No pictures but a funny thing happened.

[LtSharpe]

Launched my stormcaster today again on some d12-5's First launch was fine, but in the second launch somehow the rocket's fins got caught on my alligator clip leads(I have 3 because one clamps to the rod as an antenna for the wireless controller). I always make sure they aren't in the way but I must have overlooked something. Got back my usual 250 to 300 feet or so and hit my throttle, for a fraction of an instant it appeared nothing was going to happen then it whooshed up but got yanked back as the 12 ft or so of heavy extension cord trailed behind it ran out with only the controller still on the ground. At this point it made a mighty 'whip turn' maneuver and lifted the controller off and traveled about 40 feet to the north of the pad trailing the controller and 12 feet of heavy cable. Before it crashed it slung the controller and cable free about 30 feet away. Rocket landed nose first, laid down, and popped it's chute.

When I watched I thought it had gotten stuck on the rod and took the pad with it but when I got up close to the pad I saw obviously that it was still there but my wireless controller wasn't! doh! Saw the rocket in an adjoining pasture, and saw the white of my controllers extension cable aways away. Controller got whammed into the ground like a whip but was fine. Rocket had some nose cone dirt but was unharmed.

It was just about one of the funniest things I've seen in awhile although at the time I was not amused.

Neighbor however who was about 500 feet behind me and apparently watching, let out a mighty shout of glee at my misfortune. hehehehe

By the way, I launched a third time and the controller still worked, it wasn't damaged. The grass it got slammed into was tall and thick. It's in a metal enclosure box so it's quite sturdy. First thing I did when it happened was I reached into my pocket to see if I had the launch pad rod cap which I did. I would have felt REAL stupid if I'd left it on...

 

[rstaff3]

LOL Something similar happened to me after I became a BAR. I had converted a plastic Shuttle kit and had added spars with fins to help with stability. It snagged a clip and yanked my Estes controller out of my hand, breaking it apart. I took the opportunity to build my own controller

 

[Planet Andy]

Nowhere near as spectacular as your event but last Saturday I got my C Biscuit (fat boy) all hooked up, turned to walk to the controller, not knowing I was tangled in the wire and yanked the whole pad so the Biscuit's launch lug and some paper tube were separated from the airframe... Doh! Really!

Andy

 

[LtSharpe]

As a kid I did launch one with the rod cap on, I think it actually lifted it a few feet as I recall. The more I think about this recent event the more I'm amazed at the power in these little D engines. The fence it had to go over to the adjoining pasture is about 5 feet, the cable was 12 ft so it had to have lifted the controller, cable and itself at least 17 feet in the air to clear the fence. You see I was launching in a lane down the middle of two pastures. It's funny how so much can happen in a only a couple seconds.

 

[cummins]

Acouple of months ago we went to launch some rockets on lunch. My friend decided he was going to launch his scrach built 7 motor cluster. we thought we were good when we tied the Launch cables to the pad. At ignition only four of the motors lit. we are geussing that the fource of the four motors caused the rocket to hang on the rod because when the rocket laned 20 feet from where it and the pad launched from the rod was bent about five inches from the legs of the pad. The rod was bent to a 45 degree angle. Here is the picture right before it hit the ground.

 

[wwattles]

THAT....

HANDS DOWN....

Is one of the FUNNIEST rocket pictures I've ever seen in my LIFE!

The launch pad hanging off the back of the rocket...
The 4 motors all burning their little hearts out...
The ignition wires falling back to the ground...

Truly priceless!

WW

 

[rstaff3]

Great pic

 

[DynaSoar]

I didn't get a picture of it happening, but you can look at this one from a different launch and just imagine.

I was preparing to launch this very long rocket on an F21. It has 3/16" lugs. The upper one you can just barely see, just even with my jacket pocket flap.

As we were getting ready to launch, the wind picked up. The rod started bending as the wind blew it. I was afraid the rocket would bind on the rod. We waited until the wind calmed down and tried to launch it. But just then the wind picked up again, and did bind it on the rod.

It sat there stuck on the pad while the entire F21 burned itself up. When it was done trhe wond settled down. But of course we had to wait for the ejection. Finally it went off and blew the nose and out popped the chute. And then, the wind picked up again.

Before I could get out to the pad, the wind started pulling the chute, which pulled the rocket on the rod. The rod bent a bit until finally, that long length of BT60 gave at a weak spot and folded. The aft end was still on the pad, the forward end of the body was touching the ground, and the chute was dancing away at the end of the shock cord.

When I was leaving I thanked them (an out of town club) for letting me fly with them. And they thanked me for the entertainment.

No big deal. There's already 3 couplers in that long tube. A cut with the razor saw, a 4th coupler to fix it, and it'll be ready to fly again.

 

[kelltym88]

Cummins:
I was going to say that I had a rocket try to take the launch pad with it one time, but it was kind of un-eventful. Your picture is hands down the winner. That was awesome!!

 

[rokitflite]

I had a good one about... Jeeze... 25 years ago. My Estes Renegade was on its maiden flight. Either my launch rod was bent or the lugs were not on straight. In either case, the rod was NOT firmly in the launch pad. The rocket had an excellent flight several hundred feet up over the parking lot. The chute popped a little farther after apogee then I would have preferred, but everything looked good. My friend went to put his rocket on the launch pad and discovered there was no launch rod. Just as he went "Hey!" there was a loud metallic "CHING-GA-DINGA-DINGA" about 100 feet behind us in the parking lot. The rod was DEFINATELY bent after that... What I learned... Launch rods make very poor boost gliders.

 

[jflis]

These are great! I've read threads that have been started about rocket mishaps and they typically seem to turn into "cato threads" real quick. I was going to start a thread about strange mishaps that do NOT involve CATO's... ...looks like this is it

My most horific was the maiden flight of my first Satrun V models when I was about 13-14 up in Schroon Lake, NY with my grand dad. This was the Saturn V that had a removable engine mount so you could fly it as a 3 motor cluster or with a single "Mighty D" motor (D13's at the time).

Perfect boost, perfect arc, right at apogee I saw the ejection charge go off and the motor mount come *shooting* out the rear of the model. I knew right then that it was "all over"... ...ick.

As for launch pad mishaps, i've had a few, but nothing beats that pic of the rocket, pad, rod, wires, controller sailing out of frame to the right! LOL The only thing missing would have been a frightened little kid hanging onto the controller for all he's worth! LOL

 

[jetra2]

Alrighty...I can't beat most of these...but I've had a few mishaps or seen some cool ones!

Back when I was young (8-10, I think), I built a Masters Series Space Shuttle (full stack). Shoved a C6-3 in the aft end, and went back to press the button. Lifted off fine to about 30 feet, then took a HARD right and went horizontal. No idea what happened, but it stayed horizontal til ejection and everything came down nicely without a scratch. We decided that we weren't gonna do THAT again that day!

Another one I remember is seeing an Estes Nightwing or SR-71 take off, then flip over on it's back to go horizontal, then flip over once again as the thrust died off, and this thing flew like a rocket powered airplane for a LONG ways, maybe 300 feet before the ejection charge went off. It was really coool!



Jason

 

[urbanek]

Right after I got into rocketry again, I went to visit my parents. They were instrumental in getting me started all those years ago. I brought my launch pad, and Estes launch controller (that I'd added more batteries to), and my AeroTech Mustang.

We went the same launch spot we used when I was 12: the Old Moab Airport. I flew a couple of small rockets, and then put the Mustang on the pad with an F20. Mind you, they'd never seen anything bigger than a D ever before.

So we did the countdown, I hit the button, the motor lit, right on cue. The rocket climbed, and then I felt a tug on the launch controller. At that instant, the rocket veered sharply away from me and flew horizontally. The wire for the controller was almost straight up when I noticed anything else wrong, and it rotated until the wire draped over my shoulder and the microclips landed 30' behind me.

The red cap had not been blown off. The motor just burned a hole in it, and continued to hold tight to the copperhead. The micro-clips had held firmly to the copperhead too, until the rocket pulled everything taut.

No harm was done to anyone, but it was an odd flight. After that, I made sure the wires were fastened to the launch pad, and the ignitor is NOT firmly attached to the rocket.

urbanek

 

[rstaff3]

I am constantly amazed at the holding capability of a little masking tape (except when your hardware depends on it, of course ). I wanted to test my foam FatBoy (Fat Boi-nk) for EMRR's boink rocket contest. It was a HPR launch and I used a dipped igniter (free kit and found wire, so what the hey) on the C6 motor. To keep the igniter in, I taped it to the motor. At launch it barely got off the rod, and never came loose from the clips. Won closest to the pad that day.

 

[wwattles]

Originally posted by rstaff3
I am constantly amazed at the holding capability of a little masking tape (except when your hardware depends on it, of course ). I wanted to test my foam FatBoy (Fat Boi-nk) for EMRR's boink rocket contest. It was a HPR launch and I used a dipped igniter (free kit and found wire, so what the hey) on the C6 motor. To keep the igniter in, I taped it to the motor. At launch it barely got off the rod, and never came loose from the clips. Won closest to the pad that day.

But did it go "Boink"?

 

[rstaff3]

Er...kinda...there is much more boink when it flies over ~5 feet

 

[11bravo]

The first and only flight of my little Mosquito was when it was about 12 years old, the rocket not me, I was about 20 at the time.
A friend and I decided to see what it would do.
Put an equally old motor in it.
At the time ignitors were held in with those little orange tape discs which we couldn't find so we used a bit 'o duct tape.
Climbed about 5 feet then either went over pressure because of the tape or just went bang because it was so old, but the whole thing just exploded.
Little pieces of blaze orange balsa and cardboard drifted to the ground.
Was a surprisingly loud bang.
One and only CATO to date.

Thanks for letting me share,

Greg

Sorry it involved a CATO, but I haven't had anyting else that would even come close to qualifying.

 

[Gus]

Cummins,

Thanks for sharing one of the truly great rocket pictures of all time.

 

[Joshua]

There's no way I can top that (yet), but I did have a scratchbuilt Estes Invader bind on the rod one time. It was a homemade launch lug that came out a tad small and some dirt found its way in there... Naturally, my flying buddy had all his cousins out there that day...

 

[sandman]

At NARAM43 with EVERYBODY watching I had my Starship Nova sputter slooooly up the rod with psssts and pops all the way up with what took over 3 seconds for it to reach the top.

As soon as it left the rod it just fell to the ground.

Then the parachute popped out.

This was an old motor I had been using on my workbench as a "tool".

NOT reccomended!

 

[Jerry Irvine]

Originally posted by Cummins
the pad launched from the rod was bent about five inches from the legs of the pad. The rod was bent to a 45 degree angle. Here is the picture right before it hit the ground.

I have had that happen DOZENS of times but I admit that is the best photo of the issue I have seen.

Kudos sir

Jerry