Centuri BT60 Vulcan Upscale

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JAL3

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My Vulcan 60 came out to paly today, maily because somebody else wanted to see it fly. I was running short of 29mm motors and used a Roadrunner G80-7. That made for an exciting experience.

The rocket did not take off immediately but then shot up, wagging its tail the worst its ever done. Still it flew OK. The problem was with the ejection.

I expected a late ejection. It was very late. I thought the rocket was a goner but then it ejected about 30 off the ground and recovered safely.

A video can be seen here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/23694991@N03/3374971088/

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The Vulc 60 was supposed to have flown at an exhibition done for the kids of my church a few weeks back but the Copperhead igniters just would not cooperate. On Saturday, I replaced the Copperhead with a First Fire and set it up with the F42-4 I had been unable to expend at the church.

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The rocket leaped off the rod in a flash and started exhibiting some of the corkscrewing that is usually associated with the smaller members of the breed. I've seen a lot of that with my small Vulcans but not so much with the larger ones.

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Unlike in its previous outing, this time the chute deployed at a reasonable time and everything came back down fine.

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I entered this rocket in the Classic Upscale competition at the 2012 DARS Fall Classic. I paired it with my Centuri Vulcan clone. It has not flown since 2009.

I loaded it with an F20-4 and took it out to the pad.

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The motor was an old one so I figured it might be hard to light. I took a file to the slot before loading it but that did not prevent the chuffing.

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I thought it was going to chuff all day!

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But it finally ignited and started up the rod.

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It started off straight, unusual, as I remember it.

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But things soon got back to normal as it started to wag its tail.

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As soon as thrust ceased, it pretty much stopped and started heading back down.

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Ejection, when it finally occurred, was just a few dozen feet above the ground. It seemed like millimeters instead of feet.

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Two eager young scouts then saved me from the dreary fate of walking a few dozen yards to retrieve it.

There was no damage.

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The Vulcan 60 was then returned to the display table for public voting. I don't think it got any.

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