Some Flights

[aerostadt]

Our local UROC had our semi-annual NAR Competition last weekend. Our organizer Bruce had a good qualification flight as usual with his scratch-built E-Boost Glider. I finally got a qualified E-Boost Glider for the first time using a J&H Aerospace Wind Lance. I first painted it with fluorescent orange, then sanded it, and then gave a slight clear coat to seal the balsa. I had one E9 left in my inventory, so I took the risk and launched it. It was from lot number A 09 15 14, which has been known to have Cato's. Josh at J&H recommends using a D12 for this model, but he does say that the adventurous can try an E9. So, I figured what the heck. That was my last E9. Others said that the flight was a little wild on the boost, but then settled down. I had a long guide wire that may have had a little bit of rod whip. I told Josh that my Wind Lance did not do so well in hand toss trials, so he said that it was time for down-flap. So, I built some down-flap into the forward canard. I got a good qualified flight with a time duration of 3:44. It was a fun flight. My thanks to Bruce for timing the glider and retrieval.

 

[aerostadt]

We had the A-Rocket Glider competition, which is a NRC Event for this year. Bruce went with a scratch-built model that had a tail up-flap (decaledge) activated by a burn-through thread. I went commercial with an Apogee Cirrus Breeze also activated with a burn-through thread to pull a sliding wing forward. From hand tosses I decided to put in a lit bit of decaledge on the rear tail by bending up the end of the tail by hand. After failing twice to get the sliding wing back far enough by tying the burn-thread in place, I put a small drop of CA to hold the thread in place and finished tying. The burn thread worked good on both gliders and Bruce got a qualified time. I would have had a time of about 36 seconds, however, when I got to the model, I found the nose come was blown off for a DQ.

 

[aerostadt]

It was a beautiful day with clear skies and no wind. Doug launched several helicopter rockets that worked good with long hang times. However, they were test flights and no time duration were taken. Unfortunately, I did not get any flight pictures. I tried an Apogee Thermal Sailor in an Apogee Tower for a straight up flight for the 1/2A Parachute Duration. Unfortunately, the parachute did not come out. I packed the chute with paper wadding. Afterwards, Bruce pointed out that I should have used a foam plug. When I got home, I found that I had some foam plugs in my inventory. Live and Learn.

 

[aerostadt]

Bruce had a successful Egg Loft flight test using just a short home-made tower and no piston. He says he will try a piston next. I had a qualified B-Streamer Duration using a Q-Jet B6-6 with a streamer ejected with an Apogee 18 mm foam plug. It took 3 tries to ignite the Q-jet. The first time I used the micro igniter that came with motor, but I realize now that I did not put the igniter into the motor far enough. For the second attempt I used an Aerotech First-Fire that made a large flash, but did not fire the motor. I then used a straightened paper clip to maybe wipe away all the soot and I realized that the open bore of the Q-jet is very long. Live and Learn. The Q-jet is a composite motor with a long bore. For the third attempt I put in the remaining micro-igniter and got a successful launch. The rocket went straight up from the tower and I got a qualified 65.7 second streamer duration.

 

[BEC]

Cool stuff.

Parachute duration is not easy to do reliably. I learned a huge amount from Terrill Willard's vNARCON presentation (on the NAR YouTube channel). Applying what I learned from him as best I could led me to come in second in 1/4A PD at NARAM-64 and win B Eggloft Duration. I highly recommend it.

I need to see what Josh Finn has for A rocket glider...

 

[TheAviator]

Thanks for the report! Always fun to see other folks doing NRC competition.

 

[aerostadt]

Our local UROC had another NAR competition last Saturday. I was in good company with experienced competitors Bruce Bell, Doug Hilson, and Matt Steele. I successfully launched my J & H Aerospace Wind Lance again this time with an E12-4 for a time duration of 181 seconds. This was less gliding time than what I had last Fall, being just slightly over 3 minutes. On the way up the Boost Glider was turning spirals. The motor lot number is C 23 10 23. So far I have been pretty lucky with E motors. I've attached Bruce's E-Boost Glider below.

 

[aerostadt]

I found the J & H Aerospace Wind Lance to be a lot of fun. I tend to think that hand tossing gliders is not a keen indicator of how a boost glider will behave in flight, but it might give some idea of what to do to improve the glider. I decided to glue-in some down-flaps on the Wind Lance. I believe this has helped a lot on the two flights that I have made.

 

[aerostadt]

I tried out my new North Coast Rocketry Launch Master with a 3-cell Lipo battery. I bought the charger, which can plug into the side of controller without taking the battery out. The system worked good. It is somewhat expensive, but other controllers are expensive, too, if you buy a car battery to go with it. The Lipo battery is small and self-contained in the controller, which makes it very convenient. I brought another controller along with the car battery to the launch as a back-up, but I left it in the car.

 

[aerostadt]

I had 2 DQ's this time. Last October, I blew off the nose cone on my Cirrus Breeze for the A-Rocket glider competition. This time I ejected the motor. I should have brought some thread to make a second attempt. For the B-Payload event I had only a small piece of masking tape holding on the nose cone, so that I lost both the payload and the altimeter. Again, I should have been better prepared. For the B-Payload I used the Q-Jet B6-6W. The first time with the Q-Jet I used poster putty to hold the igniter in place. That didn't work. The second time I used the funny-looking plastic triangle piece wedged into the clay nozzle. The igniter was inserted all the way forward. Ignition was quick and the B-Payload went straight up. I launched B-Streamer Duration model on an Estes B6-6 and my time was only 7 seconds less than Bruce's time.

 

[aerostadt]

Our club included Sport scale as one of the events. I dusted off my old 1/122 scale Saturn V that I built to match the scale of the Altira N-1, which is on another TRF thread. I know that I have launched this Saturn V at least once before successfully probably with a few small broken parts. I launched again on an F50-6 and it flew straight up like a bat out of hell. I found one broken clear fin near the landing spot and I couldn't find the other fin. I had one of the F-1 model engines at the landing spot. The fins are in slots and can be easily replaced. Also, the nozzle can easily be put back into place. I was awarded 790 points for Sport Scale.

 

[terryg]

I like the escape tower! A perfect compromise between having the right profile and being able to recover it after the flight.

 

[aerostadt]

The 2024-2025 NRC Events are as follows:

2024-2025 NRC events​

The following events have been chosen for the 2024-2025 NRC;

• ¼ A Streamer Duration
• ½ A Altitude
• A Payload Altitude
• B Rocket Glider Duration
• B Helicopter Duration
• D Dual Egg Lofting Altitude

 

[ReynoldsSlumber]

2024-2025 NRC events

• ¼ A Streamer Duration
• ½ A Altitude
• A Payload Altitude
• B Rocket Glider Duration
• B Helicopter Duration
• D Dual Egg Lofting Altitude

Hmm, for D dual eggloft altitude, what are the motors of choice there?

• D12-3 24mm Estes
• D13-4 18mm Aerotech RMS
• D22-4 24mm Q-Jet

Since the D16-4 and D20-4 18mm Q-Jets are well under a full D...

Wonder whether a C11-0/C6-3 (or -5) 2-stager could be competitive? With staging, it would mean ditching the mass and base drag of a 24mm booster motor so that the upper stage would be more lithe, including having smaller fins, for higher airspeed. Perhaps not, given the higher liftoff mass... but would be a bold entry in any case.

 

[BEC]

Hmm, for D dual eggloft altitude, what are the motors of choice there?

• D12-3 24mm Estes
• D13-4 18mm Aerotech RMS
• D22-4 24mm Q-Jet

Since the D16-4 and D20-4 18mm Q-Jets are well under a full D...

Wonder whether a C11-0/C6-3 (or -5) 2-stager could be competitive? With staging, it would mean ditching the mass and base drag of a 24mm booster motor so that the upper stage would be more lithe, including having smaller fins, for higher airspeed. Perhaps not, given the higher liftoff mass... but would be a bold entry in any case.

For single stage, I'd think the D22W Q-jet would be the way to go, if for no other reason than it's the closest to a full D available and it doesn't have the mass of a metal case. It also packs a pretty good punch. There is also a D Blue Thunder load for the 24/40 case — it's a 19 N-s D15. The extra mass of the case would be a negative... Another would be the D24 Blue Thunder reload for the 18/20 case. It's 18 N-s and has a nice kick off the pad.

In B Payload altitude (using the 28g of sand in a BT-19 tube payload) the hot setup is a two-stager since both stages can be 13mm motors. Not sure C11 to C6 would be worth it for D Dual Eggloft. 17.6 N-s total and more mass. How about a cluster of two C12 Q-jets? That'd be 19.6 N-s and the C12 seems to be a magic motor for many C impulse things.

I don't need to be worrying about this yet — I haven't got all my models for this year's NARAM done yet!

 

[ReynoldsSlumber]

For single stage, I'd think the D22W Q-jet would be the way to go, if for no other reason than it's the closest to a full D available and it doesn't have the mass of a metal case. It also packs a pretty good punch. There is also a D Blue Thunder load for the 24/40 case — it's a 19 N-s D15. The extra mass of the case would be a negative... Another would be the D24 Blue Thunder reload for the 18/20 case. It's 18 N-s and has a nice kick off the pad.

In B Payload altitude (using the 28g of sand in a BT-19 tube payload) the hot setup is a two-stager since both stages can be 13mm motors. Not sure C11 to C6 would be worth it for D Dual Eggloft. 17.6 N-s total and more mass. How about a cluster of two C12 Q-jets? That'd be 19.6 N-s and the C12 seems to be a magic motor for many C impulse things.

I don't need to be worrying about this yet — I haven't got all my models for this year's NARAM done yet!

To add to general worry , I was playing with ideas for clustered and parallel staged egglofters. Don't think I ran across any terribly competitive configurations, though the thought of a 2X A10-3T clustered setup for this year's B eggloft altitude NARAM event is intriguing. Especially if it's windy such that high initial thrust setups would be favored. Could even do an A10-3T + A10-PT combo to save a few tenths of a gram, ha.

 

[BEC]

I'm still hoping the B14T Q-jets become available in time for B Eggloft Altitude. Otherwise I'll be using Estes B6s.

Clustered A10-3Ts. Hmmmm...... That gives up more than a full N-s, though, as A10s are 2.0 N-s.

 

[aerostadt]

Our local UROC section had another NAR competition last Saturday (2024 UROC Fall Open). For Sports Scale I pulled out my standard Aerospace Specialty Products Wac Corporal, except this time I painted one silver fin black to match the configuration shown "Rockets of the World" by Alway. Matt Steele had a beautiful Artemis scale model.

 

[aerostadt]

For B-Helicopter I flew the Apogee Gyro Chaser on a B6-6W. Unfortunately, upon ejection one blade broke off and another blade joint broke for a DQ. The good thing was that I slightly bent the tip of the Quest First Fire Micro initiator for a prompt ignition of the B6. Matt had a beautiful Helicopter rocket launching from a piston that performed excellently.

 

[aerostadt]

Bruce and Doug flew scratch models for B-Boost Glider and I flew an Apogee Stratus Gale. All 3 models used a sliding wing pulled by a rubber band and held in place by a burn string. I flew with an B4-2 and got a flight duration of only 21 seconds. Bruce had a good time of 61 seconds. My model was probably not trimmed correctly and at first was turning very circles without much lift.

 

[aerostadt]

Bruce and I have chosen E-Boost Glider as a UFO Contest Event. Bruce has now built an J&H Aerospace Wind Lance like mine, except with no built-in flap adjustments. He flew it on a test flight with a D12-3, but it came straight down, however, with no damage. This leads me to think that the Wind Lance needs some kind of adjustment as I show in Post #8. My adjustment may be too much flap and the take-off has a large corkscrew flight which with an E12-4 (lot C23-10-23) is spectacular against a blue sky. This is my 3rd flight with the Wind Lance and so far flight duration has been less each time. This time I got 122 seconds. Bruce flew his own design and got a duration of 72 seconds.

 

[aerostadt]

I flew a 13 mm rocket for the 1/2 A-Altitude using a 1/2 A3-4T motor and a Adrel Max Alt altimeter from North Coast Rocketry. The Adrel altimeter and battery fits into a 13 mm tube and is easy to use. As shown by NCR I threaded a kevlar string through the altimeter and easily attached it to the payload section. I bought a USB charger/adapter from NCR which can both charge the battery and download the data.

 

[aerostadt]

I was fortunate to have Matt Steele, President of NCR, present to show me how easy it is to download the Adrel altimeter to my laptop computer using the USB port. After downloading the data and pulling up the screen we just pressed the filter button and the time history of the rocket and maximum altitude came up immediately. My 1/2 A-Altitude entry recorded an altitude of 136.7 meters for the event.