Ok, that was pretty cool.
Short story: I followed up on some internet searching, and found out more about the event. Its an annual collegiate rocket competition wherein thirty plus teams design/build/fly some big rockets. I drove on out there and checked it out. Saw lots of cool projects & flights, and witnessed a couple spectacular failures. Cool rocket day.
Longer story: The event turned out to be the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) and theyve been launching at this location for the past nine years. The event is run by the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA) out of northern Utah. Between thirty and forty teams some from as far away as Brazil design, build, and launch rockets carrying 10lb. payloads to 10,000 and 25,000 feet. All the info about IREC is here:
www.soundingrocket.org.
So, I worked a few hours in the morning, and then headed out to the launch site to check it out. It was an interesting event in how some things differed than a normal NAR/TRA event in terms of safety, rules, communication, etc. The prep and viewing area, was WAY far back from the actual pads. There was no PA or sound system, but everyone had radios and all communications and announcements came through them. There was group there from a local amateur radio club, that had SERIOUS equipment, doing all the tracking/telemetry (in real time), satellite link ups, multi-station radio comms., etc. Each round of rockets took an hour or more to get set and ready to launch, and then they launched three to five of them, and started over. One weird thing was that (in theory anyway) folks were not allowed to retrieve their rockets until the end of the day, after ALL rockets had flown. So, rockets that flew at 8:00am were supposed to sit on the ground (and it was HOT out) until 3:30pm.
Up at the pad area, things were both very strict and very loose. On the strict side, they had a couple of (volunteers?) who were taking their job a bit too seriously who went a little nuts when anyone just took a step towards the perimeter of the safe areas. But then, they had this completely ridiculous safety screen in front of the launch control table which would have been useless in the event of large shrapnel hitting it. And folks who were up at the pad area were allowed to be quite close to the pads, as long as they stood behind a car. Im talking only 180 away from a pad launching N motors (more on this later).
The rockets themselves were pretty cool. Lots of machining of components, lots of complex electronics, some cool payload/experimental stuff, etc. Some flew hybrids, some EX/sugar motors, some commercial reloads. A general feeling I got was that things were often made overly complex, but hey this was about college engineering/technology, not hobby flying. Still, Im sure many of you are familiar with what happens when you move away from K.I.S.S. and towards making things more complicated than necessary, right?
Joe Hinton, from Giant Leap, was there lending a hand, so I got to hang out and talk shop with him quite a bit. Great guy. Im looking forward to flying his local field in northern Colorado in a couple weeks (and hopefully getting my L2 cert).
What was REALLY cool was the camera launch pad that a friend of Joes provided for the event. Some of you will likely know him already his name was Doug but I forgot his last name. This rig was absolutely awesome. Check out the photos I have of it. The pad/rail itself was amazing, but there were also many cameras rigged all over it, and on towers/poles/tripods around it as well. They shoot all kinds of angles, some panning with the rocket as it launches, some super high speed, all HD, all synced together.
The flights: quite honestly, for all the high tech and planning, most of the flights I saw did not go well. There were a few recovery system failures (including one spectacular ballistic ground entry) and a couple rockets came apart in flight. Two flights scrubbed (wisely) after spending 45-60 minutes setting up and finding some small thing wasnt quite right (usually electronic). One flight didnt go because the lighter got blown out at ignition, and they didnt have a spare! But still there were some very sweet flights that went fine.
But there was one BIG cato. Yikes. The motor was a AMW N2020. We were all standing just 180 from the pad. The ignition and lift off went fine (see the sweet photo check out that flame!), but then the thing blew up off the rail. HUGE blast!! Upon inspection of the debris, and checking out the photos, it was an interesting cato. What seemed to have happened was that the upper grains over-pressurized and then blew out the lower grains (breaking the Aeropac retainer cap). There were a few un-lit grains on the ground (can also be seen flying in the pics). Those grains were slightly burnt on the outside, but had obviously not truly ignited. The airframe itself (glassed phenolic) shredded too, but this did NOT seem to happen from the blast. All the airframe damage was above a point that was separated from the motor by a bulkhead (which was intact). I can only surmise that it came apart due to flight stress?
That blast was big. And when you consider that only a couple of the grains at most actually were part of that explosion
.all I can say is now that Ive experienced an N motor cato from less than 200 away, I dont need to do this again. Like I said
.yikes.
Heres some of the pics:
some of the rockets at prep:
the radio guys' rig:
the "camera launch pad" (note that the actual rail is in the down position in these pics):
a rocket getting set up on the pad:
N2020 CATO!!!
s6
