Personal Launch Report - OROC Spring Thunder Launch, May 16-18, 2014, Brothers OR

[AlnessW]

Copied from our local email lists:

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Awesome launch last weekend! The first “scheduled” Brothers launch of the year was well attended for being a May launch. The weather even cooperated for the better part of the weekend.

Full photo gallery and videos can be found here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/104803117932114302187/SpringThunder2014?authkey=Gv1sRgCLyjvfKP2b2gkQE

Friday morning I activated the waiver for 0800 so the OSU team could launch. Having communicated briefly with them via phone/text I got word that their flight was largely successful, except for a few recovery issues.

Eric Thomas (from the PSAS team) and I headed out around 9:15. Uneventful drive over the pass, arriving in Brothers at 2:30 or so. By the time I got camp set up, got David Holloway’s tower set up, and took care of registration, the wind was howling so flying was not an option. But after finishing prepping a few rockets and catching up with fellow members (not to mention our new TAP) it finally died down.

I’ve had an Apogee Medalist F10 motor sitting in my box for a few years now. It’s a blue thunder endburner, burns about 8 seconds with very low thrust. I had nothing to fly it in up until few weeks ago when I put together a 29mm tube, a nosecone, and some fins. The goal was to watch it go and hope I get it back! Robert Braibish had a new tower to test out, so my rocket was the guinea pig. After a few problems with igniters it finally went up, up, up…and disappeared! Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised.

After dinner and scavenging around for dead sagebrush we had a good time around the campfire that night.

Saturday morning I finish prepping my Binder Design NXRS Commemorative Rocket for its first flight. Chuck Fauser and I were originally going to dragrace ours, but since his rocket wasn’t nearly ready when mine was, plus the fact that he was flying a mid-size J and that I was flying a large K, those plans were scrubbed. Motor of choice was a K805G, another leftover from last year. That motor REALLY got it moving! Great flight to 7747’ and easy recovery about 100 yards off the main entry road.

After putting together a kluged fin can on his GLR Liberty 3 rocket, Eric went for his L1 cert using an H148R. After recovering and passing his L2 test, he was ready for an L2 cert…but the general consensus with fellow rocketeers was that his rocket likely wouldn’t hold up to a J.

Next up was my L3 rocket, a Competitor 4 stretch from Wildman for its test flight. It flew on an L850W, my biggest motor to date, and also my first 75mm. I picked up the reload from the March group order and put it together – felt easier than building most 38mm motors! Put my BRB900 in the nosecone, added the shear pins (yes Fred I do know why they’re important) and she was ready to fly. (Before I knew it, Gary Goncher beat me to the punch with a Nike Smoke on the exact same motor.) Many thanks to Eric Thomas and Tim Ryerse for helping load it on the pad. Thanks to Tim as well for the nice pad photo!

Paul Bogdanich did the honors and the motor took its sweet time to come up to pressure. When it did the rocket roared off the pad and weathercocked a bit on its way to 8213’. Saw the Cert-3 drogue deploy right on top, followed by the big Rocketman 10’ main at 1500’. The whole flight was a thing of beauty as it landed 1.15 miles NW of the flightline. As I headed out in the truck for recovery Robert Braibish offered to accompany me. Many thanks! Fortunately the rocket landed nearby a road and we could see it from there for an easy shag – we were back at camp in 20 minutes. All I need to do now is wipe off the dust and the rocket will be ready for my L3 cert.

Had lunch and cleaned up my usual “mess” back at camp before it got too late in the afternoon. Rob Lamb made a brief appearance to fly a CTI L1395 in a 3” rocket to about 23K. After multiple igniter problems he finally got it off the pad for a cool flight.

Another fun night around the campfire, this time burning more sage and cardboard boxes. After we all went to bed a raging thunder and lightning storm hit us that night.

Likewise with Rocketober last year, Sunday turned out to be the worst weather day of the weekend. Pretty cold and cloudy with occasional rain showers. I think the biggest motor flown that day was a J and the vast majority of Sunday’s flights were low power along with several test flights by a TARC team from Vancouver. Their rocket fared well up until they taped the igniter to the bottom of the rocket…OOPS.

By then attendance was light and I had done the flights I wanted to do, so I packed up camp that morning and hit the road at noon, feeling very satisfied with the weekend. Made it home by 5:00, also driving through some serious rain storms on the way back.

Congratulations to the people who certified L1 at this launch:
David Locke
Mike Schindele
Eric Thomas
David Birch
Neal Forester

And L2!
Charlie Peckham
Max McHatton

Sorry if I forgot anyone…

Thanks everyone for a great launch! See you all at NXRS.

 

[chuck5395]

I'll throw my launch report here as well....
While I did pack a camera, I did not take a single photo this past weekend.

Here is a brief summary of my flights.

Flight #1
Binder Design Thug on a G61W-M
The purpose of this flight was to test out my newly completed Eggfinger 900Mhz GPS tracker. As is the case whenever testing out a locator device, the rocket landed within eyesight of the flight line. I did have perfect radio reception throughout the flight. Just to make me feel better, I pretended I didn't know where it landed and just used the GPS display on my phone to "find" it.

Flight #2
Binder Design NXRS Research Test Vehicle on a J520R
I moved the Eggfinder over to this rocket for this flight. This was my first flight using redundant altimeters, an Adept22 and an Eggtimer. Both performed perfectly. I also left the long delay grain in along with its BP charge. At apogee I could see the three separate charges go off. The Eggfinder kicked off the nosecone at 800 feet, but the main did not pull out. The Adept22 fired at 700 feet and pushed it out for a prefect landing. Again, since it had GPS, it landed just off the main road. The Eggtimer reported apogee at 4,568'. I forgot to write down the apogee of the Adept22 so the Eggtimer must be right.

Flight #3
Ryan's Binder Design Sentenal on a J460T
At this point we discovered we had a problem with the Eggfinder. It wasn't until later that we discovered that the GPS antenna had fallen off of the GPS chip. This pretty much makes the device useless. I've ordered a replacement and had a couple good email exchanges with Cris at Eggtimer Rocketry. It comes down to the fact that I did not have the transmitter properly mounted and so it got bounced around beyond the tolerance of the chip. New kit will be here on Thursday.
Apogee for Ryan's flight was 3,116' as measured by the HighAlt45K.

Flight #4 (Sunday)
Madcow Frenzy on a Loki Research I430LB
After the thunder and lighting of Saturday night, I didn't think I'd be flying any rockets on Sunday, but when I stepped outside that morning, I thought, what the heck. I had the rocket ready to go (using the same e-bay as I used on the NXRS RTV flight) but 9:30. Unfortunately, a very low cloud deck (~1,000') had settled in while I was prepping this flight. The rocket sat out on the pad for almost an hour while we waited for a hole in the clouds. I'm glad I waited because this was a cool motor and the rocket gave off its nice whistle all the way to apogee. All the laundry came out up on top (but that's better then none at all). Nice morning walk for recovery with my best girl. Apogee on the Eggtimer was 2,083' and the Adept22 was 1,981'.

 

[AlnessW]

Thanks for the report! I know that not very many OROC'ers post here, but it great to have contributions.

 

[gdjsky01]

Super!!! Thanks for taking the time and effort to post!!! More please!
:clap:

 

[AlnessW]

Super!!! Thanks for taking the time and effort to post!!! More please!
:clap:

Thank you for the kind words! I do enjoy writing these so this will not be the last time you hear from me.
GoPro pad cam footage of my L850W flight is on its way...