ShredStes - the great PSII massacre :)

At our 'big' annual research launch, I organize the competitions.
This year, I had a request to do something a little different and which would be open to most fliers who attended.
Sooooo......

"ShredStes - The great PSII Massacre!"

There were two categories, open and stock. Estes PSII kits only.
Stock, had to be 'as is' from the bag, only alterations could be to include an altimeter, but no metal parts. 29mm MMT
Open, has to look exactly as it appears on the kit card, but can include any MMT and internal alterations.

I did not expect this to run away as it did.

I saw gravel as nose weight,
full wrap and tip to tip with 3/4 ounce cloth (barely noticeable),
carbon plate INSIDE the molded plastic fins,
Star Orbiter with balsa fins that had been DIPPED fully into CA to soak them (felt like FG),
and a lot more.

22 entries total over both categories, but there were a lot more that tried a test flight first and failed...
4 of those entries actually survived.
10 of them seemed to hit Mach. Perfect boost, accelerating then boom, no fins!!

As these were all small rockets, with 'small' motors, we saw only one that posed a fire risk, and the debris from all the failed flights was contained to the HPR cells

Just putting this up here as I thought there may be a few more slightly evil competition organizers out there...

oh..... and ALL the entrants requested this competition comes back next year!!

(pics to follow when available)

Sounds fun! Were there any other rules and/or a way to choose a winner?

It wasn't CA.... But the balsa wood was stabilized.

Also, ground test your deployment charges. Getting a stock Estes Predator to 6k' on an H140 is great, but you DQ if you blow it up at apogee!

boatgeek said:

Sounds fun! Were there any other rules and/or a way to choose a winner?

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Yes, the basic rules were that it had to survive, and recover to be able to fly again, same rules as L1 cert.
Also that the RSO could use their own judgement to decide which category that the rocket would fly in, or even if it would be allowed to fly.
Winner was determined by highest altitude with a qualifying flight.

My fully glassed (except nose cone) Star Orbiter came down in flames on a DMS H135, but was the victim of a motor failure. MESS report filed. Need to rebuild and try again next year. Should have it break apart closer to the nose cone so an I205 will fit.

Ugglee! William, Orbiter Flambe!

Salvage-1 said:

4 of those entries actually survived.

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1 of those 4 was my stock star orbiter. I *think* I took second place in that category with 4064 feet on an H135, unless someone posted a higher altitude after I logged my flight sunday afternoon. Oh, and it was also my L1 cert flight.

wjmoser said:

Should have it break apart closer to the nose cone so an I205 will fit.

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It's funny you say that... I sim'd the I205 in mine... looks like it would be a beautiful flight... but I'm out of space in that tiny little airframe. By my rough math I had 2 or 3cm free space between the top of the ejection charge and the bottom of the nomex. To fit the I205 I'd have to remove my tracker, which I really don't want to do if I'm considering sending it over 6k feet