What did you do rocket wise today?

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I 3D printed a nosecone, fin section, and motor retainers for a BT-55 tube (this one: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:685617), gathered up a couple of motors, scrounged a chute from my plastic chute collection and shock cord, and delivered it to a (younger) coworker so he could launch a rocket with his young kids. Excepting the 3D printed stuff it's all stuff that I've accumulated for making rockets for my grandkids. I need to find my kevlar shock cord stash. He'll need a launch rod and launch control box but neither of those are too hard to come by. I almost built it for him but that would take away some of the experience imho
 
Started packing for our adventure up North. Sharon's father is driving our old '98 GMC Sierra up to Red River, NM. next week with the "Lil' Mule" trailer full of stuff for our summer rocket launches. We will be caravaning with him in our 2018 GMC Sierra 1 ton with our 27 ft. toy hauler. Since we have a habit of overloading our toy hauler, we decided to carry some of the motors we will be flying at NSL, NCR, SCORE and TNT in the old truck. Most of the rockets will be in the bunkbeds in the back of the toy hauler, but the old truck will be loaded with motors:
2021-05-13 EX motors in Grosser.jpg
We plan to use good old "Grosser" for the one day launches at SCORE, and sleep in the queen size bed (that all these motors are laying in) at NCR, then fly with them on Saturday, June 5th. Of course, this all depends on the weather, which can be bad for any of the four launches we hope to go to.
Twenty rockets, 35 motors in about a month, what could go wrong?
 
Over the last few days Did a few more rounds of primer and sanding on the black fly that is affectionately named the joker, and it is ready for silver sealer and then on to a createx bath.

My Mach 1 starlight now named star scream started getting finish…used the fin jig I printed to sand the fin edges, then sanded all over, and then starscream got the plague. Sanded smooth and she got two rounds of primer and sand. Probably needs one last light primer round and then it too will be getting silver sealer and then createx.
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Started packing for our adventure up North... [W]e will be flying at NSL, NCR, SCORE and TNT in the old truck.
Did I understand that right, that you'll be making one trip as a tour of the four launches? That sounds like a lot of fun.
o_OIf I didn't know better, I'd think that truck belonged to a motor dealer.
 
4" AGM-33 Pike waiting for Stickershock order. Crappy picture, sorry. (There's also a Mach 1 Nike rocket on top of my toolbox waiting for paint).


Edit: got my decals. This will be a little stressful.

Stickers are on. I may have taken a liberty or two.
 

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Pretty much built my Caliber ISP. Put together the motor tube, glued it into the tube, glued on the fins. I have the first set of fillets drying. The I65 I bought wasn't plugged (you can see the top of the smoke grain), so that gives me the option to use motor eject. So I will need to decide if I want to save weight and just use motor eject, and pop the chute at a mile or more. Or add an e-bay and use dual deployment. I won't be launching this till the end of July, so I have plenty of time to decide for sure what I want to do. Maybe Secret Santa will send me something that will help make the decision :p
 
Gave away my Interceptor to a guy who came to fix our thermostat, then remarked that he used to enjoy flying rockets. We talked for a good while. Maybe a new BAR?

Best -- Terry
(Bought a second kit anyway. One can never have too many Interceptors.)
 
Packed for launch this weekend. Added case of ping pong balls for flotation aids in case the rain doesn't let up. Put together an H128, my first high power reload. Hopefully in the next two days, the weather will give me a break and I can get my L1 cert flight in.
 
Packed for launch this weekend. Added case of ping pong balls for flotation aids in case the rain doesn't let up. Put together an H128, my first high power reload. Hopefully in the next two days, the weather will give me a break and I can get my L1 cert flight in.

Same same.... a couple of odd rockets made ready for the QRS launch tomorrow at Cedar Grove, QLD. Apart from the two odd one with C6 motors, will probably only fly 1 or 2 Pro24 6G G145s.

Chrome Carrier and Dart pic 1.jpg
 
Did I understand that right, that you'll be making one trip as a tour of the four launches? That sounds like a lot of fun.o_OIf I didn't know better, I'd think that truck belonged to a motor dealer.

Yes, staging out of our place in Red River, NM. Planning is a bitch, with several lists to co-ordinate.
Even our motor dealer wonders about us, and they have a list of the 500+ motors we have in stock, just in case they need something. Most of the motors in that picture are research loads, since three of the launches are Tripoli research launches.
 
Well only had about 1-1/2 hours time to be able to fly today but snuck in 1 flight on the zephyr H133 nice flight 1400 ft
Landed 150 yards away which isn’t bad at all but there is a stream so had to walk around that to get back to the open area again so felt like a mile lol
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Met up with @arconhi again for some local flying. I had a great time with good flights on my Venus Probe, Celtic Thunder, Astrocam, Cornered, and a few others. Had some bad luck though with some older stock 29mm BP motors with a blown out nozzle and a failed ejection charger. After that, I disposed of the remainder of my old stock rather than risk more rockets on them. All my remaining 29mm BP motors are post-retooling.
 
Got a good bit done. Fin halves are pressing. Will be a tricky little bit of painting on that capsule. Suspect I'll blast the tower with red and brush in flat black inside the base.
 

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The last three days were spent building a legit paint booth. It is 7’x 2.8’ x 24”, good compromise that will accommodate most rockets I see myself building. I’ve been wanting to build one for a year or so and finally got around it it. A lot of thought went into it, and it came out well (not perfect but we are all our own worst critics). Got a few rockets to paint now it’s game on Sunday!

also finalized a custom paint mask for a Mach 1 starlight named star scream with stickershock. Should get it this week. NYPOWER is rapidly approaching!
 

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I got out to the club launch and final weekend for TARC qualifying. In between the TARC teams I managed to get two flights in, one was the Wanderer, TRF's very own Traveling rocket, link to details in my signature. It went up on an AT D15-7T, 650ft. The second flight was my SBR SCUD on a CTI I345 WT, 12 second delay, 2712 ft. I attached the Jolly Logic incorrectly, so the chute pulled out early, tighter band notwithstanding. All in all a glorious, beautiful day...

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Drove to four locations near home and parked the car. Using a GNSS (global navigation satellite system) receiver, via Bluetooth, I captured some batches of NMEA strings to my laptop. The locations were directly North, South, East and West of home. I can now use this data to feed into my automatic antenna tracker for testing and tuning the PID settings on the control loops.

[edit] Dialed in some PID numbers to the control loops and the AAT is pointing where it should, on the pan axis at least, based on the pre-recorded telemetry packets :). Now I need to fudge some altitude onto those numbers to see if the other axis is working as expected.
 
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Hunted for the problem in one of my electronics designs. No luck so far. Still hunting.

Stared at the last 2 soon-to-be-fillets for my current rocket build.
Met up with @arconhi again for some local flying. I had a great time with good flights on my Venus Probe, Celtic Thunder, Astrocam, Cornered, and a few others. Had some bad luck though with some older stock 29mm BP motors with a blown out nozzle and a failed ejection charger. After that, I disposed of the remainder of my old stock rather than risk more rockets on them. All my remaining 29mm BP motors are post-retooling.
It was a great day of flying. The Venus Probe is a fun rocket to fly and watch . Will do some more soon. Thanks again for sharing all kinds of info.
 
Somewhat windy day in Western Oklahoma. High clouds. Launched my own design 54mm rocket on an E23 RMS w/ JLCR. Great flight. Followed it up w/Level 1 cert flight on H128. Arrow straight flight. JLCR worked perfectly both times. Estes nylon chute had defective shroud line I didn't notice before flight; not sewn in. Didn't affect recovery that I could tell. Flew spool a couple of times. great day to get out!
 
Somewhat windy day in Western Oklahoma. High clouds. Launched my own design 54mm rocket on an E23 RMS w/ JLCR. Great flight. Followed it up w/Level 1 cert flight on H128. Arrow straight flight. JLCR worked perfectly both times. Estes nylon chute had defective shroud line I didn't notice before flight; not sewn in. Didn't affect recovery that I could tell. Flew spool a couple of times. great day to get out!
Congrats!
 
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