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Some risky launches on moderate windy day but no rockets lost

Winds were between 3 and 11 mph with the occasional 15 mph gusts. I decided to try the JLCR which landed too close to the buildings so not sure if it was needed today. I called the park manager to let him know I appreciate the manicured grass. I can tell when they have the A team or the B team cutting the grass. It was like a golf course (albeit dry) today. One problem with letting the grass grow too much is all the hidden baseballs in the field and the inevitable remnants when the mower runs them over.

The Cadet was from the Spring sale. I already have the Centuri, but the Mongoose arrived damaged so waiting to hear back from Estes. The Goblin was rebuilt from last week's lawndart. The NC was cracked so glued it together with CA. The extension with coupler was damaged so cut it off and replaced with a 6" extension making it 2" longer than before. The Quest Turbo worked great. I angled it a little bit into the wind and landed upwind so decided I can risk the D12 and C6 motors.

They Gyroc is a clone and haven't bothered making the MM tabs to hold the fins on ascent. I think it looks cool spinning up, and the flight video is awesome. The Tomahawk arced over more than it should so don't think an 18mm can handle the JLCR weight. It could've landed on the gym or in the field lights. I had a good feeling so went with it. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

00:00 Cadet 4pts
00:46 Firestreak SST 2pts
01:32 Quest Turbo 3pts
02:20 Goblin 394ft 8pts
03:31 RR Flight video
04:09 Gyroc 4pts
04:56 Flight video
05:15 Puma 3pts
06:00 Tomahawk 244ft 8pts
07:04 RR Flight video
07:34 Humdinger 3pts
08:25 Total 35pts

 
Ronz Rocketz said:
Day and Night launches over two days, Park turns on field lights for baseball game

The original intent was to do an evening launch on Sunday. The HNN forecast said winds and skies were favorable in the morning, but the NWS forecast said 8mph and light rain. Turned out the NWS was the correct forecast. We also delayed the night launch until Monday which worked out well. Ironically, it appears that locals attempted a baseball game, and Park turned on the field lights. Didn't look like enough players showed up, kept the lights on anyways until the last launch of the Supernova. The Handycam video was well lit while the GoPro8 was sufficiently dark enough to see the BP sparks. After three flights, the GoPro3 went into photo mode so missed out on great night time shots from the ground.

The E26W motor in the Mega Vortico was the motor with the dramatic chuff last week. I was concerned it would be underpowered in another rocket so tried it in the Cato proof Vortico which worked well. The video doesn't do justice to the power of the motor. I lubricated the rod with talc. The rocket grabbed it regardless and pulled it out of the tripod holder. It was very cinematic. I kept the Vapor with the intended 24mm. I figure a 29mm motor would send it into orbit.

I've been trying to buy a Cato rocket this past year from AC Supply, but they're a pain to get them to ship to Hawaii. Finally bought one from eRockets. It looked like when it reached apogee, the sections separated before the ejection. Needless, it was a well planned Cato. The altimeter in the Bull Pup XL was the one that mostly survived going into the pool last week. The battery's fine so just need to keep an eye on it.

When I asked if we should launch in the morning, Gary said he has many rockets and indeed he does have several notable rockets including the two BB3's, Tie Fighter that he's had for nine years, Saturnian (an old Estes Design of the Month), and Starlight. The SLS worked great on the Super C5.

We bought plastic Easter eggs with LED lights that we used in the replacement Space Crater. The original rocket is still on a WCC roof (with rotten egg no doubt). The Firebolt was the rocket that Gary tried last time with a C11 and broke a fin. The Air Walker worked great on the B6. Unfortunately, I didn't press record on the Handycam so tried it again on a C6. Later, I tried the Supernova single stage on a C6 which went much higher and landed on a roof. Evidently, the winds higher up were much stronger than on the ground.

Gary's 3xA8 rocket worked flawlessly using Q2G2 igniters. My Big Daddy finally lawndarted. I've never had much success with dogbarf and usually ends in failure. Despite placing wadding in the MMT and adding sufficient dogbarf, it still singed the chute. I plan to cut off the tube above the fins and add a longer tube plus insert a bulkhead to the NC. I'll call it the Big Doorknob.

00:00 Day Intro
01:00 Mega Vortico 3pts
03:48 Vapor 4pts
05:03 Wacky Wiggler 4pts
06:20 Bull Pup XL 271ft 5pts
07:34 Gary showing his rockets
08:47 Estes BB3
09:23 Rocketerium BB3
09:49 Tie Fighter
10:33 NASA SLS
11:11 Saturnian
12:12 Starlight
13:00 NewWay Nike Smoke
14:02 Christopher's rockets
14:23 Night Intro
15:48 Orbit
16:37 Space Crater 5pts
17:35 Gamma Ray
18:01 Air Walker B6-4 5pts
18:27 Firebolt
19:20 Air Walker C6-5 5pts
20:16 Astron Cobra cluster
20:52 Big Daddy 4pts
22:47 Supernova 4pts
23:51 Total 39pts + 10 bonus = 49pts



Live stream for 3/27: https://youtu.be/JPBr-LQ2wkQ
Click to expand...

I was watching the Big Daddy and saw the note “LED INSIDE”, and thought, ”oh no, let’s hope this doesn’t to the famous Big Daddy Lawn Dart, cause if it doesn’t deploy that little light ain’t gonna shine. Fortunately or otherwise, it did open on impact!.” Gary’s comments right on, I guess Estes hasn’t redesigned the nose cone because they would have build a new mold.
 
That's one of the great things about model rocketry. You can build almost anything you can think of.

I just picked up a Viking bulk pack on Ebay for $45, so I guess it is time to follow Ron's lead and build a bunch of variants. That triple cluster of his looked interesting.

No telling what you would come up with!
 
The two of them and I, and another friend of Ron's, put a small number up at Sixty Acres on Thursday, but the cold wind and the sleet (and my schedule on Holy Thursday) cut the session short after about 1 1/2 hours. It's raining now, but tomorrow is supposed to be nice, so he may get another opportunity before returning.
 
I'm slowly working on the video. Family keeps distracting me. Drove to Canada today. It was nice. Both border guards kept asking me questions about traveling from Hawaii. I think they were trying to trip me up.

It was nice and cold at 60 Acres park. We don't get a lot of sleet when we launch rockets. The field is about the same size as our Waipio soccer park except ours has trees planted down the center and these annoying signs saying no model rockets allowed.
 
60 Acres Park near Seattle with Bernard (@BEC) and Ken

I traveled to Washington State to visit family near Bellingham. After landing in Seatac, I picked up my older son and met with Bernard and Ken (who used to live in Hawaii) at the 60 Acres park. Back in 2003, I had a short contract with a company across the street but never visited the park before.

I brought with me several rockets with plastic fins so they'll survive the flight, and Bernard and Ken were gracious to let me use some of their motors. The weather started out cold, sunny, and slightly breezy. Eventually, a front came in threatening us with sleet. While visiting the mainland, I have to absorb as much cold air as I can.

We think the leads on my Astrocam were dirty from the previous Quest motor in the Cadet and didn't provide enough juice to the starter. Later, both rockets launched at the same time. I think the cam was running so long that the battery stopped the video but got a great shot of the other rocket.

The chad staging was cool. Taping a booster motor to the sustainer motor is possible on low drag rockets like the Sputnik and Birdie.

00:00 Intro
00:44 Firestreak SST A3-4T 3pts
01:35 Organizing the rockets
02:41 Bernard's altimeters
05:00 Bernard's Checkmate A10-0T/A3-4T
06:28 Cadet Quest B6-4 3pts
07:12 Ken's Astrocam
08:09 Flight video
08:32 Figure out why mine didn't launch
09:00 Bernard's Payloader C6-5
10:53 Tandem Astrocams 6pts
11:42 Flight video
11:52 Ken's Turbo Vortico F42-4
12:31 Quest Turbo D12 3pts
13:23 Ken's chad staged Sputnik
13:33 Ken's chad staged Birdie
13:53 Ken's Multi-roc sustainer
14:06 Bernard's Twin Factor A10-0T/A10-3T
14:31 Ken's Cyclone Mapleseed
15:02 Total 15pts + 10 bonus = 25pts

 
Last edited:
Wind, Catos, rescued rockets from trees, dual Twin Factors, the usual fun in the park

I meant to only fly small rockets on another windy day, but I must follow the inscrutable exhortations of my soul and launched the repaired Big Daddy and the DBOM. I bought two packs of E16-4 so went for it. With the Checkmate, I haven't had much luck with staging and the sustainers going sideways. I meant to look for the upper Checkmate but forgot so not sure what happened to it.

The Big Daddy lawndarted during the recent night launches despite the modifications I made. Personally, I think it had more to do with the dogbarf. I replaced the upper tube with the Semroc 8" section which is longer and heavier than the Estes tube. It looks like the repairs are too heavy for the BP motors. The fin that cracked was previously damaged, which is probably why it partially snapped. I added glue then tried it again with a D12-5 which weathercocked and landed in a tree. I was able to pull the sustainer out but not the rest. This rocket has been through many tribulations so not sure what I'll do next with it.

Gary had two Catos with A10 and A3 motors. Unfortunately, the Birdie got cooked and the Sputnik blew its top. He was joking that he'll stage them together and call it a Duncenik. I tried to convince him to chad stage the Birdie and Sputnik but wouldn't. Wouldn't have mattered with the Catos. In hindsight, I shoulda chad staged the Mars Leaper.

00:00 Alternative windometer
00:12 Big Daddy C11-3 66ft 4pts
01:02 Big Daddy D12-5 4pts
01:52 DBOM 321ft 5pts
03:02 Double Ringer 5pts
03:50 Dual Twin Factors 5pts
05:21 Mars Leaper 3pts
05:55 Checkmate 3pts
06:34 Orbit 170ft 5pts
07:19 Nitro
07:50 Corkscrew
08:20 Birdie
08:59 Sputnik
09:46 Total 34pts + 5 bonus = 39pts

 
Trying out gliders in the park on a stormy day

I really wanted to launch several rockets but woke up to light rain so decided just to try the gliders again in the park. Looking at the NWS data, it looks like we were there in the calm time between the rain and gusty wind. The Semroc Scissor and the Condor gliders seemed like they're balanced so time to paint. Hopefully next month, the weather will calm down.

I was really tempted to try the Citation Patriot/DBRM with the F20 motor. It is projected to go over 300ft and weathercock heavily into the wind then return to base. The F67 is supposed to go over 500ft then drift so would need the JLCR. In the end, I decided not to because I don't want to risk the expensive Stickershock decals.

On a side note, one of our cockatiels has been eating my rockets. He likes to chew the fin edges. We have them in large cages but let them out once in a while. He was out for a couple days last week and just noticed he chewed about 5 inches of the Aloun Fad rocket, with malice. From now on, he's staying in the cage.

We'll be traveling to New Jersey this week and driving to Orlando so no rockets next week but we plan to visit KSC. We also plan to visit Gettysburg and Fredericksburg because growing up in the PNW, we don't have much history except Lewis and Clark. Do you know what's exciting about Lewis and Clark, nothing. That's what's exciting about Lewis and Clark.

 

Two launch events Saturday with two gliders but only one that earned its decals​


It was a marathon weekend with two launch events on Saturday. Gary and Roger launched on Monday, but I was recovering from my East Coast trip (see previous videos). Friday morning was supposed to be good until noon when the rains started but ended up arriving at 6am so launches were scrubbed. Saturday morning was excellent with no wind, thin cloud cover, but humid AF.

I tried out the Pop Color feature with my Handycam. This caused the video to be oversaturated. Next time, I'll try the Auto feature that I also discovered. I'm also having an issue with the GoPro8. The videos weren't working in the editing software so had to scrub them in VidCoder to make them work. I usually have to do this with the Astrocam videos and forgot I set the codec to 30fps. This caused the slomos to be choppy. I reset the GoPro8 and reformatted the SD card so hopefully won't happen again. Otherwise, I might have to relegate it to the ground camera and finally retire the GoPro3.

I recently bought four of the DBRM on Amazon in addition to the one I already bought on eRockets. I then bought the Citation Patriot upgrade kit from Galactic Manufacturing. I also bought the Stickershock decals, which I'm not exactly sure was worth the price but the gold decal looks awesome. I messed up with the fin decal (because it's counter intuitive) so had to create two fin decals from scratch. It's still a good two-foot paint/decal job. Time for the clear coat now.

The Semroc Scissor Wing launch was a mess. I wanted to make sure it spiraled down, so it doesn't land in water or in someone's backyard. I added a small amount of clay to one end of the wing to keep it spiraling within the park. I think what happened is that I inadvertently installed the wing with the clay to the back. When the motor ejected, there wasn't enough tension in the rubber band to pull the wing forward so went in ballistic. I've got the pieces so can reassemble. Next time, I'll launch from one end of the park and have the wing facing toward the park so it will have a better chance of landing successfully.

The Condor OTOH was a success and deserves its decals. The only problem is that the shock cord broke the brittle NC tab so will need to secure it with a tri-fold. I used the blow mold connectors for the gliders which was a pain because they were brittle and had to strengthen them with masking tape and thin CA. The Launch Lab rockets are great but rather old so the balsa is usually warped and plastic fragile from age.

The Cool Spool Cato was spectacular. The video doesn't emulate how loud the bang was. I was afraid the neighbors would call the cops on us again. Turns out they did show up but were investigating the obscene tagging on the park buildings last night. They left us alone. Gary said if he knew the conditions would be this great, he woulda brought a dozen more rockets.

Jake felt miserable about crashing the high schoolers' rocket into the solar panel. He's been launching there for many, many years and landed many rockets on roofs and trees but never through a solar panel. Helen was sick so only Jake's high schoolers and Gary and I. His college students were busy in the lab preparing their rocket for Wallops. Unfortunately, they dropped a bottle of camphor in the lab and told him around the same time as the demise of the solar panel. It was an arduous day.

00:00 Intro
00:20 Der Big Citation Patriot 590ft 7pts
02:12 Flight video
03:27 Citation Patriot 450ft 7pts
04:34 Flight video
05:52 Mongoose 5pts
07:18 Scissor Wing 3pts
08:51 Condor 5pts
10:30 Dark Silver 134ft 6pts
11:22 Flight video
12:03 Cool Spool
13:29 Turbo Vortico
14:02 Shooting Star
14:53 Sky Lofter
15:39 Gold Strike
16:18 Savage two-stage
17:34 Firestorm two-stage
18:55 Asset's TARC
20:06 Wacky Wiggler 3pts
20:45 Gary's Applewhite
20:57 Zinger
21:27 Cobalt
21:48 Twin Factor 4pts
22:49 Mars Leaper 4pts
23:22 Pipsqueak
24:00 Mini Teal Machine 3pts
24:36 Pyramid
24:50 Total 47pts + 10pts = 57pts



Live stream:


Rumor has it that I borrowed a rocket from someone and launched it in Florida.
 
Most households with kids have a few of the 12V sealed lead acid batteries for various ride on toys.
Even ones too tired to run a toy will still fire a few dozen rockets.
 
Some comments/questions on the first video just above:

What did you use to drive RaceRender‘s altitude tape/altimeter display for the two Citation Patriots? You didn‘t get that data from the Estes altimeter.

The Mongoose booster always comes in ballistic….which is the main reason I don’t like that model. At the very least is has to be aimed away from anyone watching, regardless of wind conditions.

In addition to filing a MESS report for the F15-4 in the Cool Spool, please file one for the no-ejection-charge TARC model as well. A no-eject with the cap retained like that is also a CATO.
(And how does punching a hole in a solar panel weigh on future permission to launch at that lovely site, I wonder?)

CHAD staging the Mars Leaper is a good idea 😊
 
MESS report already filed for my F15 CATO. Don't know if one was filed for the TARC team. Will mention it.
BEC said:
(And how does punching a hole in a solar panel weigh on future permission to launch at that lovely site, I wonder?)
Click to expand...
That is the $60,000 question, my friend.
 
BEC said:
Some comments/questions on the first video just above:

What did you use to drive RaceRender‘s altitude tape/altimeter display for the two Citation Patriots? You didn‘t get that data from the Estes altimeter.

The Mongoose booster always comes in ballistic….which is the main reason I don’t like that model. At the very least is has to be aimed away from anyone watching, regardless of wind conditions.

In addition to filing a MESS report for the F15-4 in the Cool Spool, please file one for the no-ejection-charge TARC model as well. A no-eject with the cap retained like that is also a CATO.
(And how does punching a hole in a solar panel weigh on future permission to launch at that lovely site, I wonder?)

CHAD staging the Mars Leaper is a good idea 😊
Click to expand...

I created a spreadsheet that creates the data with the altitude by calculating the slope from the time to apogee and time to landing. I tried using my lone survivor Flightsketch Mini but wouldn't turn on so battery's probably dead, hopefully. They've been selling Estes altimeters on eBay for $21 plus free shipping.

It's usually just Gary and I so not a problem with the booster. Did you see how close the Savage booster landed next to Gary? Like four feet...

I suspect the G42 was old. Jake has a bunch of old Aerotech SU motors that I sorted through. Not sure if it was one of those. I gave him an old ammo can to store the others in, so hopefully they won't degrade more.

I dropped by the LHS today to talk to the manager and pick up some gliders someone left for me. I told Joe about buying four of the DBRM from Amazon for $21 each. He hung his head (he has several for $54 each) and said he's thinking of getting rid of the toy merchandise and turning half the store into an event space. I told him if he does, I'll arrange a monthly rocket building event. If he adds a Mountain Dew vending machine, the high schoolers will hang out there all day.

kuririn said:
Inspiration from Mr. Berkun.
Click to expand...

Now I'm wondering if I could insert a booster motor between the Twin Factor stages. Call it the Triplet Factor...
 

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