HERC 6/19 Tampa Launch (pictures)

[eugenefl]

Today was a bittersweet day at the range for the local Tampa TRF rocketeers. With temperatures approaching 100 deg. we nearly melted. The launch time was short - only about 2 hours of flying occurred. Today's launch took a few more casualties. The only good thing I can say is that I wasn't the victim this time out.

My Flights:

1. Estes Red Max (clone) - C6-7
2. <a href="https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5233&highlight=Sandhawk">Terrier/Sandhawk</a> - C11-0/B6-6...upper stage (Sandhawk) failed to ignite resulting in a prang.
3. FunRockets Zoomie - 1/4A...straight boost, nosedive non-glide.
4. FunRockets Swinger - C6-3...terrible flight. This is my 2nd Swinger and it performed nearly as bad as the first. The boost was a terrible spiral, the wing got scorched, and the glide recovery came in head first.
5. Edmonds CiCi - A8-3...AWESOME 1st flight. I can't imagine any other motors as this glide was LONG!
6. 4" <a href="https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4999&highlight=Clustered+red+max">Der Red Max</a> - H165R-M...FAST boost, bright red flame, PERFECT recovery on an <a href="https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8167&highlight=STL+parachute"> STL T-Cup</a> parachute.

I did most, if not all of the pictures. In the next few post you'll see you pretty awesome rockets.

Attached is yours truly posing with my 4" Der Red Max before its first flight on an H motor. There was no liftoff shot for this flight due to a late button on the shutter.

Thanks to ChrisVG for providing the FAA paperwork.

 

[eugenefl]

Up first for me was my FunRockets Swinger. This is a 2nd chance rocket since my first pranged and self-destructed. The boost was the ugliest vertical flight I have ever seen in a rocket powered vehicle. It did a nasty corkscrew that nearly ripped it apart. At apogee (or peak of nasty flight) the ejection charge released the wings. There was a tad too much noseweight and instead of gliding it took a quick dive to the ground. Lucky for me nothing broke.

Here's a liftoff shot on a C6-3.

 

[eugenefl]

In an earlier thread regarding the C11-0 I boasted about how much success I've had staging rockets with this motor. Today those words would come back to haunt me. The T/S boosted like a dart. At staging time I heard a "pop" instead of an upperstage motor igniting. The Sandhawk coasted for another 400ft before arcing over and heading into the dirt. Nearly 1/2 the tube will need to be replaced in order for this bird to fly again.

Anyway, here's a great liftoff shot.

 

[eugenefl]

Jason Toft (jetra2) impressed some bystanders with his 29mm powered Estes Big Daddy. The F25 chuffed for 2 or 3 seconds. I think at some point we all thought it would self extinguish. Nope. That badboy roared to life and lofted the Big Daddy nearly out of sight. AWESOME flight Jason!!!

Attached is a chuffing pic. Pretty cool.

 

[eugenefl]

Later in the day Jason flew his Richter Recker. Unfortunately today would be the last time he'd ever see it. Jason made the mistake of firing off one rocket, then loading another, and firing it off. Believe it or not, the RR was lost in the tall grassy field. We searched 3 deep and covered a large portion of the hay field in the area we had suspected it landed and found no sign of the long FlisKits monster. Sorry bro...

For its last flight, Jason loaded it up with 3 D12s. RIP RR. Attached is an ignition shot.

 

[eugenefl]

The flight that followed the Richter Recher was Jason's Estes Patriotic Executioner. He boosted it to an extreme altitude with an E18-7W RMS motor. For all of you out there that aren't getting any satisfaction with the E9s, you NEED to try a SU or RMS 24mm composite E for some real action.

Attached is a great liftoff shot.

 

[eugenefl]

This picture was from a late-in-the-day 4" Der Red Max flight. The Red Max boosted HIGH on an H165R. This is the STL Rocketry T-Cup in action as I give chase to the rocket.

 

[eugenefl]

Zippy made his first composite flight of the day with his Yank (or AT?) Astrobee D. Blue Thunder composites are lackluster photo subjects. The flight was loud and fast nonetheless.

 

[eugenefl]

Zippy's 2nd composite flight was a homemade H. Being that we are non-affiliated with any rocketry organizations, he took advantage of the EX flexibility and constructed his own H. Without going into too many details, a Dr. Rocket 29/240 casing was used.

Off of the pad, the 3" dia. Amazon wiggled. It corrected itself after a few hundred feet and darted high into the Florida sky. The Amazon was the 2nd MIA rocket of the day. After boost it arced over and came in nosefirst over a forest. After what seemed like forever it popped its chute and drifted down into the thick pinetree forest. I think we shall now name the forest the "Amazon" after Zippy's rocket that wandered in there. I'm sure we'll get most of it back after a few good rainfalls.

Here is a trophy liftoff picture.

 

[eugenefl]

Zippy also brought out his AWESOME scratchbuilt <a href="https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9025&highlight=Jayhawk">3" dia. Jayhawk</a> and loaded her up with (2) G64s.

Attached is an artistic look at the Jawhawk before piercing the sunny Florida sky.

 

[eugenefl]

Here's a quick peek at the underside of this Gates Bros. quality model.

 

[eugenefl]

The boost was thunderous and bright. The Jayhawk appeared squirrelly under full boost but quickly straightened out. It drifted into the middle of the field under an X-Form chute. NICE flight Zippy.

 

[eugenefl]

...and down comes the Jayhawk under its X-Form chute.

Thanks to the Tampa locals that came out.

Joe & Company, Russ, Jason & Eric (dad), Zippy, me...

 

[jetra2]

Great report Eugene.

I'm going to add a coupla pix of my own...I only got two shots, but boy oh boy are they purty. This first one is of my Fliskits Rhino boosting on a C6-5.

Jason

 

[jetra2]

And this is of Mike Hoy's (Zippy) IQSY (Icksy, as he calls it) Tomahawk boosting on a C6-7.

After this, I pretty much concentrated on flying and troubleshooting...today definately was not one of my better days, it was more like a 70:30 ratio of good to bad. My homemade igniters were giving me fits with no continuity and such...it's a learning process, I guess.

I'm dissapointed that I lost my Richter Recker, but I made a mistake that I shouldn't have made. I hope that the land owner will find it when he is harvesting his field or whatever and save it until next time when we're there. I guess that is all I can do, except maybe going out there sometime with Eugene...I doubt I'd recover it intact, though with all the afternoon thunderstorms we've had lately....

Jason

 

[jetra2]

Shoot...f'got the attachment...

Jason

 

[Zippy]

Originally posted by eugenefl
I think we shall now name the forest the "Amazon" after Zippy's rocket that wandered in there. I'm sure we'll get most of it back after a few good rainfalls.

It will never rain in Florida again untill I get that rocket back! But seriously good report and nice pics. Are those full resolution? Sorry to hear you lost the Richter Jason, I thought for sure you guys were gonna find it, that grass does hide 'em good though.

 

[lets fly high]

Originally posted by eugenefl
Zippy's 2nd composite flight was a homemade H. Being that we are non-affiliated with any rocketry organizations, he took advantage of the EX flexibility and constructed his own H. Without going into too many details, a Dr. Rocket 29/240 casing was used.

Off of the pad, the 3" dia. Amazon wiggled. It corrected itself after a few hundred feet and darted high into the Florida sky. The Amazon was the 2nd MIA rocket of the day. After boost it arced over and came in nosefirst over a forest. After what seemed like forever it popped its chute and drifted down into the thick pinetree forest. I think we shall now name the forest the "Amazon" after Zippy's rocket that wandered in there. I'm sure we'll get most of it back after a few good rainfalls.

Here is a trophy liftoff picture.

The rockets coming down tomorrow can anyone say chain saw. I went today and try'd to get it out the tree but had no luck. tomorrow it's coming down. hate to see such a nice rocket sitting out in the rain allthough it did'nt rain that much today

 

[eugenefl]

Originally posted by Zippy
It will never rain in Florida again untill I get that rocket back! But seriously good report and nice pics. Are those full resolution? Sorry to hear you lost the Richter Jason, I thought for sure you guys were gonna find it, that grass does hide 'em good though.

Those pictures are not full res. They are scaled down and saved at a low res to be TRF friendly. I'll upload them as a ZIP file to the HERC website and send you the link to the file.

Trust me, I am still in disbelief that we didn't find the RR. Crazy. As a suggestion, beepers would be good to have in the rockets. I'm sure the hay will be collected for next month.

 

[Zippy]

Originally posted by lets fly high
The rockets coming down tomorrow can anyone say chain saw. I went today and try'd to get it out the tree but had no luck. tomorrow it's coming down. hate to see such a nice rocket sitting out in the rain allthough it did'nt rain that much today

Don't get introuble cutting down the tree Joe. If it's questionable at all just leave it up there, like Eugene said I'll get most of it back eventually. Of course if it isn't questionable saw that mutha down!

 

[lets fly high]

Originally posted by Zippy
Don't get introuble cutting down the tree Joe. If it's questionable at all just leave it up there, like Eugene said I'll get most of it back eventually. Of course if it isn't questionable saw that mutha down!

Just going to cut a few limbs down thats all it will take.

 

[lets fly high]

I have some good news I just got back from the 579 launch feild and retreived mike hoy's amazon rocket from the tree. And on the way out I thought I'd try to find jason's rear section to his richter recker I was'nt on the feild no more than a minute and drove right to it. Igeuss it turn to be good after all

 

[Zippy]

Wow, Joe pulls a double save! I owe you some sort sort of motor or two for going through all that trouble. I don't know what in particular but it won't be Estes.

 

[lets fly high]

Originally posted by Zippy
Wow, Joe pulls a double save! I owe you some sort sort of motor or two for going through all that trouble. I don't know what in particular but it won't be Estes.

Sounds good to me

 

[rock2p]

Wow! eek:

Joe,

I can't believe you found part of Jason's RR.

We looked hard for that one and couldn't find either section.

I was starting to think some wildlife or rocket eating trolls must have got a hold of it, because we looked (what felt like) everywhere.

Well my flights for the day were

Astrocam C6-7 Good flight and recovery except nose cone whip back into body tube

Astrocam C6-7 Good flight and recovery except nose cone whip back into body tube

Fun Rockets Zoomie Glider small A motor? not enough nose weight, big circle into the ground off the pad, but no damage.

Thought I had it trimmed right but I guess it's hard to test throw the rocket the same speed it leaves the pad, hence why I thougt I had enought nose weight. Also there is no wind inside , which may have something to do with it as well.

And I can't remeber if I did one more flight with the Astrocam or not.

Reccomend 12 exposure film vs 24 for this camera.

 

[rock2p]

Here is Zippy's Astrobee D (and I think it's a Yank Eugene) on that blue thunder.

You can see a bit of a flame from this pad cam angle. I also like to see the igniter leads mid air like this.

 

[rock2p]

There's something about seeing the rail go down and someone loading up a nice shiny rocket that get the juices flowing, Especially when there's and H motor inside

Here's Jason and Eugene loading up Eugene's Red Max.

 

[Zippy]

Nice pad shot rock2p. Yup it is a Yank D. Did any other takeoff shots come out?

 

[rock2p]

Zippy,

I got some other pad cam shots or I should say videos. I just take a print screen of the paused image in my video palyer and then just crop and save them as a jpeg.

I got one of your homade H motor I have to put upload later.

 

[pdooley]

Glad to hear all you had fun, wish I could have made it out there..

Hats off to Joe for going back to get Mike's rocket, that was real classy.

Hopefully the July schedule will jive and I will see you guys out there with some of my new stuff.