JStarStar
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- Jun 5, 2009
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I was downstairs doing my daily exercise bike and soloflex routine, when i realized it was a really nice sunny day, I've got the whole day off, not too windy, and who knows how many more of those we are gonna get??
I live right next to a park. Not a huge park, but it does have a wide open soccer field in the middle of the park - an open area about 100-120 yards square. (Surrounded, of course, by ravenous trees...
) If you're careful, you can launch up to about B's (on a heavy rocket) ... if you're careful. But not much wind today...
So I stepped over into my workshop and surveyed the fleet. A few minutes with the range box, bust into my Flight Pak stash of engines, and vwah-lah... we're ready to go!
1) Custom Rockets Fiesta. A streamer-duration sport flyer (almost identical to the old Astron Sprint); I did some minor mods to install a boattail tail cone. I was worried about the tailcone and shifting the motor mount back 1 1/2" might move the CG back too much.. but it swung-tested OK.. so what the heck..
2) Custom Rockets Elite egglofter. No egg - i don't have eggs in the house!! Flew it anyway...
3) Estes Patriot - not completely painted yet, just rplain red-and-white pattern. Still, good for a smaller field.
4) My Peter Alway-designed Modified Vostok semi-scratchbuilt. Built it last month, gave it a good green-and-white paint job and flew it up at my nephew's house on Labor Day when my brother and I launched about 20 birds for the kiddies. (Success rate: 20-for-20 -- not even any misfires.) The Vostok is a neat little flier.
5) My Roachwerks Saturn IB... another great little fun flier.
6) My Quest Flat Cat boost-glider - I flew it a week ago and learned conclusively it cannot really fly on a 1/2A6-2 (glide duration, 1 second, but I swear it did glide!).
So I loaded up my launch support vehicle - a green metal garden wagon with the fat rubber tires - with all the rockets, unlocked my garden gate and started to trudge the 200 yards or so to "Cape" Harding (that's the name of the park.)
First up was the Patriot on a B6-4. Straight up, real nice flight, angled the rod into the wind just a tad... chute popped, and rocket floated down no more than 50 feet from the launcher.
The Elite Egglofter was next on a B6-4. Again, very straight, chute ejected fine (I was a little leery because it was packed pretty tight in the BT-20 tube) but didnt really open - came down in a wad, again no more than maybe 75 feet from the pad. Still, landing was fine, no busted fins or other fractures - a decently packed egg, in foam rubber, would have made it fine.
Time for the Fiesta/Sprint on an A8-3. Very high flight, this is a well-designed aerodynamic flyer. My mods had no negative effect on stability - this still flew arrow-straight. Who knows, maybe adding the tail-cone really did reduce the drag and make it fly higher??
Small streamer for recovery- it dropped straight down on the pad, 25 feet away tops. Guess, maybe 20 seconds duration? It seemed to drift down nicely.
Vostok on B6-4... again, nice, the wind is starting to pick up now. Curved a bit into the wind on ascent, then drifted back over the pad, maybe 100 feet downwind.
Flat Cat on A8-3.. good flight, smooth takeoff, straight ascent. Ejection is fine, glider goes into a glide, but gets caught by a downdraft and seems to dive. Duration maybe 10-15 seconds, does about 3/4 of a 75-yard radius circle.
Decided to come right back with the Cat again, had another engine all packed with igniter, so all I had to do was pop an engine in, re-pack the wadding and streamer, and we were off. The wind is now staring to pick up again - maybe 5-10 mph now.
On boost phase, it weathercocks into the wind a bit. Ejection is fine, then something a little weird.. the glider turns directly into the breeze and essentially goes into a hover! The glider simply descends straight down to the ground, like a VTOL plane. Maybe 15 seconds to the ground.
I guess the breeze supplied the airflow over the wings for lift, but it was funny to watch. It just drifted straight down like a Harrier landing on a carrier deck.
Time to send the Roachwerks Saturn IB. Last time I flew it, it loosened 3 of the 8 fins on landing, so i had to re-glue 'em before flying again.
This time, it flies fine, on a B6-4... it does drift a bit downwind... I get to the rocket and the nose cone (Apollo capsule and escape tower) is gone, but a quick check finds it about 50 feet away. It got spun off when the nose section twirled following ejection. Another casaulty - one fin is gone, I don't know where, but I have plenty of scrap balsa which I can replace it with. Should be no prob.
Check the bottom of my rocket bin - got a couple engines left, we can't have that now can we? Quick repack of the Vostok and Patriot, and up they go again, on an A8-3 and B6-4 respectively. Both drop down within 100 feet of the pad.
One last engine left in the bin, so I load up the Fiesta with a B6-4. Now, we've got some wind, so I'm getting a bit nervous. I might be pushing things here.... Up, up and away, wayyy up... I'd guess, maybe, 800-900 feet... we have ejection... uhhh ohhh... starting to drift.... aiieee... over toward a bank of the ravenous rocket-eating trees, which have been greedily licking their lips all day (do trees really have lips??)
Down it comes... dang nab it .. it's going in the tree... it drops right down through.... the streamer does snag on a branch, then drops off and falls to the ground!!!
I figured I better quit on that note!!
I HAD been thinking of launching my Estes D/E V-2 on a C11-3... see if it would even get off the pad... when we launched the V-2 on Labor Day on a D12-3, it got maybe 150-200 feet altitude tops... ejected at maybe 50 feet .... trying to fly it on a C might be a gamble...anybody ever fly the V-2 on a C and get it to eject in the air??? oh well, next time...
I pack up the gear in the wagon, and haul back to my backyard... Total elapsed time, maybe 55 minutes... But a litttle quickie in the afternoon is always fun....
I live right next to a park. Not a huge park, but it does have a wide open soccer field in the middle of the park - an open area about 100-120 yards square. (Surrounded, of course, by ravenous trees...
) If you're careful, you can launch up to about B's (on a heavy rocket) ... if you're careful. But not much wind today...So I stepped over into my workshop and surveyed the fleet. A few minutes with the range box, bust into my Flight Pak stash of engines, and vwah-lah... we're ready to go!
1) Custom Rockets Fiesta. A streamer-duration sport flyer (almost identical to the old Astron Sprint); I did some minor mods to install a boattail tail cone. I was worried about the tailcone and shifting the motor mount back 1 1/2" might move the CG back too much.. but it swung-tested OK.. so what the heck..
2) Custom Rockets Elite egglofter. No egg - i don't have eggs in the house!! Flew it anyway...
3) Estes Patriot - not completely painted yet, just rplain red-and-white pattern. Still, good for a smaller field.
4) My Peter Alway-designed Modified Vostok semi-scratchbuilt. Built it last month, gave it a good green-and-white paint job and flew it up at my nephew's house on Labor Day when my brother and I launched about 20 birds for the kiddies. (Success rate: 20-for-20 -- not even any misfires.) The Vostok is a neat little flier.
5) My Roachwerks Saturn IB... another great little fun flier.
6) My Quest Flat Cat boost-glider - I flew it a week ago and learned conclusively it cannot really fly on a 1/2A6-2 (glide duration, 1 second, but I swear it did glide!).
So I loaded up my launch support vehicle - a green metal garden wagon with the fat rubber tires - with all the rockets, unlocked my garden gate and started to trudge the 200 yards or so to "Cape" Harding (that's the name of the park.)
First up was the Patriot on a B6-4. Straight up, real nice flight, angled the rod into the wind just a tad... chute popped, and rocket floated down no more than 50 feet from the launcher.
The Elite Egglofter was next on a B6-4. Again, very straight, chute ejected fine (I was a little leery because it was packed pretty tight in the BT-20 tube) but didnt really open - came down in a wad, again no more than maybe 75 feet from the pad. Still, landing was fine, no busted fins or other fractures - a decently packed egg, in foam rubber, would have made it fine.
Time for the Fiesta/Sprint on an A8-3. Very high flight, this is a well-designed aerodynamic flyer. My mods had no negative effect on stability - this still flew arrow-straight. Who knows, maybe adding the tail-cone really did reduce the drag and make it fly higher??
Small streamer for recovery- it dropped straight down on the pad, 25 feet away tops. Guess, maybe 20 seconds duration? It seemed to drift down nicely.
Vostok on B6-4... again, nice, the wind is starting to pick up now. Curved a bit into the wind on ascent, then drifted back over the pad, maybe 100 feet downwind.
Flat Cat on A8-3.. good flight, smooth takeoff, straight ascent. Ejection is fine, glider goes into a glide, but gets caught by a downdraft and seems to dive. Duration maybe 10-15 seconds, does about 3/4 of a 75-yard radius circle.
Decided to come right back with the Cat again, had another engine all packed with igniter, so all I had to do was pop an engine in, re-pack the wadding and streamer, and we were off. The wind is now staring to pick up again - maybe 5-10 mph now.
On boost phase, it weathercocks into the wind a bit. Ejection is fine, then something a little weird.. the glider turns directly into the breeze and essentially goes into a hover! The glider simply descends straight down to the ground, like a VTOL plane. Maybe 15 seconds to the ground.
I guess the breeze supplied the airflow over the wings for lift, but it was funny to watch. It just drifted straight down like a Harrier landing on a carrier deck.
Time to send the Roachwerks Saturn IB. Last time I flew it, it loosened 3 of the 8 fins on landing, so i had to re-glue 'em before flying again.
This time, it flies fine, on a B6-4... it does drift a bit downwind... I get to the rocket and the nose cone (Apollo capsule and escape tower) is gone, but a quick check finds it about 50 feet away. It got spun off when the nose section twirled following ejection. Another casaulty - one fin is gone, I don't know where, but I have plenty of scrap balsa which I can replace it with. Should be no prob.
Check the bottom of my rocket bin - got a couple engines left, we can't have that now can we? Quick repack of the Vostok and Patriot, and up they go again, on an A8-3 and B6-4 respectively. Both drop down within 100 feet of the pad.
One last engine left in the bin, so I load up the Fiesta with a B6-4. Now, we've got some wind, so I'm getting a bit nervous. I might be pushing things here.... Up, up and away, wayyy up... I'd guess, maybe, 800-900 feet... we have ejection... uhhh ohhh... starting to drift.... aiieee... over toward a bank of the ravenous rocket-eating trees, which have been greedily licking their lips all day (do trees really have lips??)
Down it comes... dang nab it .. it's going in the tree... it drops right down through.... the streamer does snag on a branch, then drops off and falls to the ground!!!
I figured I better quit on that note!!
I HAD been thinking of launching my Estes D/E V-2 on a C11-3... see if it would even get off the pad... when we launched the V-2 on Labor Day on a D12-3, it got maybe 150-200 feet altitude tops... ejected at maybe 50 feet .... trying to fly it on a C might be a gamble...anybody ever fly the V-2 on a C and get it to eject in the air??? oh well, next time...
I pack up the gear in the wagon, and haul back to my backyard... Total elapsed time, maybe 55 minutes... But a litttle quickie in the afternoon is always fun....
