...... and if the wind is blowing that hard, you shouldn't be flying rockets anyway. I've flown countless rockets with one hole, never had a problem.
I was observing at a HPR launch last year, and not 20 feet away from me, while I was standing in the next EZ-up tent, the next guy over's ejection charge went off while he was ground testing and setting up the altimeters... This was on a 4 inch plus model, and the guy I was facing in the tent, who was building a motor at the time, nearly took a foot and a half long heavy plastic Ogive nosecone to the head point first, with a big balled up chute pushing it along... luckily he was sitting about one foot forward of where the cone went; it flew behind his lawn chair and clattered to the pavement about ten feet further down beside him... He'd have taken it square to the temple, too, as I was standing directly in front of him across the worktable and saw the whole thing firsthand.
The guy programming his altimeters too the kickback to the gut. The upper section of the rocket kicked back like a 12 guage shotgun. The altimeter board was attached to two balsa or basswood 'struts' sticking out of the aft bulkhead, with the breadboard in between, edge on, and when it hit his gut it hit hard enough to snap the struts and breadboard off the bulkhead, and the tube itself slammed him the in the gut before coming to rest. THe guy collapsed in the hatchback of his Suburban/Yukon/Escalade whatever it was with the wind knocked out of him and barely conscious... I was with the rest of the guys coming to his aid, and lady with the first aid kit. When they pulled up his shirt, he had a perfect "Ghostbusters" (O with slash across it) symbol tattooed across his gut from the impact of the breadboard and tube. Knocked the wind out of him but good-- they took him to the RV and let him lay down awhile, and after about an hour he got his second wind back...
Reason for the accident?? Gusty winds were blowing, probably blew across the baro sensor holes and gave a false trigger signal, firing the deploy circuit. Can't remember offhand if it was multiple or single holes (but I'm ALMOST sure it was multiple) and the wind, while not very strong, was a bit turbulent and GUSTY that day.
Lesson learned-- use 'remove before flight' shunts to isolate BP ejection charges until the rocket is ready for liftoff...
Program altimeters and electronics BEFORE loading/hooking up ejection charges in the rocket...
Never stand "in-line" with live hooked up ejection charge compartments-- always stand to one side, and make sure the nosecone is pointed in a 'safe' direction and nobody is standing in front of it or walking across in front of it; Do not line up the altimeter bay/parachute section with the other tents so if you DO have a mishap, you don't take out half the people at the adjoining tents!
Perhaps cover altimeter ports with tape or something in gusty conditions until the rocket is set up and ready for liftoff; remove like shunts before liftoff...
Safety is the word! OL JR
