What did you do rocket wise today?

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With the County Fair tying up the SEVRA field for the entire month of September, made the 2.5 hour drive up to attend the NOVAAR launch at the Great Meadow.

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(should have photographed in the other direction; cars stretched for what must have been 100 yds on both sides of the road; two different vans full of Civil Air Patrol cadets, and then a scout troop showed up!)

Gorgeous field, beautiful weather (though it got a bit warm mid-afternoon) and plenty of launch activity (so many Alpha 3's you'd have thought the field was a breeding ground for them).

Got to put up five flights including a maiden on my Semroc Aerobee 150, and had some truly enjoyable conversations with club members. Also experienced the highs and lows of seeing Wally's Wildman 3X Andromeda in person. Gut-wrenching...

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Thanks to the officers and members of NOVAAR for being such gracious hosts!
 
Hope its a good day of flying. Didn't know you have a red stone like I do.

I should have thought to show you. My scale models are lined up on the top of my computer desk rather than upstairs in the storage room.

Launch Report, MDRA Central Sod Farm, 09/18/21:

Fliskits L-13, C5-3: Success. Good flight, noticeably more zip with the C5 than the C6.

Estes Wizard, A3-4 (Q-Jet): Success. My wife built this rocket. Noticeably more zip on the Q-jet A motor than with the A8. Barely visible at apogee despite the A motor.

Estes Prowler, E16-6: Success. Flew this rocket at my little daughter's request. Maybe she likes it because it's pink? Not sure. Good flight regardless.

PML X-Calibur (DD Modified, Named Principality II), G80T: Partial Success. Performed admirably on ascent, reaching 1221 feet, much higher than I was expecting. My LOC deployer has a similar weight, but only hits 800-900 feet on similar G motors. Maybe because the X-Calibur is only a 2" rocket while Deployer is 3". DD system worked properly on descent, but the main parachute ejected directly below the rocket, and the rocket promptly fell into the parachute and tangled. Luckily landed in soft mud and has some paint scratches but no structural damage I could find upon examination.

Estes Astrocam, C6-5: Partial Success. I realized I hadn't flown the Astrocam at the Sod Farm yet, so decided to give it a whirl. Sadly failed to take video. I couldn't really see the indicator light in the bright sun and the camera must not have been actually been running. I'll have to try it again next month. Good flight at least but failed the objective.

Estes Mercury-Redstone, C5-3: Success. I never had a problem flying the Mercury-Redstone on a C6-3, but decided to see how it looked on the C5 anyway. Like the L-13, noticeably more zip and possibly a straighter boost.

Rocketman CSXT Space Shot, I229T: Success. Good dual deploy flight, reached 1173 feet.

Vander-Burn Mega Der Red Max (Named Mega Der Pontifex Maximus and flies pope-themed livery), H73J: Success. Nice long boost with the old-school blackjack motor, and I seem to have more or less figured out the chute release at this point after a few initial failures with it. I got a good deploy of the parachute at 400'. The only annoying thing was that I realized I forgot to put my AltimeterThree in it when it was leaving the pad.

All in all a pretty good day.
 
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I should have thought to show you. My scale models are lined up on the top of my computer desk rather than upstairs in the storage room.

Launch Report, MDRA Central Sod Farm, 09/18/21:

Fliskits L-13, C5-3: Success. Good flight, noticeably more zip with the C5 than the C6.

Estes Wizard, A3-4 (Q-Jet): Success. My wife built this rocket. Noticeably more zip on the Q-jet A motor than with the A8. Barely visible at apogee despite the A motor.

Estes Prowler, E16-6: Success. Flew this rocket at my little daughter's request. Maybe she likes it because it's pink? Not sure. Good flight regardless.

PML X-Calibur (DD Modified, Named Principality II), G80T: Partial Success. Performed admirably on ascent, reaching 1221 feet, much higher than I was expecting. My LOC deployer has a similar weight, but only hits 800-900 feet on similar G motors. Maybe because the X-Calibur is only a 2" rocket while Deployer is 3". DD system worked properly on descent, but the main parachute ejected directly below the rocket, and the rocket promptly fell into the parachute and tangled. Luckily landed in soft mud and has some paint scratches but no structural damage I could find upon examination.

Estes Astrocam, C6-5: Partial Success. I realized I hadn't flown the Astrocam at the Sod Farm yet, so decided to give it a whirl. Sadly failed to take video. I couldn't really see the indicator light in the bright sun and the camera must not have been actually been running. I'll have to try it again next month. Good flight at least but failed the objective.

Estes Mercury-Redstone, C5-3: Success. I never had a problem flying the Mercury-Redstone on a C6-3, but decided to see how it looked on the C5 anyway. Like the L-13, noticeably more zip and possibly a straighter boost.

Rocketman CSXT Space Shot, I229T: Success. Good dual deploy flight, reached 1173 feet.

Vander-Burn Mega Der Red Max (Named Mega Der Pontifex Maximus and flies pope-themed livery), H73J: Success. Nice long boost with the old-school blackjack motor, and I seem to have more or less figured out the chute release at this point after a few initial failures with it. I got a good deploy of the parachute at 400'. The only annoying thing was that I realized I forgot to put my AltimeterThree in it when it was leaving the pad.

All in all a pretty good day.
1. Fliskit.... C5-3 has a good thrust bite .
2. Good you got back wizard. The Q Jets pack a good punch.The Boss would not be to happy if it got lost.
3. Prowler...The little Cutey Pie knew this rocket would be a successful flight.
4. X Caliber...Parachutes do come in handy for several things.
5. Would have been nice to see a "C6" flight video by Astrocam. The "B6" flight you did months ago was nice to see. Yes, this is one of the problems I have with the 808 Spycam flown on the 18mm patriot in Quinby. The lights on the camera are hard to see in the daylight. Other than that 808 and the Astrocam take excellent videos and sound.
6. Red stone...I never had any problems with it with C6-3. Never used a C5-3. Must have been nice to fly.
7...Rocketman CSXT..1173 is a good height to see. Is that the Baby "I" motor?
8.. Der Red Max...A long burn is a good burn on a Black Jack. Any idea how high it went?
A good day it was.
 
Today was our monthly launch. First launch since May. The weather forecast was great. Unfortunately the reality was not. The wind went from 5 mph at 9 am to 10 by 11 and 15 by 1 & that was the end. I only got 3 up. The first one was the Whistle Pod rocket. I didn't hear it but several people who weren't close to the rocket heard the whistles. So it whistled going up and coming down. The ejection charge failed to break the shear pin and it came back ballistic. The lawn dart was epic. The nose cone buried in the lake bed. I had to give it a good pull to get it out. Left a perfect impression of the nose cone in the clay. The WPR went up on a G80. I next flew a rocket on a H115. Good boost and recovery. The chute release was set to 400' and the rocket still got to the edge of the lake bed about half a mile away. The last rocket I launched was a 3" dual deploy rocket on a I 205. Good boost. Drouge came out at the top. The main charge didn't fire. Not sure why. Maybe a loose wire. Damage was minimal. Already fixed. I was going to fly a I 280 and an I 500 but it was to windy. The whistle pod rocket hit the ground so hard it bent a 1/4" threaded rod. I was able to save the fin can and the whistle pods. Here are a couple of pics of the lawn dart.20210918_101206[1189].jpg20210918_164426[1187].jpg
 
The flight was awesome
I didn’t push it very hard for its first flight went on a D12-3 and it went up arched over well
Chute opened just after apogee
Field isn’t huge in CT big enough to handle up
To H motors
1500ft is a nice comfortable altitude for the CT field
Which way did it arch? Towards the belly (tube fin) or topside?
 
Upgraded the Ardupilot firmware on my Vertical Trajectory System to 4.2.0, Developer cut (that is the bleeding-edge version). Upgrade went well but the breakwire I use when the nosecone comes off stopped functioning. A little looking turned up nothing, but a quick post on their forum had it sorted. There was another setting to use now as they changed the way the servo outputs are allocated.

Earlier in the week I received a stepper driver PCB from Polulu. Today I downloaded the drivers and PC interface, installed them, connected up some power and a small stepper and it worked just out of the box. A very capable little bit of hardware. Next up is to connect my NEMA42 stepper and play around with it. The end-game for this is to drive my Automatic Antenna Tracker.
https://www.pololu.com/product/3141
Stepper.jpg

[edit] A while back I posted the torque of that large stepper being 1Nm. I was reading the wrong line of the data sheet. It is 15Nm.
 
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Which way did it arch? Towards the belly (tube fin) or topside?
It arched towards the belly tube. It was actually really neat cause it took off like a rocket obviously but then as it arched it looked like a jet cruising so it was interesting
Looking forward to another launch
 
That’s nice but probably risky for my small field. If I build one I’ll likely add some trim to the fins to counteract the belly tube
 
That’s nice but probably risky for my small field. If I build one I’ll likely add some trim to the fins to counteract the belly tube
The D12 motor was only around 440 ft but I can appreciate being careful with smaller fields
 
Getting things prepped for Tulsa Rocketry’s High Frontier launch next weekend. The ‘big’ rockets are wrapped up for the drive. It’s amazing what a good cleaning and fresh coat of future polish will do. The old Bomarc looks pretty good!
I put together a good selection of low powered rockets for the kids to launch.
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Updated my Proton's firmware to the latest version (which Windows 10 attempts to make as difficult as possible) and then programed the drogue and main settings of it and my Stratologger CF for flight.
 
Looks like I've got a working Eggfinder Mini and Rx. Bluetooth version, using a Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8 with Android 8.1.0 and Rocket Locator app from Google Play. Tablet has no cell service, so I used my phone as a WiFi hotspot.

I took it for a ride and once the Bluetooth GPS started showing data, Rocket Locator found us right away. Pretty neat! As a hardwired electronics guy, I was expecting much more of a learning curve getting all these things to play together. Then again, it ain't in the air yet.

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Now to figure out how to put all the Rx bits in the box without making things too complicated.
 
7...Rocketman CSXT..1173 is a good height to see. Is that the Baby "I" motor?
8.. Der Red Max...A long burn is a good burn on a Black Jack. Any idea how high it went?
A good day it was.

The I229T is a one-grain 54mm motor similar to the ones I'm planning to fly the rockets you gave me on. It's on the lower end of "I" impulse, but not low enough for me to call it a baby I, though that's subjective.

I'm guessing Mega Max hit over 1000 feet judging by how small it looked and how long it took to fall back to the ground, but I'm not completely sure. Like I said, I forgot to put my AltimeterThree in it to get actual data.
 
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Some more work on Munun Wambad.

Finished the MMT. Bottom ring is not glued into place.

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Marked tube for slotting.

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High tech cutting mandrel. Catalogue part #66714/371

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Slot sides cut...

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And plunge cuts for the ends.

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Test fit the fins and smile. :D

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More work on the fins tomorrow. Fun build.
 
We had a great launch at Sayre on Sunday. Plenty of people showed up, some of them even launched rockets! The prof that sponsored the SWOSU Argonia Cup Challenge was able to get a bunch of students to show up. They're trying to get a new team together.

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My Mega Rebel on the pad
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