I admit that I didn’t plan my activities at this launch very well. I have a project complete but I’m waiting to debut it, and the other new rocket only has paint, no decals or clearcoat. I probably should have pivoted to fly with DART that morning instead. Still, it was fun to bring my Fliskits Doubles out and turn heads with it.
I hadn’t finished my rod adapter when I went out, so I did that both at my camp and at the rack. After cutting the music wire down to size and straightening it to my satisfaction, I loaded the doubles up on pad B6. With no continuity, the LCO crew was kind enough to hold my flight card while I went back to camp to swap the igniter. When the new one also did not get current, I kept the rocket on B6 while hooking it up to the B5 clips.
Volunteers and flyers alike seemed interested in it, with one recognizing it as a MicroMaxx kit. My neighbor on the pad, hooking up to B7 I believe, took one look at it and busted out laughing in what I assumed was a good-natured sort of way.
The Doubles lifted off the pad in single-stage configuration with the soft hiss characteristic of MicroMaxx motors. The nose popped but the streamer got snagged in the end of the tube and singed a bit. As another user (I believe it was @Antares JS ), discovered and I suspected would also prove true for me, the thing is pretty much immune to crash damage and it survived a core sample landing with only the lip of the tube being a bit flattened. Clearly I need to work on my packing technique in this tube, but it worked fine as a nose-blow recovery rocket and I got it back.
Even if I wanted to mess around with the booster, I couldn’t. One of the fins had snapped off in transit and gotten buried in my smaller range box, so I’ll have to find or recut it and replace it. Currently I’m thinking that future builds at this scale will have bendable cardstock fins instead of balsa.
View attachment trim.4DB4623B-0ABC-4E0E-97D3-23F39BB12715.MOV
I’m hoping to get the booster ready in time to test-fly the two-stage configuration with DART on Sunday. I’ve got a stock of MicroMaxx II-NE motors for the booster, but if that fails I have some extra standard MMX motors that I can also try.
Worst-case scenario is that I secure a location where I can break the rules a bit and (carefully, I promise) remove the ejection/delay charge from the booster motor.
Also flying today was an Estes Goblin kit built by my girlfriend and christened “America’s A**” for its Captain America-inspired paint scheme. Today I sent it up on a D12 with her blessing to take advantage of that high ceiling at Lucerne. No picture, sadly. The heat of the moment at launch, trying to communicate a last-minute switch of igniter leads, meant that I was a bit distracted. In its place, enjoy this photo of America’s A flying on a C11-3 at LDRS this summer (credit to Curtis Heisey)
That was it! Not a lot of flying today, but I learned a little bit about flying MicroMaxx, and the continuity snafus also demonstrated to me how important it is to carry a bit of sandpaper to the pads. Maybe I’ll grab a nail file at Target or something.
I hadn’t finished my rod adapter when I went out, so I did that both at my camp and at the rack. After cutting the music wire down to size and straightening it to my satisfaction, I loaded the doubles up on pad B6. With no continuity, the LCO crew was kind enough to hold my flight card while I went back to camp to swap the igniter. When the new one also did not get current, I kept the rocket on B6 while hooking it up to the B5 clips.
Volunteers and flyers alike seemed interested in it, with one recognizing it as a MicroMaxx kit. My neighbor on the pad, hooking up to B7 I believe, took one look at it and busted out laughing in what I assumed was a good-natured sort of way.
The Doubles lifted off the pad in single-stage configuration with the soft hiss characteristic of MicroMaxx motors. The nose popped but the streamer got snagged in the end of the tube and singed a bit. As another user (I believe it was @Antares JS ), discovered and I suspected would also prove true for me, the thing is pretty much immune to crash damage and it survived a core sample landing with only the lip of the tube being a bit flattened. Clearly I need to work on my packing technique in this tube, but it worked fine as a nose-blow recovery rocket and I got it back.
Even if I wanted to mess around with the booster, I couldn’t. One of the fins had snapped off in transit and gotten buried in my smaller range box, so I’ll have to find or recut it and replace it. Currently I’m thinking that future builds at this scale will have bendable cardstock fins instead of balsa.
View attachment trim.4DB4623B-0ABC-4E0E-97D3-23F39BB12715.MOV
I’m hoping to get the booster ready in time to test-fly the two-stage configuration with DART on Sunday. I’ve got a stock of MicroMaxx II-NE motors for the booster, but if that fails I have some extra standard MMX motors that I can also try.
Worst-case scenario is that I secure a location where I can break the rules a bit and (carefully, I promise) remove the ejection/delay charge from the booster motor.
Also flying today was an Estes Goblin kit built by my girlfriend and christened “America’s A**” for its Captain America-inspired paint scheme. Today I sent it up on a D12 with her blessing to take advantage of that high ceiling at Lucerne. No picture, sadly. The heat of the moment at launch, trying to communicate a last-minute switch of igniter leads, meant that I was a bit distracted. In its place, enjoy this photo of America’s A flying on a C11-3 at LDRS this summer (credit to Curtis Heisey)
That was it! Not a lot of flying today, but I learned a little bit about flying MicroMaxx, and the continuity snafus also demonstrated to me how important it is to carry a bit of sandpaper to the pads. Maybe I’ll grab a nail file at Target or something.
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