Let's See Your Lawndarts... (Or Tell Us Your Tale(s) Of Lawndarts.)

[FredA]

I am not so sure about your statement

What aren't you sure about?
NASA and Russia behave differently - because of a different point of view.

 

[BABAR]

What aren't you sure about?
NASA and Russia behave differently - because of a different point of view.

@Orien

“Well, that's the thing. The Russians don't believe in "self-destruct" systems for dubious reasons”

@FredA

“For good reason......they add weight, they are dangerous and they diminish the overall reliability of the system
So if there is nothing on the ground you care about then it's a prudent decision.
The choice about caring for things on the ground is the only dubious part.”

I think I got thrown by the “For good reason” segment. Meaning I thought YOU were saying YOU thought the Russians had a ”Good reason” to either not employ (or at least DEPLOY) a self destruct On that rocket. my bad, in context I think you meant that since they didn’t prioritize damage to stuff on the ground over added complexity to the rocket, under that (IMO immoral) code of logic, the absence of such safety measures would indeed be logical.

you would have thought they would have learned from estimated 126 dead in the Nedelin explosion, most of them highly trained scientists and technicians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nedelin_catastrophe
back to lawn darts. I don’t have a picture, but after a very public lawn dart due to putting masking tape over the nose cone/body tube interface during transport of my low power rockets, I now use a big piece of bright pink masking tape with a long “tail” doubled back on itself so the tail doesn’t stick to anything and everything. It’s hard to miss, although as has been demonstrated on pics here, even bright ”Remove Before Flight!” ribbons get missed sometimes,

 

[FredA]

I think I got thrown by the “For good reason” segment. Meaning I thought YOU were saying YOU thought the Russians had a ”Good reason” to either not employ (or at least DEPLOY) a self destruct On that rocket. my bad, in context I think you meant that since they didn’t prioritize damage to stuff on the ground over added complexity to the rocket, under that (IMO immoral) code of logic, the absence of such safety measures would indeed be logical.

you would have thought they would have learned from estimated 126 dead in the Nedelin explosion, most of them highly trained scientists and technicians.

Government officials [and much of society] seem to think good scientist and engineers grow on trees and are easily replaced.
Prudent reduction of flight hardware in THEIR opinion.

 

[Sooner Boomer]

Was that thing loaded with chalk dust to help see ejection? Either that, or that’s the worst paint bleed I’ve ever seen!

Not my rocket, but yes, the gentleman flying it had a habit of loading in lots of red chalk line powder. The runway was red there for years.

 

[BABAR]

Not my rocket, but yes, the gentleman flying it had a habit of loading in lots of red chalk line powder. The runway was red there for years.

I guess if your rocket is going to die (or in this case, dye), it might as well go out in style!

 

[Dipstick]

About a year ago...flew my beloved 7.5" V2 for the last time. I scratchbuilt this rocket over my university years, starting with pink foam turning and ending up with a 75mm V2 that flew great on 75mm L motors. This flight was a K1000 skidmark, beautiful up, and then nothing...lawn dart. Still unsure how both altimeters malfunctioned or lost power, sometimes we never get to find out. The WHUMP when she connected with terra firma was pretty impressive....

 

[BABAR]

 

[BEC]

Earlier today. Sustainer failed to ignite. Enough tube damage (it was this model’s 29th flight) that I may just replace it. Fortunately the FS Comp was undamaged.

Data here:https://flightsketch.com/flights/2597/

 

[CoyoteNumber2]

My dad took this photo (on film!) of someone's rocket actively lithobraking:

 

[JPX2000]

50th flight. Bonus delay.

 

[mo2872]

Yikes.......self-fulfilling prophecy?? "Sod Chisel"........or is that photoshopped in there??

 

[TheTank]

30yr old Mega Mosquito (i think)… grabbed the wrong motor out of the box with two short of an ejection delay… popped and sheared off the nosecone and chute… came in ballastic into soft ground and took a core sample!

 

[jd2cylman]

I don’t have the immediate after pictures, but this is the net result of LOC Goblin #2’s last flight. My ejection charge burned, but didn’t have any pressure.

Almost finished with #3. Trying to pick a color scheme. I think orange/black is winning so far.

 

[Sooner Boomer]

It had to happen to me, too. I've been flying this rocket for 20 years. I did my Level 1 cert with it last month. It's come down with a tangled chute to land on asphalt and just popped a fin. This time it was more than a fin, but it's rebuildable.

 

[Echo3]

I don't have a picture, just a story. Last year, my wife and I and our youngest son were launching rockets from a local softball field on a Sunday afternoon. This is our usual launch site but my wife does not normally accompany us. When we arrived, we were alone so I backed the van into the parking spot next to left field and opened the hatch to unload, leaving it open when I was done. I like to launch in the infield near second base to keep to the center of the area because the field is surrounded on three sides by trees. I brought an Estes Riptide ready to fly rocket that day that had never been flown. I loaded the recommended first flight motor (a B4-4 I believe), set it on the pad, and let my son launch the rocket. I'm not sure if the motor was a dud or if the rocket was too heavy for it because the rocket took off slowly and arced away from us across the left field foul line like a van seeking missile. As it flew directly toward my wife's Honda minivan (just paid for and with the rear hatch still open), We heard my wife say in a very small, weak, miserable voice, "Not the van..." The rocket impacted nose first in the soft ground about three feet to the left of the drivers door and then ejected the body of the rocket up off of the buried nosecone. The rocket had no damage and we flew it again several times that day on a C motor. I usually write the recommended motors on the nosecone shoulder and when I got home, I crossed out the B4-4. My son and I still laugh about my wife's desperate cry for her van. She thought for sure that the rocket was going to fly in through the back hatch and set the van on fire.

 

[Blast it Tom!]

That'd be my wife, too!

 

[Rocketless]

I fairness if it would have been my van I would have yelled a cuss word or two!

 

[CoyoteNumber2]

 

[jd2cylman]

View attachment 473322

Epitome of crash and burn…

 

[Michael L]

Begin long version of "we couldn't find them".

Our last club launch was a 1 for 4 success rate. The first three 2.5 launches were for "highest altitude on a 60n-s motor" contest. Flight #4 was a picture perfect high power flight.

Normally we fly L1/L2 sized rockets but any rocket is a good rocket for this bunch (I'd guess all).

Launch 1 - It had telemetry. It was small and light. I was sure that it was going to win the contest. Not long after it came off the rail, telemetry died, and the rocket was never seen again.

Launch 2 - As the rocketeer was moving the rocket from his truck to the tailgate for final prep the ejection charge went off. We think that there was some kind of avionics failure (said captain obvious). I didn't see it happen so I offered some "ejection charge material" if he wanted to repack and reload. He pointed to the rocket and it appeared that the original charge may have been a bit much. It was not going to fly. It was another small, light rocket that had the potential to win.

Launch 3 - I built an Aspire, sort of. It came in an Aspire package. The motor was an EconoJet F42-8T. I used fly away rail guides. It came off the rail perfectly but was out of sight in a second or two. The sim had issues. More on that in a bit. I added an Av bay, Easy Mini, dual deploy (streamer and chute)... completely unnecessary... ejection charge baffles to both ends (probably won't do that again), and I didn't like the "tape the motor in" method so I 3D printed threads and a motor retainer. I didn't like the dog knot (that's a rocket term right?) that the retainer made so I 3D printed a tapered sleeve. Like this:

And the sleeve before installation and after

I made it a 3 fin rocket (per Apogee it could be either 3 or 4 fin, 3 fins goes higher). I filled the slots with 30m epoxy and put the papered fins into that, slid a finger along each side to make a filet, and put it into a jig. I scuffed the tube with some 400 grit and used JB Weld to bond the sleeve.

By the time I was done I really didn't think the rocket would stand a chance due to the added weight of the appurtenances. I still don't but that's what I'm going to launch when we try again, without ejection charge baffles. I may use the motor to split the lower 1/2 off and deploy the streamer. Then, just for fun, let the Telemini (yup... no more launching here, at least not that high, without telemetry) pop the nosecone and chute.

I used Apogee's rkt file in RockSim and it gave me 600' for Apogee. That's the only reason I opted to not use a tracker. When the rocket launched we all said "uh oh... that's a lot higher than 600 feet" as it disappeared.

I can hear it now - why dual deploy on a rocket that small??? (A) because I can or could or might have if it worked. (B) I'm about to start on my L2. I built my L1 rocket (LOC IV) so that it could be motor eject or dual deploy. I got my L1 with motor ejection (worked great). I'd rather experience dual deploy failure with a small rocket than fail with my LOC IV or a larger/heavier rocket. The next LOC IV launch will have dual deploy. I'm not nervous about that... not at all... nope... sure not...

Normally, shooting at 10-12 frames per second. I can get at least three frames of a rocket launch. Not this time. The rockets were lit and gone so fast I got no "rail" shots.

Rocket #1 before

Rocket #1 After (mini launch rails)

My Aspire prior to launch (note the easy to see gray primer paint job. No problems at all seeing it in the sky or alongside the gray vegetation, None at all Lessons learned and all that jazz. I wish I could have recovered it. I'd like to know why both ejection charges failed (never heard the pop anyway). If you look close you can see that the motor was starting to fire.

Next frame

So... I'm pretty sure we had two lawn darts, one of which is mine, but due to telemetry failure and lack of telemetry we couldn't find either rocket. We tried but since both went out of sight all we had was winds aloft and a lot of walking downrange (the HP launch track also helped us guess where they went) to figure out which way to go.

The launch site has about a 1 mile radius around it with nothing but sage brush and blow sand. Even more to the east and south. Needle / haystack... That said, just since I've been here we've found long lost rockets when on a high power rocket recovery. Maybe someday they'll show up. I just want to know what happened...

 

[schworer]

I am not so sure about your statement

from Popular Mechanics

May 2008

https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a3232/4262479/


Each time the space shuttle rises from its launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Fla., an Air Force officer waits anxiously for the first 2 minutes to pass safely. If the spaceship were to veer off course and endanger a populated area, this range safety officer would bear the terrible responsibility of flipping a pair of switches under a stenciled panel reading "Flight Termination." The first switch arms explosives on the shuttle's two solid rocket boosters. Flipping the second switch would detonate them, destroying the shuttle and crew.

End quote

Different and less reliable source, but I believe is correct, AFTER the Challenger flight became clearly unrecoverable (and also AFTER the boosters were visually confirmed separated from the orbiter itself) the destruct was indeed actually performed.

https://space.stackexchange.com/que...e-shuttle-and-sls-have-a-self-destruct-system
Quote
The shuttle stack broke up at ~73 seconds after launch of STS-51L. The Solid Rocket Boosters separated from the other elements and continued flying in a more or less stable manner (surprisingly). Air Force range safety personnel detonated the boosters at ~110 seconds after launch using the self-destruct system built into the boosters. (timeline reference)

I have not seen any writeups explaining the ~30 second delay to sending the destruct command. Range safety operated using preplanned procedures which included predicted impact of the vehicle on populated areas (see What rocket launch protocols (if any) are in place to prevent premature or late intentional self-destruct? for some details) It may be that the flight termination lines were not crossed until then, or possibly the procedures did not cover the case of two free-flying stable SRBs, requiring some human judgment.

Had they been allowed to recover via chute vice being remotely destroyed it would have made the forensics a lot easier re the O-ring issue. IIRC this was covered in Alan MacDonald's book Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster. "https://www.amazon.com/Truth-Lies-Rings-Challenger-Disaster/dp/0813041937

 

[tab28682]

….

 

[scatsob]

Bump for a fun thread...here is mine from a while back. Came right back down from ~30k on an M2040. It was a 66" long IQSY Tomahawk and the fin can is below grade...

 

[rfjustin]

Not mine, but amusing up and down that happened in WI at Bong, back in 2008:

 

[4regt4]

My only (so far...) lawn dart was with my 1st 2 stage rocket, an Estes Mongoose. 1st flight on B6 bottom, A8 top. Went well, so let's bump it up a notch. A pair of B6's. It went up fine for a short distance, then stalled out. ??? Then Pop.

Problem is, I accidentally grabbed a B6 with an ejection charge to put in the booster. That doesn't work well. When the ejection charge fired, the rocket went horizontal, falling to the ground more or less undamaged. It didn't have enough altitude to truly dart, it just kinda fell out of the sky with the motor not ignited. But the booster.... The ejection charge blew it with considerable force downward completely submerging it into the ground.

After removing the core sample, I reloaded everything up to try again. What I didn't notice is that the motor mount in the booster was bent off center. After double checking that I was indeed using a B6-0 this time, I fired it off. The crooked motor mount caused the rocket to arch over a bit, then the 2nd stage lit and the rocket took off at more or less a 45deg angle. Parachute deployed, and it landed in a very tall fir tree.

I still have the booster, crooked motor mount and all, as a souvenir.

Hans.

 

[Re-Bar Ricky]

Didn't have one last year when this post was first started, but got one now - Estes Mini-Honest John. Motor spit out instead of ejecting the parachute so it came in pretty much like an artillery shell. I like the way it just hit the ground like it was fired in battle, and even the color looks good with it. No damage, just some dirt on the nose cone.

 

[bobbyg23]

https://youtube.com/shorts/NeeqY2FUcyk?feature=share

 

[Wally Ferrer]

Wildman Andromeda, apparently/obviously insufficient ejection charges....

 

[Philip Tiberius D.]

Estes Executioner

 

[bmonagle]

No picture available, but 30 years ago when a friend and I were at Space Academy in Huntsville, they had us build some 2 stage model rockets with B6-0 - B6-6. When mine launched the 2nd stage didn't ignite and it lawn darted. First time I ever had one. Pulled it out, cleaned it up a bit and launched it as a single stage. Perfect flight. Never took it home since we were concerned about the black powder residue at airport security.
Blair