N Wales lads fly again !

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PWALPOCO

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Ah , another day from my precious holiday spent with the lads unleashing our Weapons Of Height Addiction. Well I say "our" when actually only Alan and Mark had any rockets to fly !

Alan had brought his now trusty Code Red "RTF" , and his two Estes X-Flier "Launchables". Mark had tagged along with his Estes Missile Command Set "RTF" , and a Fireflash "Launchable".

So , 6 Rockets in all....... so lets see , how did we do ?

Well , first up was the Code Red , this allegedly being the least altitude capable of the group , and so being a good "sighting" Rocket for our limited range. The bird flew very well , nice clean flight , quite a pop on Ejection and a partially severed chute line , but the chute clung on and the Rocket landed about 20 meters from the pad. The wind was probably no more than 5mph and this first launch and recovery bore this out.

Launch 2 was the US Navy rocket from the Missile Command Set. Beautiful flight on a C6-7 must of been approaching 1000ft like the specs said , however on ejection disaster ! It was quite obvious that the shock cord had failed , the BT was in free fall , the nosecone and chute on the other hand drifted and drifted and .... well .... drifted ! Such was the lack of weight the nosecone travelled approximately 500m from the launch site with hardly a breeze ! The shock cord was found to be severed at the point it met the BT ...... inadequate wadding ?

Launch 3 was Alans first X-Flier. The flight was awesome ! Again on a C-6 this just went and went. Eyes gazed heavenward , necks and backs arched , and still it went up and up, to a guesstimate 1000ft ! Then pffffft , the ejection happened , the chute deployed and down she came ........ nice ..... a fair bit of drift , again 400-500m ..... so , executive decision time ...... put some holes in the chutes !!

Launch 4 ... oh dear ....... Marks Fireflash ..... this 1 meter tall beasty sat on the pad ominously. It had been made to spec from the manual, so it should be fine ....... shouldnt it ?! Well , I guess the Titanic was buillt to spec too ...... but that didnt help ! Well , this thing took off , and gave this beautiful graceful arc sideways. I cant quote the swear words here , particularly as we saw this nose heavy dart begin to list to horizontal , then gently into a dive ....... a brief , but what seemed infinite pause , then miraculously , the ejection fired , the nose and main body seperated ..... and the chute wandered off on its own , never to be seen again , presumably missing its lines ...... The Nose did what Noses do best ..... nosedived , two inches into the soft sand, the main body lying alongside. No Damage but no chute !

Launch 5 , the second X-Flier now and with less chute surface area. Again a lovely vertical launch , again a nice deployment of the chute and again we presume to the spec height of 1000ft. Less drift on the return to earth this time , but still lots ! We are gonna need a bigger range !!

Flight 6 was a rerun of the Fireflash. We had decided that a slightly off vertical launch rod caused the previous cardiac inducing recreation of an ICBM flight , so with this fixed it was time to try again. This time a beauiful but less altitude than expected flight on a C6 motor. Rocket reached apogee , then flipped round , its nose heavy element leading the retreat to earth. Then the ejection fired off ! The shock cord was indeed shocked ! The Chute did a vanishing act (again !) and the nose tried to dig its way to Australia. The main body was flung away and landed harmlessly in the long grass.

So after a good day the total damage was some severed chute Lines on Code Red , a temporarily damaged SC on MCom1 , and the 2 lost parachutes from the Fireflash. The plus side was gaining more experience ......

Paul
 
Hi pwalpoco...great,more brits adicted to rockets.This is exactly the place to be for all things rocketry.if you can't find a larger launch site you can try cutting down drift by using X-type parachutes which are shaped like an X or you could try streamers(especially on smaller,light rockets):)
 
Thanks , youre not the first to Welcome this "Fellow Brit" to the group so Im guessing there really arent that many of us about !

Thanks for the X-Chute tip arthur dent. We did try reducing the drag on the latter chutes we were using by removing some of the area at the center. Tell me, what advantages does the X design have over the Round Chute with the center cut out , if any ?
If there are advantages to it , then Ill try and make up some X types and try them instead.

Obviously theres the two sided problem , do you have a large chute and see your rocket drift away, or do you have it land pretty fast but close by ? Decisions decisions ! Ultimately I guess you have to decide on the day , and base your choice on the available space , the safety of others and so on.

We know our rockets are pretty light and would more than likely survive a streamer landing , but on a large area of common land with dunes , you cant be 100% sure theres no one half a kilometer away to have your rocket land on !

Need more space , Need more space , Need more Space. I think Im going to move to the USA , they have loads of space !

Paul

PS , For Xmas I would like more space !
 
i go with the big rocket small chute and bring plenty of super glue for repair technique... im gonna get a picture of how small the place is that i launch these things... it amazes me that any come back...
 
Try Central Park ! Im sure thats the biggest open space in NYC that you can find !

Yeah , lets see the space youve got to play with , would be interesting. We see lots of rocket pics , but not so many "heres where I get to fly" pics ....... and afterall the range is one of the most important things going.

Paul
 
I have to tell you, that is one of the best ever launch reports that I have seen. I could feel the excitement and see the rockets flight while I read.

Stick it out in Wales ... in the USA all the land is owned, restricted or the middle of some guys land that wants to guard it with a gun. :)
 
Oh well , to the desert then ! Lots of sand , clear skies , no people ....... just have to remember to bring eveything .... no point getting there and realising youve not brought batteries for the ignition system ......


Paul
 
Originally posted by TwoWalks
I have to tell you, that is one of the best ever launch reports that I have seen. I could feel the excitement and see the rockets flight while I read.

Stick it out in Wales ... in the USA all the land is owned, restricted or the middle of some guys land that wants to guard it with a gun. :)

Hi My names Alan, one of the other guys in PWALPOCO's team! . Paul has a good way of telling the story, and YES i can still see them birds flying now, and your right TWOWALKS the buzz and excitement is all there.

One thing he hasn't mentioned was how out of breath I was running after said rockets, and falling over loads after getting my foot trapped in the divits in the field. (pesky RABBITS)

I think I have mastered the full sprint to full summersault roll, back to feet method.

Our launch site is pretty perfect, only downside is that we haven't mastered the parachute yet, as these lightweights do drift pretty far with hardly any ground wind (Hardly suprising after a 1000ft launch).

After loosing the nose cone of a missile command navy and both my xflyers, into a neighbouring farm, 3-4 fields away, we had to retrieve these later on, and yes we where worried about a farmer going "gerrof me land!" followed but the pumping of a shotgun, hence we need a new site.

Our first attempt of rocketry, 3rd launch of the CODE RED it's lines burnt out, therefore the rocket come down pretty fast, but NO damage. The X chute sounds a pretty good idea.

We did cut out the word estes from the normal 12" chute, we already thought about cutting out the whole BLUE dotted section also, but this could make the chute collaspe on it's self.

I think the trusty old Code Red is our tester, so if we mod the chutes on her we should get it pretty perfect.

Can't wait for our next launch.

Al
 
hi ntrance..great to hear there's an entire team of rocketeers in N.wales:D i don't have the chasing rockets problem,i just get my daughter to run after em lol:D When you get some new motors try c-6-7 this will let you'r rockets loose a bit more hight befor the parachute ejects.
 
Hi Guys, good to see some more UKers on the forum...there's quite a few now! Sounds like you guys were having a great time.

If you do use a C6-7 watch it's not going too fast on ejection or the shroud lines will strip on your parachute.

By the sounds of it Mark's Fireflash suffered somthing called a weathercock, this is when the model archs into the wind...some are more extreme than others.

All the best with future flights.
 
I did use C6-7's on both my xflyers first launch. 1000ft plus, thank god for the smoke trail near the end !!! We did say they where fire and forget, but amazingly they where intact, my chutes in perfect order. Although a long run to fetch them !

Whereas in marks case, we think the ammount of clay estes tell you to stick in the nose of the fireflash is way too much. We need to weight it against what estes says it weighs.

There is over 50g of clay in the nose cone.
I will try to model it against SPACECAD to see if it's stable or my guess over stable.

A C6-7 was basically dangerous, even a C6-5 she was already coming back to earth before the delay charge.
Once the charge went off, the shock cord broke off, and the chute plainly got vaporised !!

No way would I use an A motor in that bird, as reckomended by estes for 1st flight.

I belive paul has rekkied a new site, which looks more promising for high alt xflyer launches !
Atleast i can use my mountain bike to reteve them then!

We are in the process of starting up a website to track our progress. I'm building it on my Home webserver for now, hopefully it will be online in the next month or so.

Keep you all updated.

Alan.
 
Hi Guys - welcome to TFR - glad there are more Brits coming onto the forum!

Have you thought of visiting some of the CLUB launches around your area? Arthur Dent could probably clue you in for the North, or visit the UKRA (ukra.org.uk) site and see what's going on in your area.

You will be able to fly as high as you like with these clubs - maybe even as a guest - and you have GOTTA see some of the high power launches!

But whatever you fly, I agree with STEWARD, It's just down-right-fun!!!

Keep the launch reports coming - and try and post some PICS!

LOL

Damage:cool:
 
Thanks for the Welcome all ........

Yes , Id like to get involved with UKRA , but first would like to get a taster before going in amongst the more seasoned bunch. Dont want to look complete newbies.

Im going to print off the UKRA safety code however and try and work with that and maybe build up to certification , though that may take some time !

So , in the meanwhile Im going to be doing some some basic model building from kits and some RTF flying too.

We have limited space and two RAF bases here on the Island , and when you ideally need 8km clearance that doesnt leave us as much room as we like. The plus side is that they dont fly on weekends unlike a civil airports which do !

ntrance ... yes , Ive Reccied Red Wharf Bay ..... and its pretty much as the ordenance survey suggests .... its 3-4km accross at its mouth and about 2km in depth, lots of sand , though there is some pooled water in places. We have to ensure we catch the tides correctly as we want to be getting there while the tide is still going out .... there is danger of being cut off if we hang on too late !!

https://www.trekking-web.de/trek/tours/1998/maps/red-wharf-bay---forest.html

Theres a watercourse that cuts through the left side of the sands so access maybe better at car park @ Grid 537:798 and just walk NNE to around Grid 542:808 That Location gives us about 700m clearance to the Sea , and the same to any nearby buildings. So we have at least 1400m North to South and about 3000m East to West ........ nice :D

The range we use now has a minimum dimension of about 500m across. According to UKRA Safety Code 3.7.2 we need either a launch site of 120m across (for C motors) OR the equivalent to the height the rocket will fly .... in our case about 450m ..... whichever is greater ! We should be fine with our lower flying rockets , but the high altitude stuff is pushing things to the edge, hence that small incursion into the adjacent field last time !

Paul
 
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