Sharon's Sparkler

[Wayco]

Had a great day of flying with our home club TRA/PHX last weekend. I got to fly two "Sharon's Sparkler" loads, one in a 54/2550 casing that one of the Embry-Riddle students got pictures of. Sorry that I didn't get his name, but the pictures are awesome!
This is my minimum diameter Blackhawk 54 called Silver streak, flying on an L1001 SS2 load using a fly away rail guide.
We have ignition:

About half way through the 3 second burn time:

If you look closely, you can see the fly away rail guide in the plume about ten feet down on the right.
I have a couple more pictures, but am having trouble loading them.

This flight went to 14,384 ft. It probably would have gone higher if it was the "Not Your Wimpy Red" load I thought it was, but now we know where the Sharon's sparkler motor went too... It's pretty bad when you can't keep track of all the motors you built.

 

[TBob]

Beautiful! I hope to see some of this propellant burning at AirFest this year.

 

[Wayco]

We flew it last year for LDRS in a 75/6000 casing, small M motor. I'm hoping we can upscale it to a 98 for this years Airfest.

 

[watheyak]

I got to see it in person. It also sounds incredible!

 

[blackjack2564]

Nice work Sharon.

 

[Hardline]

Nice work Sharon.

Thanks CJ!

I'm really happy with it and like Wayco said above, I'm working up a 98mm version for my Gizmo XL to be launched at Airfest 2020

 

[Exactimator]

Impressive! Nicely done.

On another subject, I think I found a K for the Fairly Fast Finch. You should bring Rapid Ditty to Havoc in March.

 

[warnerr]

great looking propellant Sharon! Tell Wayco to fly his own propellants! Lol!

 

[Hardline]

great looking propellant Sharon! Tell Wayco to fly his own propellants! Lol!

Haha Warner!

Actually we work together as a team. I set up the propellant formula (standing on alot of peoples shoulders it must be said) and what we will be casting based upon what mandrels and caps we have and what motors we want to make. Wayne mixes the formula from the batch sheet I give him and cuts the casting tubes to size. We work together to cast and clean up. Wayne usually does the measurements and density tests. I work up the motor configuration in burn sim and Wayne cuts the liners and we make the motors together. I do the paperwork for our testing and documentation.

Then we both fly the motors in our various rockets. We usually fly together since in most of our rockets we have both an eggfinder and a featherweight gps along with a CSI tracker and video the ignition and flight for timing and Wayne follows with the binoculars. That's alot of gear and requires two people. Then the write-up and debrief of what we both saw. It is going to get more complicated now that we have a Pico from AMW so we can start calculating thrust curves. (https://cart.amwprox.com/index.php?...mart_product_id=404&virtuemart_category_id=56)

It isn't easy to keep track of all this data. Case in point is that his Silver Streak was supposed to be flying our Not Your Wimpy Red load and NOT my Sharon Sparkler II (sharon sparker 1 didn't do so go, hence "SS II"). Somewhere along the way, even though we have a numbering system for our Research cases and nozzles, he managed to put in the wrong casing......

 

[Hardline]

Impressive! Nicely done.

On another subject, I think I found a K for the Fairly Fast Finch. You should bring Rapid Ditty to Havoc in March.

Mark, Wayne already has a K in Rapiddity and set up for the Holtville Havoc. See you soon!

 

[ozwald]

Nice work Sharon. That's sure a sparkly sparky