I finally got to fly some rockets today!!!

[eedetail]

I finally got to fly today.... Over the summer, I have completed several kits, a few of which were started in 2004... well, real life gets in the way sometimes.
I couldnt find my launch pad that I had made ten years ago, so a plastic sawhorse got three holes drilled in it, and blast deflectors made up. Lets see if 46U
can figure out what the curved deflector on the 3/16 rod originally was.

I belong to a gun club, so we went there, just north of our rifle range where the single tree was far away, no powerlines, no roofs to land on.
First up, Flewt, a 36" tall, 3fnc on a bt-20. Packed the wadding too tight, and it darted. Oops on my part, but my newly acquired Altimeter Two
indicated good data. Then it died. I had thought it was fully charged, but it wasnt. Oh well, we had fun anyway. Flew a No. 2 Skywriter on
a C6-5 next, to check winds at altitude. Great flight, and recovery.
Then, an Estes Calypso that I finished earlier this summer. Data sheet said to load it with an A8-3 for its first flight....
On launch, it went all of 100 feet high, and the chute ejected in time to give it a soft landing.... I thought to myself, hmm the new engines
really are underpowered... and then I pulled a 1/2A6-2 from it. Ooops no. 3!

I had invited a buddy with a 4yr old kid out, and their time was limited, so we launched a Screaming Mimi (started around 2004, completed this summer).
First flight on a D12-5, good solid flight but no sound (which I half expected). Alright, lets try it again, this time on an E18-4 Aerotech RMS reload.
No way we would have heard a whistle over the roar of the composite motor, but recovered it intact. Here are it's first two flights:

I screwed the paintjob on the Mimi up, painting the silver first, and then painting over that with red... pulled the silver off. So, it looks pretty bad close up.
I figure that it is the kind of rocket that will get flown a bunch as an offering to the trees or the powerlines, but will always find its way back home.
Kinda cool to have a heavy rocket that I am not afraid to get dinged up.

 

[eedetail]

Next flew a cosmic cobra... I have built several of the e2x kits in between sanding primer... I need a quick rocket fix from time to time.
I did mod the cosmic so that the shock cord was mounted off the engine mount. It really flew well, first flight on a B6-2. No data, due
to the dead altimeter battery, but it was a "Fun Rocket" according to one of the rifle shooters that wandered over to watch.

Next up, a Sparrow, a small boost glider by starlight rockets. Another kit started ten or more years ago... Flew on a 1/2A6-2, did a
bit of an arc up, and a fairly steep Glide. Gonna research it a bit, perhaps remove a small amount of nose weight. But fun anyways.

Next up: Red, White and Blue. Built from parts within a late 1990s designers special, later i realized that it is really a stretched Estes Big Brute.
Nice straight flight on a C6-5. Was gonna fly on an 18mm composite reload , but didnt have time.
Here is it's liftoff.

 

[eedetail]

Next up, my original 1980 Tornado and it's 2.3X upscale i built this year.

I love the Tornado for it's simplicity, and ease of prepping for flight.
Stuff it, stick it, slide it and shoot it....
On an A8-3, straight up, and the upper half really recovered well, nice flat spin with a high rotation rate.

For the Upscale Torndado, first flight was with a C11-5, and openrocket simmed to 450 feet.
Nice straight flight, the engine pod did not fully eject from the white half, but it tumbled nicely.
The upper half kind of fluttered most of the way down, and then about 100 foot agl it flat spun...
a trait that it copied on the next two flights.

Second flight was with a D12-5, we had to do a bit of searching the weeds, even though we had
each tracked our half of the rocket to the ground... a hazard of flying within an ancient city dump.

Our final flight of the upscale was with an E9-6... What a cool flight, and disappointed that we didnt
have data logging. The E9 burned forever.... nice arcing flight... halfway to the moon. Saw the tracking smoke,
heard the pop... and nothing. Then about the same time we each caught site of the piece we were tracking.
Tracked it to the ground and started walking..... half an hour later we recovered both pieces.
Here is a shot of my regular tornado on the pad, at takeoff, and then the upscale on the E9-6 at liftoff.

 

[eedetail]

The winds picked up slightly... and it was time for a few more virgins to have their first flight.

Next up my Commanche 3.... I decided to fly it two stage first, using a B6-0 booster and an A8-5 in the sustainer.
Straight up flight, but at ejection it appeared that the shock cord broke, and the sustainer pretty much back-slid
to the ground. My wife recovered the booster while I went after the nosecone. Then we walked to the sustainer.
One fin broken. Looked in the forward end, I had not hooked the kevlar shock cord mod to the elastic shock cord...
Oops no. 4.
We did get a photo, but it is only the flame in the top of the frame, so i am not posting it.

Time for my scratch built Astron Farside... and it was slightly breezy (5mph) that I figured we would fly just the
sustainer first. Flew great, good recovery, etc... on an A8-3. No longer a virgin, and since the boosters had flown
once before, the rocket in it's entirety has the same amount of total hours flight time....
The photo turned out kinda cool, looks like she got it right at ignition.

 

[eedetail]

Next up, my Astron Trident, built in the 80's and with many flights. I keep thinking that I need to retire it and scratch build another. In fact, I have the parts, and decals from Excelsior to boot. Probably happen this winter.

I had an Aerotech RMS D13-4 built up, but it wouldnt fit past the rocket I intended to fly it in, so it went into the Trident.

Holy crap, that rocket flew high! It recovered nicely as well, landing 1/4 mile away but in the gravel halfway down the shooting range.
But.... the ejection charge blew out the motor mount. Will be shopping for another RMS case tomorrow...
Oops no. 6, lesson learned, dont fly composites in rockets I built as a kid... Probably will retire it now. But if the rocket had feelings,
it probably felt a hell of a rush!

Final flight was a scratch built Rear Eject Demonstrator... it has two motor mounts, one 18mm and one 24.
I was a little concerned that the motor pod would eject with enough momentum to pull the chute past the wadding...
but it worked. Beautiful straight up flight, and the motor pod ejected as designed. Last two photos....

 

[eedetail]

All in all a fun and successful day... learned a few new lessons, remembered a few others, but in the end,
all rockets came back home, and most of them without any damage.... I was a little worried this morning
about flying a few of them, as I spent consideral time on their paint job...but I dont want to take up
trains instead.
So, even with a bit of road rash on several, they now have that black powder smell, and for that I am happy.
TimE

 

[Leta56]

what a nice list.. This is very helpful for me in future. I really try it...

 

[Fishhead]

I'm in the same boat as you with the Mimi. I bought a ton of them when they were an in-stock item at the local hobby shop. I think they priced them around $12, which I always thought was a great deal on an extremely versatile rocket. I used them to clone a bunch of my favorite PNC-60AH birds. I found one in the shop last week, my last one. I'm going to build this one straight up, whistles and all. The paint and decals might be a bit different, but the profile will be 100% Mimi.