used up

[JAL3]

This was the last scheduled launch of 2013 at the OROC Brothers launch site. Since I missed the previous launch, and this being the last one of the year, I had high hopes for the flights I had planned.

On Friday I flew two flights with the main goal of testing out the real-time telemetry and data logging of my TeleMini. In these flights, the TeliMini was riding along as a passenger while my trusty old HiAlt 45K did the all work.

First up was my "Eagles" rocket. This rocket is a Binder Design Certi-Fire kit done up on Eagles green, white, black. I loaded it up with a Loki I210-LR off we went. Very nice flight with a nice red flame from this motor. The HiAlt beeped out 2,102 feet. Due to operator error, I was unable to obtain any data about this flight from the TeleMini. There was some damage to the payload bay from the ejection charge. You can see the hole that was blown in its side just below the Eagles emblem in this photo.




Next up was my Madcow Frenzy on a AT J275W-14. This was a really great flight on a really cool motor. One of the things I love about flying this rocket is the way that it whistles all the way to apogee. This time was no different. The Adpet22 on board beeped out the altitude as 3,308. This time no data was retrieved from the TeleMini because I had not cleared the onboard memory from the previous flight and testing. Here is a photo of the rocket just before launch (I have no actual launch photos from this weekend).




Saturday dawned cold and cloudy. But our optimism was still in tact. So much so that I entered into a three way drag race to start off the morning. Fellow forum member Salvage-1 was to fly an AT DarkMater, I was to fly a Loki Sptifire, and a third flyer was flying an AT MetalStorm. When the smoke cleared, my rocket was left alone on the pad, having had a forward closure failure. I was later able to recover from this failure, rebuild the motor, re-prep the rocket and get it in the sky. This was my MadCow Tomach (which I am thinking of changing the name to "To-Mock" because it seems to be mocking me at every launch) on a Loki I316-SpitFire. It flew to 2,599ft where the apogee chute came out. It's a good thing too since the main chute never deployed. Since this had my TeleMini on board, I used it as a chance to practice my Direction Finding skills with a borrowed yagi that I attached to my small handheld radio. This when really well and I found the rocket with no damage. Not sure when or if I'll fly this guy again. I don't like being mocked.

With the promise of clear sunny skies on Sunday I only flew this one flight on Saturday.

Sunday dawned with probably the worse weather of the weekend. Cold wind and low clouds. I prepped and flew my Madcow Super Batray on an AT I154 Blackjack motor. This flew to just below the cloud deck and the Altimeter displayed 2,018 feet as the max altitude. Right on with what OpenRocket said it would be.




We hung around until about 2pm waiting for the skies to clear but they never did. Only six months until our next scheduled High Power launch...........

May I copy these to the gallery?