liftoff! gallery

So I just remembered that I haven't posted the two most amazing rocket flights I have been able to witness.

My high school flew our 3inch Minimum diameter rocket to 30,197ft on its first flight with a CTI M840



Then we flew in on a M2020 Imax to 36,477ft.




You can check out the videos below:

M840: [YOUTUBE]4Hl40BWN-KU?hd=1[/YOUTUBE]

M2020: [YOUTUBE]iJnXsX-MXWM?hd=1[/YOUTUBE]

Estes AMRAAM on Estes A8-3 (not recommended)


Estes Photon Disruptor on Estes C6-3


Estes Viking on Estes A8-3, a little late on the camera trigger.

My 1/6th scale Mercury Redstone flying on an N2000W, two K700Ws and two K550Ws at LDRS 31. The 145lb beast flew to 8,120'.

Rocketman248 said:

My 1/6th scale Mercury Redstone flying on an N2000W, two K700Ws and two K550Ws at LDRS 31. The 145lb beast flew to 8,120'.

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Now THAT'S a rocket!

GDJ said:

My Quest High-Q on a F20-7W Econojet.

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The absolute best motor for the High-Q... After loosing my last one, I am rebuilding one right now.

Disaster_Guy said:

The absolute best motor for the High-Q... After loosing my last one, I am rebuilding one right now.

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I find it a very versatile motor. It has good thrust, good burn times, and it will put a middleweight midpower rocket quite high, and it won't break the bank buying a 2 pack. It's one of my favourites.

Here's some my Dad took of my rockets:

My gap-staged three-stage scratch build on it's first flight, which ended badly. (The 3rd stage never ignited so it and lawn-darted, knocking the motor mount right out of the BT even though it was glued in Also, it was only marginally stable on the second stage.) It has since been converted to fly on two stages, and flown successfully. It was originally designed to fly on a D12-0 to D12-0 to C6-7 combination. After the conversion to two stages, it flew on a D12-0 t0 D12-5 combo.

My cardstock Saturn 1B on its second ill-fated flight with a C6-5. The motor mount canted and it went unstable, land-sharking a little before powering into the ground sideways. (Pics of the damage here.)

My cardstock Saturn 1 SA-5 on a D12-5, built as a much more impressive replacement of my destroyed Saturn 1B. Unfortunately, the parachute got tangled in the shroud lines preventing the parachute from fully deploying. Fortunately, the only damage was some crumpling of the easily-replaced nose cone, and some tearing of the paper cover on the corner of one fin. It will be repaired and ready to fly again the next time I'm able to make it to a club launch.
More to come...

Here's a few more:

My Estes Nova Payloader, originally purchased and built for the sole purpose of providing aerial video footage via pen camera, on its first flight without the payload. The motor was a C6-5, IIRC.

My BT-55 Bullpup 12D, a clone of the Estes version, on it's first flight. Also a C6-5. Thanks again to Dlazarus6660 for providing me with the decals.

A nearly all-cardstock scratch build built with a 20mm MMT to fly on Quest D5-4's. According to OR, it should have reached nearly 1800 ft. The D5-4 itself was kindly given to me by AstronMike.

A scratchbuilt rocket with 19 fins, named 19FNC as a sort of reductio ad absurdum of the 3FNC vs. 4FNC argument. The flight was on an E9-4. I think this may have been the flight when it drifted ~1.25 miles into a adjacent cow field...
And even more to come...

Last but certainly not least, some pictures on my venerable QCC Explorer.

A shot of the QCC explorer lifting off on an E9-6. Notice that there are some interesting things about this picture; there is a cloud of sparks shooting off to one side, and there is a dragonfly on top of the launch rod! A little off topic for this thread, (Though there is a smoke trail from the rocket, so it's okay, right? :wink but here's the two subsequent frames showing the dragonfly after being run over by a rocket:

It is unknown whether or not the dragonfly survived...

Here's the most recent flight of the QCC, on an E18-7 white lightning reload. (My first reload, and my first composite motor. ) I had originally planned to fly this motor in a scratch built rocket named the Nimbus, but one of the launch lugs was very slightly misaligned, so it was too tight on the rod. So of course, I couldn't leave the motor sitting in the case for two months, and the only other rocket I had with me that would take the motor was the QCC Explorer. Perfect flight, and a nice recovery on the 15" nylon chute I got from the onsite vendor.
That's all for now. I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Here's one from a few years ago:



JD

Here is my LOC Bruiser, taking off last weekend on a CTI 6XL J453 - earned me a Level 2 certification! Same launch, shots were taken from two different cameras.

My Mad Cow Phoenix, doing its thing on an H178 Dark Matter..........

neond7 said:

Here is my LOC Bruiser, taking off last weekend on a CTI 6XL J453 - earned me a Level 2 certification! Same launch, shots were taken from two different cameras.

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Very nice! Congratulations on the Level 2!

neond7 said:

My Mad Cow Phoenix, doing its thing on an H178 Dark Matter..........

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Love the new Dark Matter motors! But what is that green stuff on the ground? LOL

neond7 said:

My Mad Cow Phoenix, doing its thing on an H178 Dark Matter..........

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Very Cool

My venerable Ultimate Wildman flying on an Aerotech M1939W this weekend. Sadly, it was never recovered. Word is one of the surrounding farmers has it. The landowner is going to work on getting it back, but I'm not holding out much hope.

Well that's a bitch.
Where was this flight?

MaxQ said:

Well that's a bitch.
Where was this flight?

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Bayboro, NC.

That really sucks - that's one of my favorite motors too. Here's one of my new favorite pictures:

cjl said:

That really sucks - that's one of my favorite motors too. Here's one of my new favorite pictures:

View attachment 98137

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Wow! That's a mighty big flame!

cjl said:

That really sucks - that's one of my favorite motors too. Here's one of my new favorite pictures:

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Same here dude. Similar pictures, similar flight results.

3" dia case bonded 9000 ns double taper core rocket flown at Balls 2012 to 24,000 AGL.

GeoffHuber said:

3" dia case bonded 9000 ns double taper core rocket flown at Balls 2012 to 24,000 AGL.

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Devilishly good looking rocket....nice flame too.

cjl said:

That really sucks - that's one of my favorite motors too. Here's one of my new favorite pictures:

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Oh to have been there.........can imagine what that sounded like.

Ill play... nothing as impressive as a lot of the pics in here but i do have some

Estes Patriot c6-5 if i remember right



Estes Vagabond e9-6

That second shot of the Patriot is very cool!

Very cool pictures!

Great photos!

Here are a couple from the Tripoli Vegas September launch...

First up is my triumphant return to rocketry. My AeroTech Initiator on it's maiden flight with an AeroTech F22-5J:


Next up, we have a couple from Mark Hayes of StickerShock. The first is his crayon rocket, and the second is a huge beast with a full wrap, it's called groovy something or other...



Next is Gerald Meux's (gtm3323 on the forum here) "Quiet Storm" which I believe hit 17 or 18k feet:

Beer Daddy at Balls-21:

mdoering said:

Here are a couple from the Tripoli Vegas September launch...



Next up, we have a couple from Mark Hayes of StickerShock. The first is his crayon rocket, and the second is a huge beast with a full wrap, it's called groovy something or other...
View attachment 98602
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Thats Galactic Groove! LOL