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Engineer Kelly
03-30-2008, 04:27 PM
Saturday March 29 around 3:00 pm i launched my clustered Astron Cobra (Three C6-3's)
Early afternoon rain shower with NW winds. Later that afternoon it was clear with slight East winds.
I walked down through the cow pasture to the launch field and setup. I picked up a rock off the ground to send up in the payload section. I ignited the motors and up it went. Not very straight though.

The parachute deployed (something looked wrong though). The chute had become wadded. It still came back safely though. Only two motors fired and i guess thats why it didnt fly straight and the chute looked like it had been burned and little. The shroud lines were all wadded up too. I dont think i had enough wadding in the tube.

Im not sure what went wrong with the motor not igniting though. I couldnt find the igniter. Maybe it wasnt touching the propellant.

Im going to launch it again soon though.

Rocket Doctor
03-30-2008, 05:10 PM
Saturday March 29 around 3:00 pm i launched my clustered Astron Cobra (Three C6-3's)
Early afternoon rain shower with NW winds. Later that afternoon it was clear with slight East winds.
I walked down through the cow pasture to the launch field and setup. I picked up a rock off the ground to send up in the payload section. I ignited the motors and up it went. Not very straight though.

The parachute deployed (something looked wrong though). The chute had become wadded. It still came back safely though. Only two motors fired and i guess thats why it didnt fly straight and the chute looked like it had been burned and little. The shroud lines were all wadded up too. I dont think i had enough wadding in the tube.

Im not sure what went wrong with the motor not igniting though. I couldnt find the igniter. Maybe it wasnt touching the propellant.

Im going to launch it again soon though.

Clustering is an art, you must have the tip of the igniter up against the propellant, second, the igniter leads must be twisted tightly together or use a clip whip. You also must use a launch system with enough "juice" to get all three motors to fire at the same time. A 12 volt car battery would be the best.

I had used my multi-pad and 12 volt car battery, all three D motors ignited and it flew like a bat out of H......., never to been seen again, especially by using a 36 inch nylon parachute.
There was plenty of land, I launched it at my uncles farm, but, it went too high and another one bit the dust.