LPR/MPR Rockets that Lawn Dart... Who's had one?

I've had a couple of rockets lawn dart over the years (none recently thankfully). Curious to know who's had a lawn dart, what kind of rocket lawn darted, and why (if it could be determined).

First lawn dart (witnessed) was a deliberate incident. Estes Nova Payloader, built by Kevin Kelso (a student at the time)(now deceased). Kevin super glued his nose cone in place after removing the parachute in our 9th Grade (Ashland, Oregon ca 1983) Science class' rocketry project. The rocket nearly hit another student (landed between his feet after he fell backwards). Kevin was suspended for 2 weeks.

Same class had an Estes Space Shuttle (#1385) arc over and glide into the ground before the ejection fired (it ejected the motor mount), but I dont' think that's a proper "lawn dart".

My other lawn darts were both two stage rockets, and both had the booster ignite, but the sustainer didn't. One was a D12-0/C6-7 powered Estes Magnum, the second was an Estes Warp II (same rocket as the Loadstar II) with a C6-0/C6-7.

So what other stories are out there?

We've had two:

Big Daddy - Everything worked great, but the nosecone didn't make it off. It was too high to see why and the motor looked normal. My understanding is the Big Daddy has a relatively high incidence rate with this. There is a thread going in one of the sections with some theories.

Estes Sky Twister - Between the parachute and the helicopter blades the nose cone didn't get all the way off. There is just too much stuff in that tube and the blades are just small enough to fit. It;s a perfect situation only ejection rocket. Once was perfect, the second time was not so much.

Here's my scratch-built Boosted Dart:


And the inevitable:


It survived that and has since flown again. In fact, the pad shot is from a later launch, which is why the photo quality is better - I had a newer camera by then.

Cl(VII) said:

There is a thread going in one of the sections with some theories.

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That was the inspiration for this.

Ah, yes. That's how I lost my beloved Mountainside Hobbies (remember them?) ADR 4.0.

I was standing there with a friend watching it go up on a reload G64, arcing over, any minute now, picking up speed, faster, faster, "Oh S##T I forgot to put any BP in!!" **SPLAT** right into one of the big ponds at Bong.

Rest in peace, mighty ADR. I ain't gonna get that wet getting you back. Anyone who finds the casing can keep it :rofl:

I scratch built a Atlas-Mercury rocket with a pencil sharpner Mercury capsule, way back in the 60's. I re-launched it after 20 years of retirement in one of my hay fields and watched it lawn dart into a swamp.

I found it buried upto 3/4's of its body length in the mud. I dug it out, but never could I find the capsule in the mud. The Mercury capsule had an independant recovery system, (Both returned under their own parachutes) but, I never saw it seperate so I assumed it was lost in the mud. So, with mud covered jeans, arms and numerous insect bites, I spent the evening talking to myself and second guessing flying an old rocket.

The next morning I was walking through the same field with my morning cup of coffee when one of my two recovery dogs got excited. As I walked over to the dog, I expected to see him going after a mouse, but lo and behold, there was the Mercury capsule just laying there under a fully deployed chute in knee high grass. I never did see it get ejected from the Atlas rocket and figured it road back down with rocket.

The Atlas-Mercury rocket suffered no damage and has flown several times since...I guess I'll never learn about flying old rockets. I just hate seeing them sitting on a shelf.

Estes Big Daddy -- first E-powered bird I ever built. Several good flights. Even had a nasty E9 cato, btu the rocket survived unscuffed.

Bought a keychain camera, rubberbanded it to the airframe, and launched on another E9. Chute never came out, lawn darted, core sampled. Found it. Couldn't salvage it, and the camera was destroyed, too.

But here's a funny sort of inverse core sample from URRF II:


Leviathan was unscathed and flew several more times. :horse:

I've had a couple this one is an Estes STM012 that lawn darted/core sampled after a shock cord separation on its maiden flight on a E 9-4



The other is an Estes Astron Elliptic II flown as a two stage. Staged fine but kicked the motor and didn't eject the streamer



Oh, Yeah I forgot about this one it's my LOC Weasel it got hung up on the launch rod and used up most of the E 28s power. When it did get off the rod,it only went up about 75-100 ft arced over and darted hard. It's fixable and I have the BT already

adrian said:

Here's my scratch-built Boosted Dart:
View attachment 178826

And the inevitable:
View attachment 178827

It survived that and has since flown again. In fact, the pad shot is from a later launch, which is why the photo quality is better - I had a newer camera by then.

Click to expand...

I really want to scratch-build one of these...

rbelknap said:

I really want to scratch-build one of these...

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You and me both...

+1^

tightwad said:

I scratch built a Atlas-Mercury rocket with a pencil sharpner Mercury capsule, way back in the 60's. I re-launched it after 20 years of retirement in one of my hay fields and watched it lawn dart into a swamp.

I found it buried upto 3/4's of its body length in the mud. I dug it out, but never could I find the capsule in the mud. The Mercury capsule had an independant recovery system, (Both returned under their own parachutes) but, I never saw it seperate so I assumed it was lost in the mud. So, with mud covered jeans, arms and numerous insect bites, I spent the evening talking to myself and second guessing flying an old rocket.

The next morning I was walking through the same field with my morning cup of coffee when one of my two recovery dogs got excited. As I walked over to the dog, I expected to see him going after a mouse, but lo and behold, there was the Mercury capsule just laying there under a fully deployed chute in knee high grass. I never did see it get ejected from the Atlas rocket and figured it road back down with rocket.

The Atlas-Mercury rocket suffered no damage and has flown several times since...I guess I'll never learn about flying old rockets. I just hate seeing them sitting on a shelf.

Click to expand...

I suspect that once you sighted the main part of the body coming down fast (or heard the impact), your focus wasn't on the sky, and that's why you didn't see it land.

Other than the Mercury capsule, was anything salvageable, or was it a complete loss?

Does this count? Went up on a G76. Never kicked out the cute. The body tube was barely hanging onto the fin can and broke off as I carried the remnants back to the pad

K'Tesh said:

I suspect that once you sighted the main part of the body coming down fast (or heard the impact), your focus wasn't on the sky, and that's why you didn't see it land.

Other than the Mercury capsule, was anything salvageable, or was it a complete loss?

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Believe or not, the only damage if you can call it that, was mud jammed up into the body tube. It was a bugger to clean out. She has flown 6 times since.

I don't have a picture, but my Wildman Draco lawndarted. I had a heck of a time getting the ignitor in. I had to file the opening a bit. What I suspect is the ignitor did not get up high enough to ignite the delay grain so it never activated its ejection charge

I'm reasonably certain, than in a given amount of time, that EVERYONE will experience a "lawn dart." Just like CATOS and crashes, grass slitherers, and any number of the usual experiences we all encounter in rocketry. But have you ever had a powered lawn dart?

Mid 60's, I helped my little brother with building the Astron Cobra. Our 1st cluster attempt ever. Being as young as we were, and I, having a little better electrical experience, built the clip whips needed to fire 3 motors. I was shocked at how soldering was so important in those days. Needless to say, only one C6-3 motor ignited and lifted said rocket about 100 feet in the air, (if that much). It took years for us to determine what really caused another motor to ignite after apogee, but I think we finally did. It's likely that some of the delay burn, seeped out of the one motor nozzle, and dribbled into one of the unlit motors nozzle. The display was awesome! That poor Cobra fired just as it was pointed down and streaked into the bone dry Carolina red, hard as a brick dirt.

Nothing salvaged, lesson learned. For what's worth, the upscale version I flew last year was successful. I ignited 3 D motors with way better clip whips. Can you say "REDEMPTION?"

Oh, one or two. In the old days I had my Supernova fail to ignite the second stage and dart into the ground and lose about 6" of BT. Had an Estes Blackhawk lawndart with both tubes on an A8-3...not enough motor.

Recently- LOC Onyx, G76-7G ejection burned, but the elastic tangled and didn't let the nose pop-


A scratch built Phoenix on an E9-6... too much delay. popped after it hit.


An executioner on a D12-3 that the main jammed up in the tube-

Well, my first lawn dart was actually my first launch getting back into the hobby. I had picked up a Silver Arrow launch kit, assembled it about as perfectly as you can, and had everything ready for launch. Launch day comes and then I make the fatal mistake. I put in too much wadding. How much you ask... Well 3 full sheets (As opposed to 3 squares.)

Needless to say my son to this day still reminds me about said crash.

Outside of that, i tend to have a habit of lawndarting my 220 Swift, and I have a feeling my son's Mosquito will do the same thing.

We've all had a few.
In June of 2013 the ejection charge on an Estes B6-4 didn't fire. The clay cap was still in place.
I didn't get a picture of the model stuck in the ground but you can see how far the nose cone was shoved into the body tube.
The entire rear tube and fins sheared off the model.



It was repaired and (just tonight) prepped for another flight.

I have had several lawn darts over the years, sadly all big rockets 6" and up.

my upscale goblin(234%) did a combo dart/core sample on an F40. it stuck 3" of nose into the ground before the airframe went over the nose. was able to trim 20" of airframe off and replace it. think it was a case of, not a big enough charge, switched to a chute hankie instead of dog barf.
Rex

Bump.

I'm surprised at how few Lawn Darts have been reported in this thread. I'd have anticipated a lot more.

97th flight of my old Aerotech Mirage on a "I-sumthin" and the g-forces packed the recovery train. It was like having a pet die. Salvaged the fins, trimmed them up and made the Mirage II. meh-not the same.
Core sampled the black/green flamed Thumper Jr shown on Jack's old website-motor plugged itself. 10' ring of confetti-saved the motor case and chute.
Wildman Wildchild "Pimp Child" a.k.a. "it's all Mark's fauit" when fumbled rigging let the chute be stuffed up in the hollow nosecone 'bay' after ejection-almost hilarious. It lives and gets buried in the clouds on a regular basis.

When I was launching as a kid I had plenty of lawn darts, but since I'm just getting back into the hobby again I haven't had any recent ones yet. I know a few Estes Yankee's and Alpha's ended up nicely spiked, and most embarrassing was when I had a lawn dart at Space Camp with the rocket I built there. Can't remember the model though, it was a two stage Estes with a clear payload compartment. Almost all of them were due to excessive wadding, or too tight fit of the nose cone to the body.

I have never had any real lawn darts, but I have launched a few rockets that "disappeared and never came back." (Meaning unwitnessed, never-found LDs, probably.) The nearest equivalents that I have witnessed were a couple of "powered flight into terrain" incidents plus several incomplete deployments that ended up with the rocket plotzing rather that exploring for oil.

I've had a few- one was a Dynastar Stonebreaker on a D9 (24/40 reload). When it hit the ground the motor case popped out backwards. Couldn't understand why it didn't eject until I found the BP still in the plastic containers in the reload pack. Rebuilt it, had a zipper incident, the on its 2nd rebuild flight I realized I had forgotten the ejection charge again- right as my son pressed the launch button. I think it was just cursed (having me as an owner, that is).

The other was a scratch-built downscale that I was using as a dual-deploy test bed. Second flight, using a Raven, on and F12 (no motor backup). Launched, flew, lawn darted. When I retrieved the rocket, the raven was still beeping pre-launch. Ran a simulated flight, worked perfectly (plus many flights since). Upon inspection, discovered a burn ring in the MMT right where the FC/Case joint was. I remembered it seemed unusually hard to tighten the aft closure fully. It appeared that the FC did not fully seal, although it didn't suffer a FC failure because of it. The leak resulted in a lower motor pressure, lower thrust, and some back-calculating suggested that the Raven never saw enough acceleration to detect launch.

David

I've had several over the years. The most recent was an Estes Big Daddy on a C11-3 that, like so many others, failed to kick the nosecone. Landed point-down on a rubberized running track so it bounced like a super ball. The air frame was toast but the nose cone, remarkably enough, was fine.

Best one I've seen recently was a two-stager where the owner got the C6-7 and C6-0 reversed. It climbed pretty high, arced over, pointed itself downward and about maybe 75 feet off the ground the C6-7 delay finally expired and the C6-0 lit and drove that sucker into the ground with extreme prejudice.

The only honest to goodness Lawn Dart I've had was my Wildman Shapeshifter mini on it's first flight on an F40W. Came off the rail cockeyed, arced over kinda low and kept on arcing and arcing... hit the sod hard and buried itself a bit more than halfway down the body tube.
No Parachute... by natey4531, on Flickr


No damage (that rocketpoxy/ Wildman rocket combo is tough stuff!) but in the removal effort the nomex blanket was destroyed and the shock cord required repair. The beeper alarm thingy was also crushed. A post mortem revealed that the delay grain had been extinguished before burning all the way through, so the ejection charge never fired. It flew again on another F40W. The last flight was on a G5FJ to a simulated 1600-1700 ft.

EDIT: I actually had another one before this one. Estes Maxi Alpha 3 on its second E18W flight. Motor took like 6 tries to light, I don't think I put tape over the front end of the grain, so there may have been some excess soot deposit or something. Went up and came down in a nice ballistic arc. That one hurt. It was my first "big" (relatively ) rocket. total destruction. the fin can might be salvageable. Luckily, I had another kit on hand, and that has flown nicely on everything up to an F24W.

Maxi Alpha 3 after ballistic recovery. by natey4531, on Flickr
Nate

LOC Norad and Madcow Screech on the same weekend. Both were flying on AT F-40 reloads. Both of them had a delay chosen to match the predicted time of the flight. Both rockets apogeed and then came down ballistic with the ejection firing after they were already planted into the ground. Both rockets were repaired and flew again. I don't know why those delays were off by so much. I was just getting into reloads so maybe I had grease on the delay. Maybe they were just bonus delays. Maybe the igniter wasn't in the right spot to get the delay lit properly. I don't know. However, I haven't tried F40's again.

I had a Super Neon XL crash into a frozen drainage ditch last winter when the parachute got hung up on the shock cord mount. Had to replace upper body tube, but otherwise the rocket survived.

Daughter had her big Daddy lawn dart at the 4H demonstration last year. Ejection happened, but the nose cone got stuck only partly off.

I had a fat boy that crashed for the same reason. The nose cone just didn't come off.

I had a Praetor with the 2nd stage that weather cocked badly or had a bad case of rod whip. When the sustainer fired, the rocket was traveling mostly horizontal. It ended up screaming into the ground with the motor still smoking and then ejecting after it was already deep in the mud.

I was playing with rear deployment rockets during the last year. I had a few flights in the bitter cold where at ejection the kevlar shock cord snapped, the motor mount and parachute deployed and the rest of the rocket came crashing into the ground.

I accordioned my original Estes Super Neon XL on an E20 motor when the deployment charge popped the nose cone off but left the chute still inside the motor tube.

In the background is my H-powered Larry Brand "Super-Duper Neon 29" for size comparison.

Salvaged the fin can and grafted on a new body tube segment to restore the SNXL to full size. Still needs to be repainted. ~sigh~