Salvage-1
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- Mar 17, 2012
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At our 'big' annual research launch, I organize the competitions.
This year, I had a request to do something a little different and which would be open to most fliers who attended.
Sooooo......
"ShredStes - The great PSII Massacre!"
There were two categories, open and stock. Estes PSII kits only.
Stock, had to be 'as is' from the bag, only alterations could be to include an altimeter, but no metal parts. 29mm MMT
Open, has to look exactly as it appears on the kit card, but can include any MMT and internal alterations.
I did not expect this to run away as it did.
I saw gravel as nose weight,
full wrap and tip to tip with 3/4 ounce cloth (barely noticeable),
carbon plate INSIDE the molded plastic fins,
Star Orbiter with balsa fins that had been DIPPED fully into CA to soak them (felt like FG),
and a lot more.
22 entries total over both categories, but there were a lot more that tried a test flight first and failed...
4 of those entries actually survived.
10 of them seemed to hit Mach. Perfect boost, accelerating then boom, no fins!!
As these were all small rockets, with 'small' motors, we saw only one that posed a fire risk, and the debris from all the failed flights was contained to the HPR cells
Just putting this up here as I thought there may be a few more slightly evil competition organizers out there...
oh..... and ALL the entrants requested this competition comes back next year!!
(pics to follow when available)
This year, I had a request to do something a little different and which would be open to most fliers who attended.
Sooooo......
"ShredStes - The great PSII Massacre!"
There were two categories, open and stock. Estes PSII kits only.
Stock, had to be 'as is' from the bag, only alterations could be to include an altimeter, but no metal parts. 29mm MMT
Open, has to look exactly as it appears on the kit card, but can include any MMT and internal alterations.
I did not expect this to run away as it did.
I saw gravel as nose weight,
full wrap and tip to tip with 3/4 ounce cloth (barely noticeable),
carbon plate INSIDE the molded plastic fins,
Star Orbiter with balsa fins that had been DIPPED fully into CA to soak them (felt like FG),
and a lot more.
22 entries total over both categories, but there were a lot more that tried a test flight first and failed...
4 of those entries actually survived.
10 of them seemed to hit Mach. Perfect boost, accelerating then boom, no fins!!
As these were all small rockets, with 'small' motors, we saw only one that posed a fire risk, and the debris from all the failed flights was contained to the HPR cells
Just putting this up here as I thought there may be a few more slightly evil competition organizers out there...
oh..... and ALL the entrants requested this competition comes back next year!!
(pics to follow when available)