Jblatz flies a few solo 12-8-22

[J Blatz]

I live in the desert, which is a good place to fly rockets in the winter. Usually I fly w my bro, but he was working today. I’ve been dealing with a lot of problems at work, and I haven’t touched one off since by big day at Black Rock back in August.

First flight is my scratchbuilt rack rocket RRC3. This is a 4 stage rack rocket, D12-0/D12-0/D12-0/E9-8. Minimum diameter obviously. Lifts off great, nice and slow. Staging is dramatic. Stage 4 CATO at high speed. Kaboom. High speed CATOs are the best. Rocket was semi disposable anyhow. Let’s go.

Second flight USR AeroRoc. 3 D12-5,s. Junky stock “lighters”. One lights, one doesn’t, one dumps it’s guts in a firestorm. Blew the whole modular mount out of the airframe. No damage to rocket, it landed back on the pad. That AeroRoc has seen some things.

Junk 3D printed rocket made by my friend Bobby. 1.5” by 16” with an E30-7. Flew nice. Streamer made a distinctive whipping sound on descent. Broke a fin on touchdown.

Der V3 clone running the Aerotech 24/60 fast jack. Textbook.

“Split Fin” scratch build BT 60 about 3 feet long running a very old Aerotech E30-10 classic. Separated at ejection with chute and nose cone floating away ba-bye in spite of low wind. Body did the coolest spiraling tail slide/glide recovery I have ever seen. It probably took 2 minutes to land. Not a scratch. Seriously. It looked like I meant to do it. The glide/slide part.

“Ugly Green”. 2.1” X 30”. AT G80-10. This is my ugliest rocket. I didn’t build it, thank goodness. It’s just a brick xxxxhouse piece of junk. I put a beeper in it and in spite of flying way crooked recovered it.

Glad I went.

 

[Hobie1dog]

 

[lakeroadster]

That's nearly impossible to do... when you're flying solo... 'cause you're so focused on tracking the rocket....

 

[KenECoyote]

That's nearly impossible to do... when you're flying solo... 'cause you're so focused on tracking the rocket....

Maybe not "nearly impossible". Also it depends on your launcher. I've been recording my Estes flights for years. What I do is put the controller on top of a box, then it's a one hand operation to launch leaving the other hand free to record. However it is quite a skill to track a rocket on your phone while it's launching, but I fell it's like skeet.

Here's a pic of me launching my wife took followed by the actual video I took.

 

[KenECoyote]

I live in the desert, which is a good place to fly rockets in the winter. Usually I fly w my bro, but he was working today. I’ve been dealing with a lot of problems at work, and I haven’t touched one off since by big day at Black Rock back in August.

First flight is my scratchbuilt rack rocket RRC3. This is a 4 stage rack rocket, D12-0/D12-0/D12-0/E9-8. Minimum diameter obviously. Lifts off great, nice and slow. Staging is dramatic. Stage 4 CATO at high speed. Kaboom. High speed CATOs are the best. Rocket was semi disposable anyhow. Let’s go.

Second flight USR AeroRoc. 3 D12-5,s. Junky stock “lighters”. One lights, one doesn’t, one dumps it’s guts in a firestorm. Blew the whole modular mount out of the airframe. No damage to rocket, it landed back on the pad. That AeroRoc has seen some things.

Junk 3D printed rocket made by my friend Bobby. 1.5” by 16” with an E30-7. Flew nice. Streamer made a distinctive whipping sound on descent. Broke a fin on touchdown.

Der V3 clone running the Aerotech 24/60 fast jack. Textbook.

“Split Fin” scratch build BT 60 about 3 feet long running a very old Aerotech E30-10 classic. Separated at ejection with chute and nose cone floating away ba-bye in spite of low wind. Body did the coolest spiraling tail slide/glide recovery I have ever seen. It probably took 2 minutes to land. Not a scratch. Seriously. It looked like I meant to do it. The glide/slide part.

“Ugly Green”. 2.1” X 30”. AT G80-10. This is my ugliest rocket. I didn’t build it, thank goodness. It’s just a brick xxxxhouse piece of junk. I put a beeper in it and in spite of flying way crooked recovered it.

Glad I went.

When life sucks...launch some rockets!

 

[cls]

I have tried the 3 D12s to E rack rocket a few times. When the E doesn't CATO, the fins and rack get shredded, so instead of altitude there's corkscrew skywriting.

Semi disposable, yeah.

Actually I have gotten that to work a couple times. Wished I'd put a recording altimeter in it...