Tripoli South Carolina Feb Sport Launch

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Rocketmaniac

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Tripoli South Carolina will be having their Sport Launch Feb 7th and 8th.........As of now (T-minus 48 hours) the weather looks good, sunny or mostly sunny, highs in the mid 50s both days........


As far as special events......... I will be (hopefully) launching my first hybrid motor in my Expeditor.......... And Tom (Rocketjunkie) will be flying his new 54mm Deuce's Wild....... Now that along is going to be worth the trip to this launch!!!!!!! Tom and I might even launch our "normal" Deuces together (I don't know of anyone else with one, but it would be great if more were there)
 
It looks like it will be very windy Saturday but much better Sunday.
 
Yes, it was very windy........ We didn't launch any high powered stuff today....... I hope sunday will be better so I can get my first hybrid launched ........ I think a G64 was the biggest motor launched today (my F50 was a close second)........

I got in two flights today...... First was my estes MK-109...... It really got off the pad in a hurry on a C6-5....... The wind took it a ways, but not off the field.......
 
Next I flew my Onyx on a F50-4T.......... Good straight booster, but the ejection charge came way too early......... A 7 second delay is what I needed........ The early ejection broke 3 of the 6 shroud lines..... This caused it to come down a little quicker, but a lot closer to the pad.......... No other damage.......

Here is my "Rocket girl" as we go ready to load it on the pad......
 
While we were getting the Onyx, another rocket landed close enough that my recovery team wanted to get it too...... This is a Arcus??? that flew on the G64.......
 
And now, I have a pic of Rocketjunkie's 54mm Deuce!!!!!! I tell you guys one thing...... It is huge!!!!..... We are really hoping for less wind on sunday so he can fly it..........

It would be cool if we could get Carl's 38mm and Tom's 54mm together for back-to-back high power Deuce launches.........
 
oh man, I love it!

And it looks like you folks have a nice large field to fly in too. good stuff. I hope tomorrow promises better weather!
 
I just got home from the launch......... weather started out to about the same, then the winds died down enough for some of the bigger stuff........

The day was very busy and very exciting...... We had the good, the bad AND the ugly.......

When I got there, I parked next to Tim who was working on part of his L3 project....... Here he is working on part of it........ I believe it is a 1/10 scale Little Joe
 
Here is the Escape Capsule........ This is going to be the 2nd stage..... This has a 38mm motor mount......
 
Here's the bottom part........ (1) 54 motor mount and (8) 38mm motor mounts..........
 
Next I got Rocketjunkie's Tres.......... (I missed getting a pic of his normal Deuce.........the deuce flew ok with only 1 motor)
 
Here's a pic of my extended Warthog about ready to fly on a F50-6....... I had my RRC2 in to report the altitude......... It reached 665'....... Also in the pic is Tim's Escape Capsule....... It flew on a "I" something...........
 
Next I flew my Deuce with the X-20 nosecone and 2 C6-5s...... One motor lit before the other and then it went sort of unstable...... flying parallel to the ground (about 100' above ground)...... it then went up a little and deployed the chute....... it came down and then the wind carried it into a ditch where the back end got wet...... I was unable to get one of the motors out.........
 
Here's a rack of low power rockets......... (I will finish up with my report and pics after dinner.... wife is calling!!!!!)
 
Hey, I got my first actual "launch" pic!!!! Here is the 54mm Deuce taking off of (2) Pro54 J280s Smoky Sams......
 
It was a great flight....... Or at least for the first second (maybe less)...... Then the fins got ripped off.......... Alone with the fins came some of the body tube...... It was not a pretty ending to a great looking rocket......... Rocketjunie says it can and will be re-built.........

Here is the remains.......
 
A little while later I began prepping my Expeditor for its maiden flight....... While doing so, another guy did the first hybrid flight of the day....... It quickly arched over and started back down, when the apogee charge fired....... All we saw was pieces of rocket flying everywhere and a chute that was fully deployed with very little hanging onto it.........

With this disaster of a flight (hybrid) I got real nervous about my flight......... After checking everything over several times, I headed to the pads........ I had decided to try the 330cc tank for the first flight which meant the motor turned out to be a I205..........

Here's a pic of Robert (our Hybrid guru) as we were sitting it up on the pad...........
 
And here is a final pic of "Shaken, not Stirred" right before we headed back to the launch control........


It was a perfect flight........ A hybrid motor sounds awesome...... the I205 put it to an altitude of 1722'........... I will be flying more hybrids in the future......... (I might even use a hybrid motor for my L3 rocket!!!!)
 
Great trip report! heartbreaking about that 54mm Deuce's Wild! though :( man, that hadda hurt! Is there a higher resolution image of the 54mm Deuce launch?

How did the Tres do?
 
Originally posted by jflis
Great trip report! heartbreaking about that 54mm Deuce's Wild! though :( man, that hadda hurt! Is there a higher resolution image of the 54mm Deuce launch?

How did the Tres do?


Yes, very disappointing about the 54mm deuce...... It should be able to be re-built.... This time he will have to glass the fins...... No other way around it..... It was just too much thrust for those large fins........ A few others got pics and video of the 54mm Deuce..... I just have a very cheap camera......

The tres did just fine........ another crowd pleaser.........

I forgot to add that we had 1 Level 1 cert flight........ I was in the middle of prepping my expeditor, but I heard it was a I211???? Congrats to the new L1...... (didn't hear his name)

We had several families with children flyers....... there was one little girl that must of had 4-5 flights........ Very good to new faces.......
 
Rocketjunie,

The one pict you posted looks good. You would never think the flight would have ended the way it did from that pic......... The video was great.... (I don't mean the outcome, I mean it showed the fins ripping off)

I hope you can get it repaired and back on the launch pad..........
 
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