a short home-made tower and no piston. He says he will try a piston next. I had a qualified B-Streamer Duration using a Q-Jet B6-6 with a streamer ejected with an Apogee 18 mm foam plug. It took 3 tries to ignite the Q-jet. The first time I used the micro igniter that came with motor, but I realize now that I did not put the igniter into the motor far enough. For the second attempt I used an Aerotech First-Fire that made a large flash, but did not fire the motor. I then used a straightened paper clip to maybe wipe away all the soot and I realized that the open bore of the Q-jet is very long. Live and Learn. The Q-jet is a composite motor with a long bore. For the third attempt I put in the remaining micro-igniter and got a successful launch. The rocket went straight up from the tower and I got a qualified 65.7 second streamer duration.

 

[BEC]

Cool stuff.

Parachute duration is not easy to do reliably. I learned a huge amount from Terrill Willard's vNARCON presentation (on the NAR YouTube channel). Applying what I learned from him as best I could led me to come in second in 1/4A PD at NARAM-64 and win B Eggloft Duration. I highly recommend it.

I need to see what Josh Finn has for A rocket glider...

 

[TheAviator]

Thanks for the report! Always fun to see other folks doing NRC competition.