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daveyfire

Piled Higher and Deeper
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thank u, next
*laughs evilly*

I have resurrected my BALLS project from last year! Apollo Infinity 1.2 has been rebuilt. To prevent a repeat of last year's mishap (see below), the rocket has been shortened 24 inches and will never again see a 7600 Nsec M motor :rolleyes: I am working on a new version for that (Apollo Infinity Reanimation... more to come later, it's another one of my projects for BALLS this year).

The first flight will probably be on a 690 Nsec J450 (functionality test flight... and it keeps it under the local waiver!), then on a 1400 Nsec K700 (8000 feet and dancing with Mach), then if that goes well, a 75mm 1800 Nsec K282 (1.5 grain 75mm motor) or 900 Nsec J130 (1 grain 75mm S-L-O-W motor, 6600 feet and only three Gees... needs a loooong rail and a light chute!), then a 2000 Nsec K1400 (in 54mm, should get it through Mach), then if all that works out it's getting a 2550 Nsec L850 (also in 54mm), which should take it 13,000 feet and Mach 1.5. If it survives all that punishment (and I fully expect it to), we'll move up to a 2 grain 75mm K777 or K410 (depending on my mood :p), and then a 3 grain L630. Finally, I'll try and destroy it again with a 3 grain L1175 (15K feet and Mach 1.7). That's as much motor as will fit in the rocket (anything bigger is going in Reanimation). Of course, the flight testing will take a while before it ever sees an L1175!

The rebuild was accomplished by simply chopping off the section of tubing filled with Black Rock dirt and splicing on a new 24" section with a coupler. Electronics now ride in the nose cone. A 2550 casing comes right up to the end of the coupler... too perfect :D

I turned this...
 
Well, it was two feet longer, but yeah... and woulda made it except for the little thing called "coning" :D I'm working on another one, same diameter and length, with bigger fins to hopefully eliminate the coning issue... I'll post photos of that one too when I get construction started!

:D At least I have Black Rock to plow into!
 
Originally posted by daveyfire
*laughs evilly*

I have resurrected my BALLS project from last year! Apollo Infinity 1.2 has been rebuilt. To prevent a repeat of last year's mishap (see below), the rocket has been shortened 24 inches and will never again see a 7600 Nsec M motor :rolleyes: I am working on a new version for that (Apollo Infinity Reanimation... more to come later, it's another one of my projects for BALLS this year).
...

MY GOD MAN! Even us Saucer freaks know to put the extra two feet of motor tube out the FRONT of the beastie ;)

Still, that looks like it was a fun flight to watch. Good luck with your next version!

Patrick
 
I like the picture of the rockets sticking out of the desert.

good luck man, I wish there was space oout here for a rocket like that
 
David...good luck on your flights man...hope it goes well for you! Pics, we need pics...

Carl
 
Hey hey hey;) ! Lets play nice here, people;) .

Nice lookin rocket (talkin about the Frankenstein reanimantion, not the lawn-dart).

You must have a job....
 
OK. Wait a sec. The motor was stickin out that far during FLIGHT!??!?!??!?!?!?!??! I thought it just popped up there when it hit the ground.... That aint smart!;) 'Specially with those little fins... Cant imagine that was very stable! If the motor was always that far out of the rocket, I dont feel very sorry for ya, you brought it on yourself!:p
 
Neil, the motor was not sticking out of the rocket like that in flight. Look at the impact pic again, see that blck ring on the end of the motor, that is the slimline retainer that WAS attached to the rocket body butgot ripped off on impact. notice the little bare fiberglass ring at the aft end on the pic of the rebuild.;)


Anyways, real cool David, i cant wait to see it fly!:cool:
 
GOOD. Had me worried for a minute there....

Sounds like a nasty crash! got a video? (I love watching CATOs and shreds on tape...)
 
My dad got great video... I'm just too cheap to get server space. I stuck it on Yahoo! (with two more videos from BALLS last year... my friend Les' rocket, he built our motor, and Tony Alcocer's rocket which came in ballistic after a great up part) at https://briefcase.yahoo.com . Sign in using "ballsvideos" (w/o quotes) as the username and "tripoliex" (w/o quotes) as the password. Then go to the folder "Apollo Infinity Shred" and you can view the video by downloading it. It was worth it, even for the shred ;)

Attached is what the old version looked like before liftoff (thanks to Eric for the photo), I'm sliding it onto the rail with my friend Paul Zaich who helped me build it. The long rocket began to cone after liftoff and the small(ish) fins didn't have enough correcting force to keep it from doing so. (see https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4941 for a discussion of this topic). When it hit Mach, that was the end of that chapter... filament wound tubing is strong, but not that strong :D It did two nifty loops in the air, spilling out its recovery system and a whole lotta tracking powder, then took a right turn and headed for terra firma. I shortened the rocket by 2 feet and will not fly it on an M motor... max will be the L1175, and that's if it doesn't cone on the smaller flights.
 
YOU ARE CRAZY!!!!!! YOU STUCK AN M IN THAT!?!?!?! :eek: ARE YOU NUTS? It's ok though. People can help you.........well, maybe not. I'm just kidding. That is an awesome rocket though. What was the predicted altitude? I'm glad that you could salvage it. Cool rocket.
 
Projected alt was 27-28K depending on the accuracy of my thrust curve that I got. Thanks for the compliments.

I'm trying a 19,000 N-sec N in a 4" x 8 ft rocket this year, so don't say I'm crazy YET... :p

*stands up* Hi, my name is David, and I'm a ROCaholic. My last minimum diameter was five months ago...
 
Originally posted by daveyfire
. I'm trying a 19,000 N-sec N in a 4" x 8 ft rocket this year, so don't say I'm crazy YET... :p

*stands up* Hi, my name is David, and I'm a ROCaholic. My last minimum diameter was five months ago...

Ditto!:D :D
 
Though actually Im not the one to talk, with all my 9-motor cluster ideas....


(oh yeah. And all those other ideas Id rather forget)....
 
lesse now, BALLS '05 in this corner we have Eric with his all aluminum 14' long minimum diameter full P20,000 to go Mach 3.8 and hit 64K feet.

In the other corner we have David with his aluminum beast on a full P7000 to go to Mach 2.9 and 80K feet.

Sounds like one heck of a launch to me:D


And the funny thing is, you think we're joking:D
 
crazy, or ingenious? hmm the line is blurred

btw rocket? or bullet?
 
Ya know, you better not make it look like your too smart, the Army might decide it needs you to design missiles for them!:eek:
 
Originally posted by Neil
Ya know, you better not make it look like your too smart, the Army might decide it needs you to design missiles for them!:eek:


I fail to see why this would be a bad thing;) :D :D
 
Well, I could... I dont want to be in any branch of the military. :eek: Doesent sound like much fun to me...
 
So... to dig this thread up from three months ago...

Just to let y'all know, it flew on Saturday with a P38 J285. I didn't wanna mess with avionics on the first flight because I'm lazy. Good thing, too. The rocket coned like a madman (again) but held together thanks to the relatively gentle J motor. The coning caused a much lower than expected altitude (couldn'ta been over 2500 feet) and as such the 14 sec delay was WAAAY too long. It went over... and over... and over... and over... I knew I was all right until the delay smoke went out.

A word went through my head but I won't post it here :p

It came in ballistic, essentially destroying the payload bay again. This time, however, it crunched the pretty nose cone too, and got fiberglass all over the recovery harness. I salvaged the harness, the chute, (most of) the 75 --> 54 and 54--> 38 adapters, the Kevlar motor retention cable, and the lower half of the body tube. However, this rocket won't be flying again because even in a 48" length it cones way too much, which is odd because the L/D ratio wasn't outrageous (22.2/1) and the design simmed as "stable" with 1.25 calibers of stability. Guess the fins were just too small or something?

Oh well. Good riddance, I say! I got another nose cone and V2 is progressing along quite nicely! Film at eleven...
 
Such a sad death for a rocket too. The only honorable death in HPR is a shred. Oh well, i at least got some pics of it.

Deja Vu i guess?

posted is a pic of this Saturday's crash
 
OUCH. Thats all I can say. That hurts.

Ok. I confess. I feel sorry for you... But I wanna see the video!!!!!:D ;) :p

Sorry. Couldent resist;) :(
 
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