Sweaty Balls Project -- Keep the Change

[prophecy]

The 98 worked perfect, thus vindicating the fin theory. But the tracker antenna must have ripped out at apogee as I lost signal shortly thereafter. The rocket is lost, and without the altimeters or tracker from the 98 I can't fly my other rocket, so I'm headed home. The rail buttons were gouged into the fiberglass body tube and we stripped the lower one getting it on the rail, so all I could do was glue it back on. It came off at the top of the rail and kicked the rocket at a nasty angle but it was smooth sailing from there, the motor was awesome. More later, I now really haven't slept in five days since I built the rocket, motor, and drove 1800 miles, so I'm going to drink water, head back to KC and take tomorrow off. Super bummed about losing the rocket and not flying the other one, but mission accomplished--layups are overrated. Huge thanks to Chuck Haskin, and to Bob Brown and the Kloudbusters for having me.

 

[Conan4480]

I'm sorry to hear that you didn't recover the rocket. I for one enjoyed following this thread. Thank you for sharing this project.

I'm sure someone will find it and it will make its way back.

 

[troj]

Glad to hear everything worked well....except the tracker.

Losing rockets is no fun!

-Kevin

 

[boomtube]

You didn’t miss anything by leaving Saturday as Sunday was rained out.

Looking at the road out to the launch site I chose not to make the drive as there were tracks in the MUD where somebody else had made the attempt and had gotten stuck.

I understand from others that all the pads and equipment placed waaaaaayyyy out in the fields had to be brought back via foot-power as the fields were too muddy to navigate by vehicle.

Yikes!!

 

[A5tr0 An0n]

Of course, in the ~5 years since I've been building min dia rockets, I've tended to follow the traditional wisdom of strength, strength, strength to avoid a shred, and it's served me very well. My standard fin can procedure of 1/4" carbon + carbon/kevlar layup x 3 layers went undefeated against some pretty hot motors. It's easy to make something that holds together, but after doing the composite-case project, it got me to thinking -- time to push the limits a little bit with fin cans, walking the line between strong enough and unnecessarily strong and heavy. Much like the determination of how thick or thin to make the composite case -- finding the sweet spot of "just strong enough" such that optimal weight reduction is recognized.

I am glad you have embarked on this journey… I find myself thinking more and more about this everyday. I am glad your flight went well.

Mat