Chilly flight report, CATO

[vjp]

Well it was quite a little bit colder and breezier today than yesterday, but I had the urge to burn some BP and AP. So I headed out to the local park with a friend of mine, and our boys.

First up was my new Vostok on another D12-3, this time from a more recent manufacture batch. THIS time, the ejection was much smoother, and following a perfect boost with ejection at apogee, both pieces came down gently on fully opened chutes. I was tempted to fly her again, but she came perilously close to hanging up in one of the light posts the first time, so I chickened out.

Then, a dozen or so flights of Fat Boys, Big Berthas, an Alpha, and couple of miscellaneous small Estes RTF rockets followed.

I sent up my Pratt Hobbies Quark Star on a C6-7, followed the flight in binoculars, and recovered it about 300 yards downrange in some tall weeds.

The final launch of the day was to be the same Quark Star on an Aerotech D21-7. I really wanted to see if (1) it would survive, and (2) if I could get it back. Unfortunately - POW!!!! The motor CATO'ed on the pad, blowing the poor little Quark Star to pieces and sending motor chunks everywhere. I recovered a few shards, including the unburned delay/ejection section. Dang, it was my last D21-7, too.... I don't suppose I'll be seeing any more of these around for a while.

We called it a day then, as the cold and the wind were getting too much for us. Hot Cocoa time!

 

[teflonrocketry1]

Did you get any pictures of the CATO? Was the motor old, had it been stored properly? Did you really expect to get that one back/ Quark Star flight on a D21-7 simulates out to almost 1/2 mile AGL!

The attached flight simulation is the best I can do from pictures of the rocket at the Pratt Hobies website for RockSim version 7.

Glad no one got hurt; you must be doing something right!

Bruce S. Levison, NAR #69055

 

[vjp]

Originally posted by teflonrocketry1
Did you get any pictures of the CATO? Was the motor old, had it been stored properly? Did you really expect to get that one back/ Quark Star flight on a D21-7 simulates out to almost 1/2 mile AGL!

The attached flight simulation is the best I can do from pictures of the rocket at the Pratt Hobies website for RockSim version 7.

Glad no one got hurt; you must be doing something right!

Bruce S. Levison, NAR #69055

Actually, no - I honestly didn't expect to get it back. But I had binoculars and a 3 foot streamer to increase my odds.

I bought that D21-7 a little over a year ago, I think - I'm not sure, but I think I purchased if from Valueland. Or maybe A2Z Hobbies. In any case, the other D21-7 from that order worked perfectly in my 2.6" V-2 last September 13th.

I always store my motors indoors, never let them freeze or get too hot. It was pretty cold (below 40F) when we fired it, though. Perhaps the casing becomes brittle at colder temps. The copperhead was taped in, so the nozzle wasn't plugged or anything (I had a C11-3 nozzle blow on me yesterday, probably because I used a white instead of a black plug).

Oh well, hopefully AT will recover and someday make more!

 

[rokitflite]

Whew!
When I started reading your post I thought you were going to say that the Vostok CATOed! _I_ would have been calling Estes or Aerotech and complaining!!! I don't suppose you got any flight photos of the Vostok did you? Seeing as you don't make the meetings and I don't make the launches thats the only way I can see that masterpiece for now!

 

[vjp]

Originally posted by rokitflite
Whew!
When I started reading your post I thought you were going to say that the Vostok CATOed! _I_ would have been calling Estes or Aerotech and complaining!!! I don't suppose you got any flight photos of the Vostok did you? Seeing as you don't make the meetings and I don't make the launches thats the only way I can see that masterpiece for now!

No, thankfully the Vostok is 3 for 3 survival-wise!

Although the first two flights (see Saturday evening's posts in the Vostok thread) had some hard landings thanks to hot ejection charges and partially melted chutes.

I don't have any still photos of the Vostok launching, but I did take video of all three flights. The 1st two are up now, just follow the URL posted in the Vostok thread.

Unfortunately, I didn't videotape the Quark Star CATO. Drat.

 

[rstaff3]

Vince, glad the Vostok survived. I still want to inspect it first hand

 

[vjp]

Originally posted by rstaff3
Vince, glad the Vostok survived. I still want to inspect it first hand

You will! Unfortunately, I can't make the next couple of NARHAMS launches (March and April both fall on kid's birthdays), but I may make it to an MDRA launch.

In the meantime you can check out some pics and some videos from my homepage, https://members.verizon.net/vpearman .

I've gotta finish my brother-in-law's Phoenix, then my Apogee Saturn 1B, but then I'm going to take on an even bigger Vostok, 1/40 scale (38" tall).

 

[vjp]

p.s. I changed my homepage to get the videos from my server at home, which is something that I've never tried before. So please let me know if there are any problems, I'd like to know if it works o.k. or not.

 

[rstaff3]

The link to your machine worked. It was slow as mole-*****, but as long as you're not in a rush, it is fine.

Nice videos too. Looks like the ejection was plenty energetic.

 

[vjp]

Originally posted by rstaff3
The link to your machine worked. It was slow as mole-*****, but as long as you're not in a rush, it is fine.

Nice videos too. Looks like the ejection was plenty energetic.

Cool, it worked - thanks for the feedback!

Yep, those first two ejections on Saturday were hot. Nearly destroyed the chute, the second time. Streamered into a patch of snow both times, which prevented damage. Those were the last D12-3's from that particular batch, which gave me fits and caused my first ferry rocket booster to be destroyed. I should have known better than to risk the Vostok on them.

The new batch of D12-3's I'm using is much better.

I had a C11-3 nozzle blow and two "shotgun" ejections on Saturday, and a D21-7 CATO on Sunday. I hope this uses up my quota of bad luck for the year!

 

[rokitflite]

Vince!!!
A bigger Vostok!!! I know I speak for everyone when I say PLEASE take alot of pictures and if you wouldn't mind, copy some of the patterns & measurements... I WANT ONE!!! I also purchased an Apogee Saturn 1-B. I can't believe what people are willing to pay for the Estes 1/70 and 1/100 scale ones on Ebay while this thing is still in production! The parts are flawless and the directions are GREAT (although it does help to have a laptop to view them with while you are building it!!!

 

[Micromeister]

That's a pretty nasty run Vince!
Cold weather seems to bring out the worst in C11 and D's BP and AP. Can you post the Date code on the hot ejection motors. Might be a good thing for folks to look out for.
Sad to here you and the Vostok won't be at the next couple of launches...Barring another unsuspected happening I'm planning on attending both.
I went out sunday also...couldn't stand being in the house another minute The Tiny Field across the street from my house is about 75 or 80 feet wide and over a mile long I launched a few micros on MM-1's (test flights) and then loaded up my gyroc tri-wing with a MM-II motor, at 5.3g LOwt it usually stays well within sight... not this time. I lost the fluorescent yellow bugger stright up. I heard the Pop but never saw or heard her come down. DRAT Now I have to make another

 

[vjp]

John -

Sorry to hear 'bout the Gyroc! The little ones are easy to "misplace" - someone needs to make a microbeacon that weighs under a gram!

The two hot D12-3's were datecode "05 20 02", and I wouldn't call them "bad", just "real hot", definitely save them for use in larger volume rockets like Saturn V's and Atlases. One of them actually had heat blistering on the _outside_ of the case.

I just looked at the spent D12-3 from Sunday, datecoded "08 18 03", and the clay cap was about 85% intact - kinda the _reverse_ problem, except the ejection was very firm, though, so I'm not overly worried - but in the future I will score the clay caps in these just to be safe.

Scott - I am designing the parts for the next Vostok in TurboCad, so I'll definitely have templates available. I'll try to do a better job documenting my construction this time (I didn't keep good notes about the shroud dimensions, etc. on this first one). The 1/40 Vostok will use BT-80 and T-2.04 tube, available from Totally Tubular, and I plan for it to fly on a cluster of 4 C6-3's. It's my goal eventually to build a 1/40 Vostok for scale competition, so this will be kind of an intermediate step on the way to that goal.