Starlight - Seieron 3

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JAL3

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My first clustered rocket was the Starlight Seieron 3. It does'nt come out of the box too often because most of my flights are of new things but at my last club launch, we had a fairly new guy who had never seen a cluster flight and wanted to see one. I was happy to oblige and pulled out this one.

Anyone interested can see a bit of older info from the archive here: https://www.rocketryforumarchive.com/showthread.php?t=49023

Altitude was not the objective here so I stayed small and loaded three A8-5s and set it up on the pad with a clip whip I had made up especially for this rocket.

Seireon-3-f1a.jpg

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When the button was pushed, I saw the ignition but the rocket seemed to stall after rising a few inches. It sputtered for a while and then lifted off the rod for a few feet, plopped to the ground and hissed until the chute ejected. It turns out that I had several problems. Only two motors ignited but I know from experience that this rocket will fly fine on just 2. The real problem is that one of the whip wires had snagged and held it down for most of the burn.

Mea culpa.

Seireon-3-f1d.jpg
 
Failure was not an option as far as I was concerned so I installed a new igniter in the unspent motor and added two more. It was then taken back to the pad when I made sure the wires would not get in the way.

Seireron-3-f2a.jpg

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This time it DID take off but I had the impression that only two motors had lighted again.

Seireron-3-f2c.jpg

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It flew well and straight and I had no reason to complain except for the one faulty ignition.

Seireron-3-f2e.jpg

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When ejection occurred, I was surprised to hear three pops. All the motors had lighted after all.

The chute came out and it started back home again.

Seireron-3-f2j.jpg

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The clustered flight was a success and its ready to fly again.

Seireron-3-f2o.jpg
 
I just won second place in the Starlight contest this past weekend,and one of the rockets I chose was the Seieron 3.Can't wait to start building it.Nice pictures of your launch.cjp.:)
 
Thanks for the building tips,always a big help.cjp.:)
 
I had another request to fly my Seieron 3 on Saturday and I saw no reason not to be an obliging fellow so I agreed. I decided to do something I do not recall having done with it before. I loaded it with 3 c motors of the Quest long burn variety. I had some trouble with their lighter thrust on heavy rockets earlier in the day and I wanted to give them a fair chance on a lighter bird.

Seieron-3-f1a.jpg

Seieron-3-f1b.jpg

Seieron-3-f1c.jpg

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All three motors lit and the liftoff was good.

Seieron-3-f1e.jpg
 
After that it was like lightning. It scooted high fast and those motors do burn longer than experience would cause one to expect them to.

Seieron-3-f1f.jpg

Seieron-3-f1g.jpg

Seieron-3-f1h.jpg

Seieron-3-f1i.jpg
 
By the time it ejected, I could barely see it with my older eyes but others saw it and it came back down safely.

Seieron-3-f1j.jpg

Seieron-3-f1k.jpg

Seieron-3-f1l.jpg
 
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