3/19/05 Spaceport Rocketry Assoc. flight report

[lalligood]

The weather here in Central Florida was AMAZING. I don't think it got above 70 degrees & there was always just a slight breeze--enough to keep anyone from getting sweaty but low enough to not affect the rockets. In turn, everyone who flew something really went for it all day long. My friend Karl was on hand taking pictures to document the afternoon. Here are only a sampling of what he captured.

First up is my PML Phobos on a H123W-M. I blew the dust off it (literally!) to send it up for the first time in several months. This was the tenth time I'd flown it.

 

[lalligood]

Our club treasurer got his hands on quite a few 3x36 carpet tubes. He felt inspired to make something ridiculous. How about a ~25 foot long rocket? It was powered by a Pro38 I285. Hew put 2 6 foot rails end-to-end to provide support as far up as he could.

Setting it up on the pad...

 

[lalligood]

Surprisingly it took off straight for the first 200-300 feet... Here it's leaving the pad.

 

[lalligood]

It got a little (OK, a LOT) wobbly after that causing it to do a couple of corkscrews in midair. Everything held together though!

 

[lalligood]

And as it goes though another twist... It fell horizontal and landed before the ejection charge could go off. It was a good laugh at least!

 

[lalligood]

Next up is a club member who works at NASA & really loves a challenge. He has an AMAZING Orbital Transport that he's flow successfully a number of times but Saturday he brought out a HUGE Saturn 1B to fly on a J350. He's carrying out to the pad (so you get an idea of the scale!)

 

[lalligood]

Here's the Saturn well under thrust. Very, very straight flight. No problems with stability here!

 

[lalligood]

...and it returned softly but landed in a swampy part of the field (it rained a couple of days here really hard in the past week). Nothing that couldn't easily be reapired though!

 

[lalligood]

My BSD Apache can eat AT BT motors all day long. Unfortunately I only had 1--a I357T-M. Definitely an excellent motor-rocket combo! We also had a couple of vendors onsite & I picked up some parts to convert it to dual deploy Here it is just leaving the pad...

 

[lalligood]

Along with the Saturn 1B, the same guy also broke out his BIG MArs Lander upscale. It flew on a Pro54 J295 (3-grain). Every part of this flight was to the letter perfect.

Again, a pic to show scale...

 

[lalligood]

A liftoff pic of the Mars Lander...

 

[lalligood]

And it recovered oh-so-nicely Close to the pad too!

 

[lalligood]

One guy in our club that a lot of us live through vicariously--he's single, has a great job with a ton of disposable income--he'll launch some pretty wild stuff (at least for an "East Coaster"). He put a K695R in a Polecat Nike Smoke 5.5. It looked awesome under thrust.

 

[lalligood]

Right after burnout (MaxQ), things went awry and the rocket shredded. Parts rained down & most of the rocket was recovered. Ouch.

 

[lalligood]

Here's a post-flight pic. Pretty ugly if you ask me...

 

[lalligood]

3 pics left. Same guy had a PML AMRAAM 4 with a Pro54 K445. It looked awesome leaving the pad!

 

[lalligood]

I had to show off this pic only because you could also see the moon hanging in the afternoon sky with the AMRAAM still under thrust. Neato!

 

[lalligood]

Last one! From where I was standing, the rocket arched over slightly & began what appeared to be a kind of rollercoaster-like ride. From where Karl was standing (90 degrees in relation to the launch pad), he got quite a different view.

As of 5:30pm yesterday, the rocket had not been found (This is the kind of guy that will go out & buy a new kit & motor hardware then have it ready to go next month! Must be nice, huh?)

 

[lalligood]

There were some other flights of note. I launched my USR Banshee on a H128W-M. I had been wanting a H238T-M because of the impressively quick flight & thought the Banshee wouldn't have the same kind of velocity. WRONG. Or at least nearly wrong. I couldn't detect a slower ascent but having the white lightning smoke trail made it easier to follow in the sky... I did have another shock cord separation with it (time for a new one!) And the nose cone landed right on the road The balsa was smashed badly & the NC was even pushed ~1/2" into the BT. New nose cone & shorten the BT--she'll fly again! Our club prefect launched his PML Quantum Leap too. I launched my Phobos on another H123. Quite a few kids out there flying the LPR stuff too. Such a great day. Wish everyone could've been there!

 

[slim_t]

Man those are some nice pics of some beautiful rockets.
Thanks for sharing. That Saturn is awesome.

Tim

 

[Karl]

Yea, thank you for sharing lalligood! You took some pretty awesome shots of beautifull rockets!

Would you happen to have a high-res version of the Amraam on the K445 with the moon in the picture?

Karl

 

[lalligood]

Originally posted by Karl
Yea, thank you for sharing lalligood! You took some pretty awesome shots of beautifull rockets!

Would you happen to have a high-res version of the Amraam on the K445 with the moon in the picture?

Karl

*I* did not take the pictures myself. They were taken by a very good friend of mine. He has invested quite of bit of money into his photography equipment (much in the way that we spend $$$ on our rockets!) and is seriously considering making the leap into going professional & selling his pictures that he takes at rocket launches. Because of that, I'm afraid that I cannot give out the full resolution version of his pictures. In fact, he asked that I not give out anything bigger than the 800x533 images. I hope you understand...