marcusSRG
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2012
- Messages
- 893
- Reaction score
- 6
Well we've been fighting rain and winter precipitation weekend after weekend here in Charlotte it seems. My local club only managed a one-day makeup launch that I couldn't even attend. I needed to fly and today (yesterday
) was the day. Beautiful sunny weather up in the 60's with light wind. I got a few birds prepped and headed to the field/park that's conveniently located behind my house. I also had my girlfriend's nifty Nikon P100 on hand to have fun with the burst feature and catch some launch shots.
Today's arsenal: Electric Shadow, Mini Comanche-3 (2 stage config), Corkscrew
First up was my venerable Estes Corkscrew on a C6-5. Great flight right into the sun. Good recovery with minimal drift.
Not sure why the photo was out of focus--still getting a handle on this camera.
Second was my Estes Mini Comanche 3 in two stage configuration (A10-0T to A3-4T). This rocket had a terrible first flight in 3-stage configuration--the full stack is too heavy for an A10-0T to give it a good boost. The stages all fired and it recovered but the booster got it only 20' up or so and it weather-cocked severely... This time I thought the single A10 booster in two stage configuration would give it a decent boost but it didn't. The booster lobbed her about 20ft up, she weather cocked, staged and the booster failed to separate and was scorched. Only maybe 100ft up, she lawn darted, ejecting a split second before impact.
You can see that the booster is pretty much burnt out and the rocket is only about 15ft off the ground. I was going to upgrade the 1st stage to 18mm...looks like I'm going to upgrade the 2nd stage as well. The rocket is just too heavy for A10 boosters.
Finally I flew my "Electric Shadow," a modified, dual-deploy and cluster capable (1x24mm, 6x18mm) Estes Shadow This flight was intended to flight test my recently water-logged Missileworks RRC2 altimeter which I dried out and cleaned. She was loaded with a central F30-4FJ and (3) B6-4's, using a Magnelite cluster igniter for the composite ignition and Q2G2's for the blackpowder outboards. The B6's lit up first followed quickly by the F30FJ, which is very evident in the photo sequence. In photo 1 the B6's have just ignited and in photo 2 the composite has kicked in. If you look closely you'll notice the smoke plume on the pad is 2-tone...the left side is white from the BP outboards igniting first.
The Electric Shadow climbed to 380', according to the RRC2. A little low, but she was heavy with the electronics, 2 chutes and 4 motors. The dried out RRC2 worked perfectly, deploying a 24" drouge at apogee and a 30" main moments later at 300'. I used that big of a drogue in case the altimeter failed and had to use motor ejection. It was a SOFT landing!
Well there's my wordy report, just thought I'd share it. It was a great Sunday afternoon launch!
) was the day. Beautiful sunny weather up in the 60's with light wind. I got a few birds prepped and headed to the field/park that's conveniently located behind my house. I also had my girlfriend's nifty Nikon P100 on hand to have fun with the burst feature and catch some launch shots.Today's arsenal: Electric Shadow, Mini Comanche-3 (2 stage config), Corkscrew
First up was my venerable Estes Corkscrew on a C6-5. Great flight right into the sun. Good recovery with minimal drift.
Not sure why the photo was out of focus--still getting a handle on this camera.
Second was my Estes Mini Comanche 3 in two stage configuration (A10-0T to A3-4T). This rocket had a terrible first flight in 3-stage configuration--the full stack is too heavy for an A10-0T to give it a good boost. The stages all fired and it recovered but the booster got it only 20' up or so and it weather-cocked severely... This time I thought the single A10 booster in two stage configuration would give it a decent boost but it didn't. The booster lobbed her about 20ft up, she weather cocked, staged and the booster failed to separate and was scorched. Only maybe 100ft up, she lawn darted, ejecting a split second before impact.
You can see that the booster is pretty much burnt out and the rocket is only about 15ft off the ground. I was going to upgrade the 1st stage to 18mm...looks like I'm going to upgrade the 2nd stage as well. The rocket is just too heavy for A10 boosters.
Finally I flew my "Electric Shadow," a modified, dual-deploy and cluster capable (1x24mm, 6x18mm) Estes Shadow This flight was intended to flight test my recently water-logged Missileworks RRC2 altimeter which I dried out and cleaned. She was loaded with a central F30-4FJ and (3) B6-4's, using a Magnelite cluster igniter for the composite ignition and Q2G2's for the blackpowder outboards. The B6's lit up first followed quickly by the F30FJ, which is very evident in the photo sequence. In photo 1 the B6's have just ignited and in photo 2 the composite has kicked in. If you look closely you'll notice the smoke plume on the pad is 2-tone...the left side is white from the BP outboards igniting first.
The Electric Shadow climbed to 380', according to the RRC2. A little low, but she was heavy with the electronics, 2 chutes and 4 motors. The dried out RRC2 worked perfectly, deploying a 24" drouge at apogee and a 30" main moments later at 300'. I used that big of a drogue in case the altimeter failed and had to use motor ejection. It was a SOFT landing!
Well there's my wordy report, just thought I'd share it. It was a great Sunday afternoon launch!
Last edited:
