After reading Jason's post about his first MPR flight, I decided to tell about mine. It was April 2003 at my first club launch at HARA in Ardmore, AL. I took along many Estes rockets and my Eye in the Sky 1. The Eye in the Sky 1 was my first MPR rocket and my first camera rocket all in one, and it was my first BIG scratchbuild. Before this day, the biggest motor I had flown was a C6. My first flight of the day was my Silver Comet on a D12-5, my first D motor. Flight was PERFECT! Next was the Silver Comet again except this time I drag raced somebody elses BLue Bird Zero. I won. Next, I think I loaded up my modified Gemini DC on a C6 and 2 B6s. Perfect flight. Next was the "big" rocket. The rocket was made from, 3 Estes 2.5" diameter tubes, plywood fins, think balsa handcut CRs, plywood bulkhead, Estes round nosecone, and of course the camera stuff. The camera was remote controlly activated at apogee by a RC servo. The rocket weighed about 1.5 lbs. I chose to fly it on a G38-4FJ for its first flight. Boost was great! Before this, I had never heard a composite motor. Man was it a rush!
Around apogee, I activated the camera and hoped it took a picture. The ejection carge went off, but the parachute seperated and the rocket came in hard. It landed about 10ft. away from the pad! The only damage was a shattered camera mount made out of 1/8" balsa wood. Go figure.
And a slightly crinkled tube at the seams, but hardly noticeable. The camera took a picture and I was happy.
My parachute floated away, but a couple months later, someone found it while looking for their rocket. Just recently, I had my first HPR flight on a H128-10W in my BSD 4 inch Horizon. Read about it in the HPR forum. It seems that my first MPR and first HPR flights had mishaps, but a great learning experience. Now, I am getting ready to fly my Horizon again, this time on an "I" motor (a H motor was slightly underpowered for it). After the "I" motor, flight, I will fly my HPR ANDRUS 1 (read the thread called "my first high power rocket" in the HPR forum) on a J540 Redline. After that, my next project is a 2 stage HPR rocket flying on an "I" staging to another "I". After this, who knows where the next rocket will take me. Well, rocketry has been a great hobby and has unlocked many new doors for me. It also has given me an occupation that I dream about taking on which is becoming an engineer for NASA right here in Rocket City (Huntsville, Alabama). Well, I hope you enjoied my story and good luck Dwight on your MPR rocket!
