Lost another Rocket

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okif correcti counted almost 80 rockets that are gone,dead or MIA. A Guisness Book of Records statistics. So,how do you maintain your interest in the hobby?
 
Ummmm, Let me put this succinctly. Wanna lose a rocket? Use too large of a motor in too small of an airframe on too windy of a day with no Rf tracking and eureka! Lost rocket. Simple as that.
Think you’re going to be lucky with putting that larger motor in a ship? If you don’t want to lose it, shouldn’t do it.

If one has the fortune to fly the same rocket over and over again, they get the feel for how it will perform with different motors. If one knows they are going to shove the ”biggest” motor up the tail end, the more time the rocket remains out of sight the greater the chance it will be lost. That is of course if the ship is of the small variety and sans Rf tracking devices.

Sometimes, the wind is right and the rocket comes back into visual range after a flight into the “nethersphere”.

Sometimes never seen of again or at a major launch someone else finds it when they are out for recovery of theirs or someone else’s project. I find that fliers are extremely honest and if they find someone else’s rocket, they either bring it back to the LSO’s table or if it’s too big to carry, mark it on their handheld GPS and report it to the LSO when they get back in. I’ve had rockets brought back in after I’ve left a major launch and since I had an ID tag in it, I get a call from the launch sponsor they have my rocket. Took me 18 months to get one back but I got ‘er back!

I highly recommend a handheld GPS one can carry on their person at a major launch as you’ll not only keep yourself happy, you can help out a fellow flier with a wayward rocket and make a new friend in the process.

Kurt
 
Thank for sharing, in my time as a BAR (1998) i built somewhere between 10-15 kits and this is my 4 or 5 lost rocket. So everyone out West, including a newbie in Colorado, be bless you have untold amounts of undeveloped land...back in the NYC/NJ/Conn area , land is rare and my area in NJ lost some prime area due large housing developments in the past 20 years since I became a BAR.

Living in Connecticut, I can relate to this. The best field in my area is probably 500 ft x 1000 ft and surrounded by trees. My WAC Corporal did an unexpected left turn and ended up in said trees, requiring me to get a ladder and pole to get it down. I was lucky it was only 20 ft up.

The club [CATO] field is an hour away, and much MUCH larger, but is currently plagued with a tall-grass problem.
 
Living in Connecticut, I can relate to this. The best field in my area is probably 500 ft x 1000 ft and surrounded by trees. My WAC Corporal did an unexpected left turn and ended up in said trees, requiring me to get a ladder and pole to get it down. I was lucky it was only 20 ft up.

The club [CATO] field is an hour away, and much MUCH larger, but is currently plagued with a tall-grass problem.
Same shortage of available open space here in North Carolina. My club's launch site is 98 miles from where I live, and a much larger flying field that another club uses is 169 miles away...both quite a few hour's drive and a whole day's commitment. Attending both launch days means overnighting it.
 
Wow, your Mach 10s flew THAT well!
Well, yes and no. My first one was cloned using basswood, and it took me a couple of flights to connect the additional weight to the "Steve Austin" performance. A couple of them were fantastic, especially in windy conditions. I plan to fly one of the clones this weekend to see if it still has any magic left in it.
 
okif correcti counted almost 80 rockets that are gone,dead or MIA. A Guisness Book of Records statistics. So,how do you maintain your interest in the hobby?
I have a lot of spaces to fill in my flying circus. The interest has come and gone several times since I got back into the hobby in 2001. In 2010 I only made one flight and was very close to giving it up, but we had a NARAM that I'd promised to work in 2011 and my interest was rekindled.
 
Same shortage of available open space here in North Carolina. My club's launch site is 98 miles from where I live, and a much larger flying field that another club uses is 169 miles away...both quite a few hour's drive and a whole day's commitment. Attending both launch days means overnighting it.
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No farm land or horse ranches you can ask permission? No undeveloped land?
 
No farm land or horse ranches you can ask permission? No undeveloped land?
I used ro fly LPR stuff at a location just an hour away. Club lost it late last year and has been trying to secure another location ever since. Seems most landowners are not interested or are reluctant for one reason or another.
 
I used ro fly LPR stuff at a location just an hour away. Club lost it late last year and has been trying to secure another location ever since. Seems most landowners are not interested or are reluctant for one reason or another.
Ok, no undeveloped, un-owned land between towns, cities and whatever., Damn that is sad
 
I used ro fly LPR stuff at a location just an hour away. Club lost it late last year and has been trying to secure another location ever since. Seems most landowners are not interested or are reluctant for one reason or another.
Just gotta figure out where we eat breakfast and come have a cup of coffee with us, lol. I say that but I haven't talked to my "neighbors" about burning up their fields with rockets yet. I'm happy enough for the most part blasting an A or a B over my garden, and occasionally going bigger to lose a rocket to the forest :p
 
To everyone, including some new members who can not wait to launch a rockets 1000 feet or more or go into High Power just for the fire, smoke and Yes..that roar of a Composite engine, I lost another Rocket today..the god old Estes Bull Pup on a B6-4 engine. I have a small field, followed the rocket up almost til the end (but my poor eye sight) , I heared the POP of ejection, a.good sign but no small aircraft with my special 8 inch parachute. A few things hurt and losing a rocket is one of them. A month ago I almost lost the AMRAAM..great C flyer and found it on my way back to launch pad. So newbies and even oldsters unless you have a big field and extra eyes (20/20 or better) to track...take you time in your quest for power and altitude.
First time I launch since original post. My Black Brant II (modified for 18mm) on a B4-4 (from Rocket-store.com) was under powered....started to slow up too soon..maybe 200 feet. Lost my chute... no damage.. I tied a poor knob. ..Next time B6-4. This was my first experience with a B4, Estes Phoenix? (plastic fins.), beautiful straight flight on D12-5..slight rotation going up but lost sight again (damn eyes) anyway she crash, weak ejection charge or too tightly pack wadding. This is 2nd time she crash (1st-15 years ago).....last time was a weak charge that Estes fix (new cone, upper tube). Do I get discourage...hell no.....this is the characteristics of the hobby.....lost a rocket, CATO or occasionally a crash. So newbies..keep building and sometimes ..keep losing a rocket.

Here she is
 

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I've only been building rockets for a year, but my "how high can it go?" bug has been pushed down a lot by seeing birds vanish into a giant stand of trees and never be found again. My first bird, an Alpha III, has long since been lost that way....

I use OpenRocket, and I now try to optimize for two things:

1) Low deployment velocity (preventing excess shock when chute deploys);
2) Total flight time less than or equal to 30 seconds.

This isn't to say that I'm not going to try for some personal altitude records.... but with the idea that I might lose said bird.
 
I've only been building rockets for a year, but my "how high can it go?" bug has been pushed down a lot by seeing birds vanish into a giant stand of trees and never be found again. My first bird, an Alpha III, has long since been lost that way....

I use OpenRocket, and I now try to optimize for two things:

1) Low deployment velocity (preventing excess shock when chute deploys);
2) Total flight time less than or equal to 30 seconds.

This isn't to say that I'm not going to try for some personal altitude records.... but with the idea that I might lose said bird.
I don't know Josh, low deployment velocity...sorry, does not makes sense...and hard to do...just use a good nylon chute, as to zipper, I believe it is a result of Kevlar......otherwise you just indirectly stated, JLCR is a mistake. Flight time......just altitude. But hey, go ahead try anything you like. Too bad NYC/NJ and Conn....area large fields are hard to find.
 
What's the issue with low deployment velocity? Your chute is going to open up anyways; making your deployment velocity lower just prevents excess force to the shock cord, chute, chute lines, and everything attached to it. Choosing a low deployment velocity is mainly down to picking the right motor delay. When your delay is exactly apogee, your rocket is at zero velocity when the chute deploys. If you want to fly on a C6, just check C6-3, C6-5, and C6-7 to see which has the lowest deploy velocity.

I recently lost the nosecone on one of my rockets - the eyebolt pulled right out of the balsa, with a good bit of balsa still attached. It had been glued in tightly. This tells me the balsa wasn't up to the max pulling force on the balsa, either from shock cord or chute deployment. One way of reducing forces here is for me to use a slower chute deploy (wrapped chute lines), but another way is to fine tune my deploy for as low velocity as I can manage.

Regarding flight time, that's a function of altitude... but also of your chute. You can let some birds come down much faster and harder than others. My Tube Rocket I can use a streamer on instead of a chute. It has no thin fins to damage; it's literally all tube. Other rockets you can make do with smaller chutes. A 250m flight is going to take ~50 seconds to land on a 5m/s chute, but only ~30 seconds on a 8m/s chute. That's a lot less time to drift into something.
 
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What's the issue with low deployment velocity? Your chute is going to open up anyways; making your deployment velocity lower just prevents excess force to the shock cord, chute, chute lines, and everything attached to it. Choosing a low deployment velocity is mainly down to picking the right motor delay. When your delay is exactly apogee, your rocket is at zero velocity when the chute deploys. If you want to fly on a C6, just check C6-3, C6-5, and C6-7 to see which has the lowest deploy velocity.

I recently lost the nosecone on one of my rockets - the eyebolt pulled right out of the balsa, with a good bit of balsa still attached. It had been glued in tightly. This tells me the balsa wasn't up to the max pulling force on the balsa, either from shock cord or chute deployment. One way of reducing forces here is for me to use a slower chute deploy (wrapped chute lines), but another way is to fine tune my deploy for as low velocity as I can manage.

Regarding flight time, that's a function of altitude... but also if your chute. You can let some birds come down much faster and harder than others. My Tube Rocket I can use a streamer on instead of a chute. It has no thin fins to damage; it's literally all tube. Other rockets you can make do with smaller chutes. A 250m flight is going to take ~50 seconds to land on a 5m/s chute, but only ~30 seconds on a 8m/s chute. That's a lot less time to drift into something.
The issue is you are overthinking it. Since you do not have an infinite number of delays to chose from..exact apogee is always a maybe. Weak balsa..sorry..I would say glue does the job but in your case it did not. You can always buy a new nose cone....not as bad as no chute deployment. Yes, smaller chutes..here in the east , parks with grass allow a lot faster descent rates. I have never "time" or try to estimate my "hang time" I just know, from flights...... the 18 inch chute for numerous Estes rockets is too big and I now go for 12" chute or 18 with tied lines. But go ahead and engineer chute deployment. As for C's I have a lot of C6-3 and C6-5's from my 2 blastoff packs. Therefore I will used them and "hope" for the best. Did you get a replacement nose cone? I wonder either a larger eyebolt or soaking the base with CA before applying the eyebolt would help.
 
It's rocket science (or engineering), man. If you're not overthinking it you're not thinking enough. :D

If you have composite motors with drill-able delay, you *can* dial the exact delay in, which is nice for the MPR and HPR guys. I assume this is what they drill delay for - as close to apogee as possible. For the fixed delay BP motors, this isn't hard. Just sim the rocket and see which delay has lowest velocity. I sim my kits as a matter of course to ensure sufficient stability and to find an appropriate motor to use for my field size, so you may as well be doing this anyways.

I did get a replacement from the vendor, and have put it all back together. I decided to use a slightly larger eyebolt so that I had more surface area for it to grip the balsa. I considered the CA soak... but the eyebolt goes so deep that it would have to soak far more than just a surface layer to make much of a difference. It's not clear to me that you can soak CA to 3/4" deep into balsa.
 
Perhaps you mean low deployment pressure rather than velocity? Sometimes the parachute catches on the cord connection or the cords turn into a knot at ejection. I've tried most techniques except piston but have heard even that can get hung up in the BT. The important thing is to repack the parachute before launch because they expand over time and get stuck in the tube.

500ft wide field is not bad for up to a D engine.

Sometimes a rocket decides it wants to go on an adventure. My Saturn V is still sitting on someone's roof after the parachute failed and my Bull Pup recently landed on a condo building. I'm replacing it with a XL version. Hopefully that won't go on an adventure also.
 
Perhaps you mean low deployment pressure rather than velocity?

Velocity of rocket at ejection charge deployment. How fast is the rocket moving relative to the air around it when the chute is ejected? At exact apogee, it would be zero. (Not counting wind, though....)
 
Velocity of rocket at ejection charge deployment. How fast is the rocket moving relative to the air around it when the chute is ejected? At exact apogee, it would be zero. (Not counting wind, though....)
Ahh. Usually the NC has pops out easily unless it's on too tight. I find the hard part is ejecting the parachute out then fully deploying. Sometimes the air turbulence will help with pulling the parachute.

As you know, if the parachute is too large and there's a wind, it's adventure time. If the parachute is too small, then it will land too hard. I'm constantly reviewing my videos to see how the rocket reacts based on the size of the parachute and wind conditions.

 
Nice camera view there, what are you using?

I don't seem to have any issues getting NCs to pop off, but I do try to prevent excess shock on the parts when deploying, particularly chutes. I've started using my 13mm birds (er, bird, RIP Neo Mini 13) as high-altitude wind testers before sending off anything larger than might drift.
 
It's rocket science (or engineering), man. If you're not overthinking it you're not thinking enough. :D

If you have composite motors with drill-able delay, you *can* dial the exact delay in, which is nice for the MPR and HPR guys. I assume this is what they drill delay for - as close to apogee as possible. For the fixed delay BP motors, this isn't hard. Just sim the rocket and see which delay has lowest velocity. I sim my kits as a matter of course to ensure sufficient stability and to find an appropriate motor to use for my field size, so you may as well be doing this anyways.

I did get a replacement from the vendor, and have put it all back together. I decided to use a slightly larger eyebolt so that I had more surface area for it to grip the balsa. I considered the CA soak... but the eyebolt goes so deep that it would have to soak far more than just a surface layer to make much of a difference. It's not clear to me that you can soak CA to 3/4" deep into balsa.
great got a replacement, and you like calculating every thing fantastic. I just want to hit that button and hear the roar,and see it climb skyward. Which is why I may never scratch built. Great job on that cluster build.
 
Nice camera view there, what are you using?

I don't seem to have any issues getting NCs to pop off, but I do try to prevent excess shock on the parts when deploying, particularly chutes. I've started using my 13mm birds (er, bird, RIP Neo Mini 13) as high-altitude wind testers before sending off anything larger than might drift.
A SQ11 camera taped to the side.

Minis are great wind testers.
 
I mentor a Native American College rocket team and the last 3 competitions had specific altitudes to achieve. Closest one wins points. Doing sims in OR (38mm Aerotech reloadables) I found that I could get deployment speeds down to less than 10 MPH at 3000'. I must admit being able to drill the delays to vary length of time really helped.

Although I do have a single HPR I find it rather expensive. But I can fly a lot of 24mm composite motors for the price of a large 38mm. So I usually fly LPRs & MPRs.
 
I mentor a Native American College rocket team and the last 3 competitions had specific altitudes to achieve. Closest one wins points. Doing sims in OR (38mm Aerotech reloadables) I found that I could get deployment speeds down to less than 10 MPH at 3000'. I must admit being able to drill the delays to vary length of time really helped.

Although I do have a single HPR I find it rather expensive. But I can fly a lot of 24mm composite motors for the price of a large 38mm. So I usually fly LPRs & MPRs.
That is amazing at 3000 feet...over 1/2 mile you can control deployment, that fine. Great..........is there any chance of ignition in drilling down a delay??
 
Yep I've lost one. I've haven't launched in 2weeks gonna try for Sunday but the way it's looking there calling for a windy day .. so I'll prob just set at home a build one
 
That is amazing at 3000 feet...over 1/2 mile you can control deployment, that fine. Great..........is there any chance of ignition in drilling down a delay??
Drilling an Aerotech RMS delay is done with a special tool that is nothing more than a jig than holds a 1/4" drill bit and some washers used as spacers. The delay material is quite soft so you turn the bit by hand. Here's an Apogee video showing how it is done on a DMS single use motor. They something similar for the RMS reloadable motors.

 
Yep I've lost one. I've haven't launched in 2weeks gonna try for Sunday but the way it's looking there calling for a windy day .. so I'll prob just set at home a build one
Ok Dee- you are now an official Rocketeer..lost your first rocket.....Wait until you get your 1st crash...due to over pack wadding and/or chute or weak ejection charge.
 
Drilling an Aerotech RMS delay is done with a special tool that is nothing more than a jig than holds a 1/4" drill bit and some washers used as spacers. The delay material is quite soft so you turn the bit by hand. Here's an Apogee video showing how it is done on a DMS single use motor. They something similar for the RMS reloadable motors.


Basically it is a gauge...or the washers and "socket" are the gauges and you slowly, manually loosen up some powder.
 
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