Blue Raven Saves Spock's Johnson

[kjhambrick]

Thanks to Featherweight and the Blue Raven for saving my 1100 gram, 2.23 inch Scratch LOC Vulcanite on a 20+year old H128W at yesterday's AARG Launch.

The motor failed to ignite twice and then Jim Jarvis loaned me an ignitor which finally ignited the motor after chuffing ( more like smoldering ) for 6 ( ! ) seconds on the Pad.

Apogee was only 777 Feet ( should have been 1850 ) and the Main came out only 1.7 sec after the Drogue and then it landed with the fin can in a pond !

Yikes !

Sims show something like 105 N-sec instead of the expected 178 N-sec for an H128 ...

I need to open another thread under the Propulsion Forum to determine if any of the 20+year-old Motors in my magazine can be salvaged.

But that's another thread ( boy I would hate to lose all those Mid-Power, Level 1 and Level 2 motors )

And I still need to process the Blue Raven Data -- maybe this will be the first 'successful' level 1 flight with less than 160.01 N-sec of Total Impulse

Anyhow, thanks to the AARG team for their assistance and patience !

-- kjh

 

[Art Upton]

Just an FYI from the really old days in the 80s, but the LOC Vulcanite was named such as it was deigned to be flown on Vulcan motors made by Scott Dixon. Besides a Classic Propellant, the Smoky Sams where the first HPR smoky motors.

The DOD also bought them to train F16 pilots to see a rocket exhaust contrail and make evasive maneuvers.

Edit: somewhere in my Rocket Lair I have a 1988 LOC catalog from the days of Ron and Deb in Macedonia Ohio
It would be in the same folder as my Aero-Tech 1988 Dealer price list.

 

[kjhambrick]

Art --

Yes, I remember hearing the story about the LOC Vulcanite and the Vulcan Motors way back when.

But all that remains of my original Vulcanite is about 12 inches of the Fin Can and the Nose Cone.

AltAcc Development was pretty hard on my rockets back in the very early days

-- kjh

p.s. I really like the lines of the Vulcanite -- I've got scale models in 38, 48, 54 and 74 mm diameters

The scale models were good for CD -vs- Mach Number comparisons back in the day.

 

[K'Tesh]

Pond? Did I hear "pond"?

Welcome to The Goldfish Club!

 

[kjhambrick]

K'Tesh --

Pond? Did I hear "pond"?

Welcome to the Goldfish Club!

Thanks but I am not sure I want to be a member of that Club

It was really more like a swamp or a pond overgrown with reeds but had the rocket drifted six feet further north, I may never have found it or the Blue Raven might have been annoyed by the dunking ...

Boy, one flight in TX and I already miss desert launches

-- kjh