What did you do rocket wise today?

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Hopefully I will get to build it soon and I will post some pictures of the build and flight

Absolutely
To be honest after reading that article I immediately bought the deuces wild kit from fliskit. I thought it was totally cool and unique 👍🏻

QUOTE="kuririn, post: 2161732, member: 25677"]
Did you see the article in the current issue of Sport Rocketry by Curt Heisey?
It's about his Deuces fleet.
Seven models ranging from 2X18 to 2X54mm.
Dia. range from stock to 7.5".
[/QUOTE]
 
Day 2 of NARAM. Met Wally Ferrer and chatted a bit. Wally seems to be snapping up all the raffle prizes.

Reflew yesterday's flash built Bull's Eye, this time with a C6-5, and had a good flight and perfect recovery.

And then there's the torpedo, File One! This morning before heading out I swing tested it. It needed more nose weight than I expected, but did pass without weighing too terribly much. During the test, to be really sure, I tilted the swing path until the rocket grazed the grass (can you dig it?) and tumbled then corrected.

All the same, the RSO was convinced it would be unstable, and I allowed as how I still my doubts despite the swing test, and yes it was an experiment. I would have wanted to go from a high power pad even if he hadn't required it.

Well, he was right. Total sky writer. Back to the drawing board. There is one change I'm pretty sure would fix the problem, and another that I hope would fix it because I'd like the look better. But before I start guessing about possible fixes, I want to figure out why is would pass a toughened swing test and then fail in flight. If I know why then I can address it without taking pot shots at a solution.

When rebuilding a rocket that has most of the body tube replaced, do you strip the old paint off and start over, or just keep layering it on?
Neither. You leave the paint on the bit of retained tube and paint the rest in a slightly different shade. Show off those scars! 😁
 
Flew my Rising Star today prior to a night flight tonight, sorry no video. I used an F44-4W, but failed to add the spacer to the front of the motor mount. As a result, the Kevlar tether ripped the top off the motor mount, took me a while to figure out that's the likely reason... the sustainer lawn darted and crushed the top of the tube, not likely I can repair it enough to fly by tonight. After a slight struggle, I did get the payload section back into the crushed sustainer, but no attachment for the tether...

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Met Joe Avins, watched him sign his name in the sky with his Torpedo- maybe torpedos are meant to stay in the water :D, but I'm confident he will get it to fly, persistence pays off. I did fly my Super Big Bertha on a G53-5FJ today, hit 811 feet instead of the 1100 or so it simmed to- I'll be modifying the cd as all of my sims go higher than real life. Video doesn't seem to see the rocket coming down except for a quick zoom near the end.

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Gave my air-frame a bath...
Only had an Eastwood two part epoxy primer on it for ground deployment testing so a nice paint job wouldn't get beaten up. However, I did manage to get black powder residue/sweat & body oil hand prints all over it. I called Eastwood Tech Support and the nice lady told me to only use Dawn dishwashing liquid to clean it (to avoid residues). Didn't cut the BP residue. After researching "Simple Green" I found they claim it is good for paint prep and doesn't leave residue.
Well it cleaned the smudges and to err on the side of caution I gave it the Dawn treatment afterwards with a good rinse. Give it a couple of days to make sure it's dry, and it's "rattle can" time.
Watching my neighbor mowing his yard just now got me thinking... "How can you tell where a rocket fanatic lives ??? He's the one with the "crappy" yard."
 
Last night/early this morning I finished the rocket I'm calling Bits and Pieces. I took some tube cut off from other projects and some couplers to make it. It's a 2.6" body tube with a 38mm mount. It is 61" long and weighs 43 ounces with both chutes. It is dual deploy. I think it's the shortest and lightest dual deploy I've made. The tube pieces were 10.75", 10", 7. 75",10" & 12.75. Each color band is a separate tube. And it is the147th scratch build I've done since January of 2019.20210725_002858[892].jpg
 
I Took my 1.6” Tomach out for its maiden flight on a I205. I think maybe I was in a little bit of a rush trying to launch it before it started raining (that came out of nowhere with no warning). I didn’t pack the parachute correctly causing it to get scorched. I did retrieve the rocket though.
 

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How was the 7 engine cluster ? That sounds interesting . Must of been cool to see


Got to NARAM for my first day. Got 8 launches in at the sport range, including the 7 engine cluster Hydra VII (all motors lit). Successfully recovered all birds! Good day!
 
Day 3 of NARAM. I didn't get to the range, but I did go to the vendors forum. There wasn't much of huge interest, but there were these things.

Estes has a display model of the Blue Origin phallic rocket. A young fellow asked if they were going to do anything with SaceX, and the answer was "I can neither confirm nor deny that we will be doing anything with SoaceX. But start saving your allowance."

They've worked out some manufacturing issue(s) with their 29 mm offerings, so we should see their stocking issues improving soon.

I asked abut 18 mm high thrust booster motors, to many nods and "uh-huh"s from the audience. The return of the B14 is unlikely (we've talked about the here before) but would be great. A C5-0 would be nice. What she said was that Estes recognizes that the serious hobbyist market has been underserved as they've focused on the Hobby Lobby market, but they are preparing to address that with the capability to do short runs of motors. No promise of high thrust 18 mm boosters, but hope.

Quest has a new model coming out with a 24 mm motor mount, which they said is there first such, but a couple of guys in the audience begged to differ. Whatever. It's coming, with more to follow. Which makes sense since some 24 mm Q-Jets came out recently.

Semroc/eRockets has some cool new little stuff. The best is rail buttons on dowels that can be place in the two ends of a launch lug and held there by a rubber band.

Now I'm sitting at the range waiting to start on Day 4. Report later.
 
Met Joe Avins, watched him sign his name in the sky with his Torpedo- maybe torpedos are meant to stay in the water :D, but I'm confident he will get it to fly, persistence pays off. I did fly my Super Big Bertha on a G53-5FJ today, hit 811 feet instead of the 1100 or so it simmed to- I'll be modifying the cd as all of my sims go higher than real life. Video doesn't seem to see the rocket coming down except for a quick zoom near the end.

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Nice quality on the video. Thank you for not adding some ridiculous music to it.
 
How was the 7 engine cluster ? That sounds interesting . Must of been cool to see


Yes it was! I previously flew it with a mix of B6 and C6 engines.
I had to use all B6 to stay below the "F" requirement to use rails

And I got 10 flights in today (but the two days were my only days I could attend)

Recovered all rockets from both days, but a few do need some repairs....
 
Well, not today... Yesterday and Monday... flew home, full versed in the Barrowman stability method from reading Chapter 2 in "Topics in Advanced Model Rocketry". Yesterday continued my Rocketry Evangelism by presenting the grandkids with their new Kennedy Space Center T Shirts and hyping them up about what I saw there...
 
Woke up to a very grey and wet day- unsure if there will be any launching at NARAM today, we'll see. I did pass my L2 written test the day before yesterday. Yesterday, I attempted an L2 flight, using my AME NSL Big Bertha rather than add the dual deploy complexity with the Peregrine. Unfortunately the chute did not open, and I took a core sample. The tube was crushed and the flight was a failure, but I did the repair last night. Here's hoping for the sky to clear between now and noon tomorrow!


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Woke up to a very grey and wet day- unsure if there will be any launching at NARAM today, we'll see. I did pass my L2 written test the day before yesterday. Yesterday, I attempted an L2 flight, using my AME NSL Big Bertha rather than add the dual deploy complexity with the Peregrine. Unfortunately the chute did not open, and I took a core sample. The tube was crushed and the flight was a failure, but I did the repair last night. Here's hoping for the sky to clear between now and noon tomorrow!


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Well, congratulations on passing the written at least! That's nothing to sneeze at!
:goodjob:
 
It was tad windy this morning, but no rain. I flew my second L2 attempt, shortened NSL Big Bertha on a J270W-12, failed to arm the FS for launch, so no flight data. Simmed to around 2600 ft. A tallish rocket from the contest range lawn darted shortly after I lost sight of mine, and Greg the LCO also thought it was mine, I was broken-hearted, but as I was headed towards it, the owner started pulling it out of the ground, and Greg announced that dart wasn't in fact mine, that mine had landed close to a trailer out in the recovery area, sure enough, there it was. Again, the JLCR had deployed, but the Roto-sail again failed to open. This time it did NOT take a core sample, and Greg deemed it was successful as there was no damage and it could fly again, so I am now L2 certified with NAR.:dancingelephant::wos_love::headspinning::cheers:

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It was tad windy this morning, but no rain. I flew my second L2 attempt, shortened NSL Big Bertha on a J270W-12, failed to arm the FS for launch, so no flight data. Simmed to around 2600 ft. A tallish rocket from the contest range lawn darted shortly after I lost sight of mine, and Greg the LCO also thought it was mine, I was broken-hearted, but as I was headed towards it, the owner started pulling it out of the ground, and Greg announced that dart wasn't in fact mine, that mine had landed close to a trailer out in the recovery area, sure enough, there it was. Again, the JLCR had deployed, but the Roto-sail again failed to open. This time it did NOT take a core sample, and Greg deemed it was successful as there was no damage and it could fly again, so I am now L2 certified with NAR.:dancingelephant::wos_love::headspinning::cheers:

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YES!!! Way to go Wally!!!!!!:awesome::awesome::music1::music1:
 
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