Wow... eventful day yesterday...
I went out to fly a couple small rockets and hang out at the launch. I also wanted to pick up an L850W for my 4" Arcas (it needs more power!) and a 3" nose cone to complete the nose cone of my Nike-Smoke (I'm working on it, I swear!).
It was cold with overcast at about 4000 feet. I decided to hold off on prepping anything, hoping the weather would turn for the better. In the meantime, I helped a couple people with their L1 certs (including my friend who recently turned 18) and helping out my friend Kurt Gugisberg with his "Big Dumb Rocket". Big Dumb flew on an L952W and was also supposed to have 3x J420 Redlines to get the rocket off the pad faster. Unfortunately, at launch, all three Js chuffed and ended up not lighting. The 65 lb rocket took off the pad S-L-O-W-L-Y on the L alone (give props to that motor!) with a T/W of about 2:1. Apparently, this was not enough to arm the accelerometers, as the Big Dumb Rocket turned over at apogee and came in ballistic. It hurt to watch this -- BDR flew on the first M motor I had ever seen, and was the first "really big" rocket I ever saw. Kurt plans to rebuild -- the aft 3 feet of the booster was untouched. We tried to convinced him to turn it into an N-M 2-stager with another rocket on top. Who knows...
Bill Farr was also at this launch. This guy flies like a madman. He did four or five rockets, including a two-stager, and a 6" rocket with 2x K485TW motors airstarting 2x I154Js, with same-end dual deployment. His last flight of the day (he "squeezed it in" -- yeah, 9200 feet of squeezing!) was a 4" rocket on a 3" K560W. And he got em all back 100% intact. Ya gotta love it.
My 3 flights of the day were a LOC IV on an H165R, my modified Phobos on an H180W (giving it a rest from its diet of fast J motors), and my brand shiny new Inspector Gadget on a Cesaroni J285 (perfect flight -- this one will LOVE a K1100T!). I prepped and flew all of these in about a 2.5 hr span. And they all worked. And they all need more power! I plan on doing a J275W in Inspector Gadget at the next launch. Probably. Either that or a K550W in my Arcas.
Or both.
Pictures at: https://tinyurl.com/z88m
I went out to fly a couple small rockets and hang out at the launch. I also wanted to pick up an L850W for my 4" Arcas (it needs more power!) and a 3" nose cone to complete the nose cone of my Nike-Smoke (I'm working on it, I swear!).
It was cold with overcast at about 4000 feet. I decided to hold off on prepping anything, hoping the weather would turn for the better. In the meantime, I helped a couple people with their L1 certs (including my friend who recently turned 18) and helping out my friend Kurt Gugisberg with his "Big Dumb Rocket". Big Dumb flew on an L952W and was also supposed to have 3x J420 Redlines to get the rocket off the pad faster. Unfortunately, at launch, all three Js chuffed and ended up not lighting. The 65 lb rocket took off the pad S-L-O-W-L-Y on the L alone (give props to that motor!) with a T/W of about 2:1. Apparently, this was not enough to arm the accelerometers, as the Big Dumb Rocket turned over at apogee and came in ballistic. It hurt to watch this -- BDR flew on the first M motor I had ever seen, and was the first "really big" rocket I ever saw. Kurt plans to rebuild -- the aft 3 feet of the booster was untouched. We tried to convinced him to turn it into an N-M 2-stager with another rocket on top. Who knows...
Bill Farr was also at this launch. This guy flies like a madman. He did four or five rockets, including a two-stager, and a 6" rocket with 2x K485TW motors airstarting 2x I154Js, with same-end dual deployment. His last flight of the day (he "squeezed it in" -- yeah, 9200 feet of squeezing!) was a 4" rocket on a 3" K560W. And he got em all back 100% intact. Ya gotta love it.
My 3 flights of the day were a LOC IV on an H165R, my modified Phobos on an H180W (giving it a rest from its diet of fast J motors), and my brand shiny new Inspector Gadget on a Cesaroni J285 (perfect flight -- this one will LOVE a K1100T!). I prepped and flew all of these in about a 2.5 hr span. And they all worked. And they all need more power! I plan on doing a J275W in Inspector Gadget at the next launch. Probably. Either that or a K550W in my Arcas.
Or both.
Pictures at: https://tinyurl.com/z88m
