rocwizard
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2002
- Messages
- 636
- Reaction score
- 0
Today was ROC's monthly club launch. Man, what a great day for flying rockets! It was a bit chilly in the morning, about 36 or so, but it quickly warmed up to the the low high 60s. Clear blue sky with a couple little high altitude clouds here and there. And the best part, no wind! all the way till when the launch closed down about 4:45 or so we had great weather.
Lots of midpower, and low high power, quite a few Js, and 2 beta flights on the RATT Works K350 tribrid. THEY ARE AWESOME, to say the very least.
One inparticular was David's Laser LOC 2.1 that he flew on a J570. Really awesome on the up part. broke Mach very quikly on it was up to 9308 feet per the ARTS. The problem was when the rocket deployed a little late cause of a bug in the ARTS unit which made for a small (1-1.5") zipper in the booster, as well as separating the booster and the payload sections, leaving the payload section with the chute. The booster did the flat spin thing and got a couple repairable dings in it. The payload now had a very oversized chute coming down form 9000 feet at like 5 feet a second. It drifted off the lakebed in to the surrounding sagebrush. very hard to see rockets in this stuff. To make a long story short, it was found undamaged after about 4.5 hours of searching, hiking up hills, driving down endless fire roads, and getting shot at by the local desert wackos :kill: No kidding!
The big highlight of the day was when Jeff A. flew is beautiful Nike Ajax. It was a collaborative effort of many of the ROC members, including myself and David, to get it into the air before dark, and the waiver closing. The sucker was 7.5" in diameter in the lower section and 6" in the upper. It was powered with 4 yes FOUR K700Ws and a central K1275R. The first second after ignition is burned into my mind. A massive Nike Ajax belching out a good 12 foot reddish WL flame and a whole lotta smoke!. After that though things got crazy. One of the K700s blew its forward closure and bunrt a coupla large holes in the booster. The burning grains started pourning out the side of the rocket as it was was horizontal coming out of doing a corkscrew. The booster is dead, but the two forwards airframe sections are unscathed as the flaming rocket fully deployed its chutes bring the parts safely to the ground!According to lakebed standards, it can be chalked up as a successful flight.
David got some pics and video of the Ajax, so i'll get him to post them soon
Lots of midpower, and low high power, quite a few Js, and 2 beta flights on the RATT Works K350 tribrid. THEY ARE AWESOME, to say the very least.
One inparticular was David's Laser LOC 2.1 that he flew on a J570. Really awesome on the up part. broke Mach very quikly on it was up to 9308 feet per the ARTS. The problem was when the rocket deployed a little late cause of a bug in the ARTS unit which made for a small (1-1.5") zipper in the booster, as well as separating the booster and the payload sections, leaving the payload section with the chute. The booster did the flat spin thing and got a couple repairable dings in it. The payload now had a very oversized chute coming down form 9000 feet at like 5 feet a second. It drifted off the lakebed in to the surrounding sagebrush. very hard to see rockets in this stuff. To make a long story short, it was found undamaged after about 4.5 hours of searching, hiking up hills, driving down endless fire roads, and getting shot at by the local desert wackos :kill: No kidding!
The big highlight of the day was when Jeff A. flew is beautiful Nike Ajax. It was a collaborative effort of many of the ROC members, including myself and David, to get it into the air before dark, and the waiver closing. The sucker was 7.5" in diameter in the lower section and 6" in the upper. It was powered with 4 yes FOUR K700Ws and a central K1275R. The first second after ignition is burned into my mind. A massive Nike Ajax belching out a good 12 foot reddish WL flame and a whole lotta smoke!. After that though things got crazy. One of the K700s blew its forward closure and bunrt a coupla large holes in the booster. The burning grains started pourning out the side of the rocket as it was was horizontal coming out of doing a corkscrew. The booster is dead, but the two forwards airframe sections are unscathed as the flaming rocket fully deployed its chutes bring the parts safely to the ground!According to lakebed standards, it can be chalked up as a successful flight.
David got some pics and video of the Ajax, so i'll get him to post them soon