What did you do rocket wise today?

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Went to the Tri-Cities Rocketeers February launch, and I flew nothing but Crayons. My sons Estes Rocket Red Crayon got flown 7 times in 2 hours, and my daughters Pink Fantazia Crayon Bank conversion got flown once on a G76G with electronic deploy, it max altitude was 354', the wind was a bit unpredictable and normally it would have gone another 150'ish, the recovery was nominal with the electronic deployment. Got to meet several new flyers from outside our area, one of which was Flyfalcons, not totally sure he doesn't own every rocket Estes currently makes and they all look and fly great, nice builds Ryan.
 
Worked on my Estes Scion some today.

Used epoxy for the first time ever, interesting stuff. I think I can learn to like it. (bonus points for wearing a respirator mask and gloves, feels like serious business). Motor mount, upper bulkhead and baffle halfway down, once cured I'll hit the undersides.
View attachment 281714

I feel like fillets with epoxy won't be such a nightmare as I initially feared :cool: I'm happy with these, and for the fins masking tape will yield nice clean lines!
View attachment 281715

How did you apply the fillets on the centering ring and achieve such clean lines? Thanks in advance!
 
No rockets for me today. Worked. Finishing up a long period of intense work that ends about Tuesday. Missed the DARS launch...:(

Back on the new XAB-1 rocket glider and on the repair of my Aquila hp rocket starting Wed and they should be ready for the DARS launch in Corsicana on Saturday.

Also working up a motor order with Robert....:)
 
Decided that I'm going to get or build some kind of "Collapsible Workbench".
Then I can do some occasional building, and stow it away when not in use.:)
 
test flew my 'hi-flier xxl' on an E28-6 :), think I found the right motor for it.
Rex
 
Had a great launch with the Radical Rocketeers!
Our TARC team had two flights. The first one saw our parachute come detached and destroy one egg, and our second flight was great, 868 ft, 53 s. Getting closer! Then I had two of my own flights. My dual deploy Darkstar Lite on an I200 to 22xx ft was first. The battery voltage was fairly low and I took a little gamble, and then right as I came up to the rocket, it beeped 2, 2, and then died! talk about cutting it close! My other flight was my dual deploy Formula 38 on an H250G. It was sim'd to 4500 ft, right near our 5k waiver. The sky cleared a bit, so I decided with a tracker on board to go for it. It took off like a bat out of hell, and we all lost it on the way up. I could hear the tracker on the radio the whole flight, and trekked out after it. The signal stayed really, really strong for a while, even when attenuated, while I was in a field, clearly not near the rocket. So then I looked up and saw it sitting in the tree line :(
So, FG pole in hand, our TARC team, father and I went after it, trying to pull it down. after maybe a half hour of yanking and swinging, we got it back. The altimeter was beeping out 5033'! It overshot the sims by over 500 ft! Welp, I suppose 5k' is just about right for this field! I'll be more careful next time before shooting that close to the waiver.
When it came down, it landed in a rocky creek, luckily all th fiberglass was okay, and the altimeter and tracker are sitting in rice now. fingers crossed they come back!

Nate
 
Helped clean equipment in advance of a Feb27 high power launch at a new field in Corsicana Texas.
 
Winter repairs! Fixed chute and a couple antennae on the Semroc Satellite Killer, repaired engine mount on Estes Guardian, and formally retired my old Bandito.
 
Built my new workbench. 8x4, double locking casters, 2 shelves, 6 drawers, and a poly-wall (plastic wall panel) as a sacrificial top.

 
Just settled in after a great launch with SSS. Went out to the Airfield site on Friday, set up the trailer and a couple of launch pads. Flew a bunch of class 1 rockets, even a couple with the CTI H54. It's just slightly under the 125 grams of propellant, and perfect for Sharon's Leviathan and Great Big Daddy. She also flew her Starburst on two E12's, but the delay was too long and the shock cord cut a 6" zipper in the payload tube. I flew three 2 stage rockets, a new Estes Firestorm, my old CC Express, modified to fly E motors, and my latest build, an Estes Mongoose. Before the day was over, Sharon logged eight flights to my five.
Great weather continued through Saturday when the HPR waiver kicked in. I got the first flight in with my Estes Argent on an H115 dark matter, followed by Sharon's Dark Jart on an I211. Then I made the maiden flight on my carbon fiber RW Mongoose 54. It's first flight was on a CTI J250 Skidmark using the new fly away rail guide. The up part looked flawless, with the rail guide off and landing 3 ft. from the pad. When we recovered it, it looked fine until I picked up the fincan. Apparently .7 grams of BP was too much for the CF tube, it blew a hole out the side above the internal motor retainer. Some of those that inspected it thought it might be a problem with the tube, so I will contact RW and see what they say. I figured the best way to deal with it was to fly another rocket, and next up was my old reliable LOC Nuke Pro Max. "Duke Nukem" was my L1 rocket, many flights and repairs over the years, including a fincan rebuild last year after an I59 blew out at 100 ft. This flight was on an I327, which is a HOT load for a cardboard rocket, but Duke performed flawlessly, topping out at 5400 ft.
My mother and sister showed up just after the HPR waiver expired at 2 pm, so instead of flying my Darkstar Extreme on an L910, I prepped my dual deploy Argent with a CTI G106 Skidmark. Put on a good show but the nosecone popped of at apogee (1600 ft.) for a slightly long recovery. I made another flight on the two stage Firestorm, D12-0 to C6-5 and finished with my scratch built "Kick Asspire" on an F40.
After my relatives made the long drive back to Cottonwood, we had a little pot luck dinner with club members when the AMW trailer showed up. Robert and Gloria had driven in from the SARA launch, and received a warm welcome from the local fliers. We all settled down around the campfire and shared stories and ideas until my eyelids got heavy. I was still fighting a cold I had caught earlier in the week, and was struggling to get out of my chair, due to loading some heavy stuff while prepping for the launch. It was all worth it to spend time with some of my old friends. Last time we saw Robert and Gloria was at last years Airfest in Kansas, when they were our next door neighbors.
Sunday, I woke up early to the sound of the wind rustling the tents outside our trailer. It settled down around dawn, but by the time the waiver opened, it was back up around 10 mph. Sharon and I went over our list of small motors that we planned to get from the AMW trailer over coffee, and were in there filling up our shopping basket when the first flights went off. We flew Sharon's "Drunk V-2" on a G126 White Thunder, which was probably too much motor for that poor little rocket. Fortunately, we had a tracker in it, or it would still be out there. When we recovered it, it was missing the launch lug, which was never found. It was a long recovery, the wind was picking up, and it didn't boost very straight. I wanted to get at least one big rocket off, so my choice was another old faithful, my RW X-Celerator "Rapiditty". It was loaded with a K675 Skidmark, and came off the rail with authority. Flew to 6200 ft. and popped the nosecone off at apogee. This recovery was over a mile away, all on foot, with the 15 lb. rocket wearing me out on the hike back. Sharon even gave me a hand carrying it, but it was my last gasp. We decided to call it a day and break camp.
Despite the hundreds of pounds/ thousands of dollars we had spent on propellant during the Black Friday/Saturday sales, we still managed to find over $800 worth of small reloads in the AMW trailer...
:facepalm:
Now I need to get busy and clean up all the casing and rockets for next weekends launch with TRA/PHX. All the rockets we didn't get flown with SSS are waiting in the trailer for the Eagle Eye launch. Not sure we will be ready for another visit to the AMW trailer, but it will be there, and we LIKE CTI motors!
:horse:
 
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I built my Quinstar today. I jsut need to paint it and apply the decals. What a neat little kit. I also opened the LJII kit. I looked through it and found that one of the decals is creased. I'll call them about it. Estes has been great in the past with stuff like this. Now I am planning to read through the tips and tricks thread in more detail. I find that the abbreviated kit instructions are less clear than I would like so I am hoping to clear up questions I already have. I think I'll build the Commanche III next while I learn about the LJII. Hey, they changed the decals on the Commanche III.
 
Flew with the Tri-Cities Rocketeers yesterday. It was my first time watching high power and was very motivating! So today I cleared my workbench and laid out my L1 build.....

(The Alpha was just there for size reference for my friends)

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Flew with the Tri-Cities Rocketeers yesterday. It was my first time watching high power and was very motivating! So today I cleared my workbench and laid out my L1 build.....

(The Alpha was just there for size reference for my friends)


The first time will only cost you a little.....:)
 
This is more of a weekend update. I glued this all up:
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Its actually a pretty nice kit - good fit of the cone to the tube, nice laser cutting, the wood itself was pretty nice grade, etc. Built pretty quickly. The only gripe is that the decals are printed kind of weakly - the red, especially, is not real opaque. Since its still too cold to do much painting, I have to put this one aside with the others that are waiting warmer weather for finishing. So I moved on and started building an Estes Sprint XL:
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This one is 90% complete now, just to put the motor mount in (the 3rd fin was attached this morning, post-photo). I built this up stock, apart from the obligatory recovery harness upgrade.
 
I finished gluing up the Sprint XL, and started working on replacement for my Der Green Max, which was lost in the carrot fields of Potter last summer.

Like my previous DGM, this one is being built with a 3x18 cluster mount and TTW tabbed fins. This time, however, I cut new fins for it rather than splicing tabs onto the kit fins (which I did on the first one). So far, I've cut the fins, slotted the tube and built up the motor mount. Also, this time I think I'll use a kevlar harness anchor on the mount instead of the Estes tea bag. I'm also updating the color scheme a little bit when I get that far - instead of Granny Smith apple green & black, I'm using Testors Lime Ice and Carbon Black paints. And of course, a set of DGM decals from Stickershock (which I ordered last year right after the original was lost).
 
Ran sim, after sim, after sim on a design. She's ready to be built. Looked for clear body tubes for payload bays, got disgusted that my 14 rockets for the basic class have been back ordered, day dreamed about warmer weather and calmed winds. And it's only Tuesday. Oh yeah, and became mildly intrigued by the Altimeter 3...
 
Mailman dropped by again. The flying crayon is for my daughter's birthday. My build pile is starting to grow....time to get to work.

Love the Estes Crayons for my kids, we walk out to the landed rocket and I immediately fold/prep the chute for repacking, when we get back to the prep table is a single sheet of wadding with a golf ball amount of dog barf shoved about halfway down the tube with a dowel, a bit more loose dog barf on top of that and then the chute is slid into the tube, pop the fin can off, change motors for a fresh one and rocket is ready to fly again all in less than 5 minutes. If flying in winds of 10mph switch the recommeded C6-5 to a C6-3, and we usually fly B6-2's in all flyable conditions, though they only go a couple of hundred feet AGL.
 
Something strange is going on in this thread.

Most recent post was made today Feb 23, but last displayed message dates back to Feb 16.

Whaaaaat?
 
I installed the motor mounts and started attaching the fins to my Der Green Max:
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While that was drying, I realized I hadn't put lugs on the Sprint XL. Needing a stable spot to prop it up, I went double-decker on the fin jig:
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Admittedly, it helped that both rockets used the same fin thickness...
 
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