It was another beautiful day for launching rockets. I wanted to launch some staged and clustered rockets so I had to find something bigger than my usual back yard/pasture. All flights were fun, even though one ended with a crunched rocket. I took my trusty range and recovery crew and headed for a bigger field. I’ll not waste your bandwidth with static “beauty” shots this time. All of them will be launch/flight/recovery. I’d love to post these things at full resolution, but I’d run out of bandwidth at Photobucket in no time if I did that. They load slow enough as it is anyway.

I’ll start with the good and save the bad for last. We had a wind test flight with a Big Betty on a C6-5. Look at the last zoomed pic and you will see the purple igniter plug circled.





Just plugging along.



Next up was my son’s Harpoon for another great flight. Once again, he had Quest Wadded Chute Recovery Syndrome (QWCRS). Since the Big Betty has the same chute and came down under an open canopy, I imagine my son is rolling his up a little too tightly and not using enough baby powder.

My daughter’s Big Rage was next on the pad. After having shotgun recovery last time out, this flight had a very weak ejection. At least the timing was perfect. The B6-4 kept the rocket vertical and it tail slid about 5 feet before ejection. The way the Big Rage is built, there are two fairly large holes in the payload section bulkhead for attaching its parachute. There was just enough pressure to knock off the nosecone but not push the whole payload section (black part) off at the separation point. I checked the tightness when my recovery crew brought the rocket back and the bulkhead separated just as easily as the nosecone. Go figure. There was no damage. Next time, the nosecone will have a very tight friction fit.

As you can see in the photos, we got radar lock on an enemy jet and launched. I guess loss of radar lock caused the odd ejection.

The Zenith II Payloader had a great flight with a B6-0 to B6-6 combination. I’m sure glad we didn’t go with C6-0 to C6-7 because it was all we could do to track the little rascal to apogee. Estes motors have almost no smoke during the coast phase, but thankfully pump out a ton of smoke just before the ejection charge hits. That allowed us to reacquire it and watch it drift waaaaaaaaay down range. Next time it will have streamer recovery! The launch shot was the most blurry of the lot. I was shooting at 1/1600 sec shutter speed, but the little light weight rockets are going to need 1/2000 or better I reckon. Looks like I let the autofocus wander a bit also.







The next flight was my scratch Blue Max on a C6-3. This is a scratch build that I threw together in order to test several new finishing techniques. This rocket has one of the first nosecones I ever turned, has the first set of homemade decals using both white and clear materials, and has the first Future Floor Polish clear coat I ever tried. It came out pretty good. The nosecone is made of pine, so the rocket is fairly heavy. That lets me use bigger motors on small fields and still get it back. That’s also why I went with the 3 second delay instead of 5 seconds.

Another flight of the Akela-1 Cub Scout clone on an A8-5. This one wasn’t as blurry as the Zenith II, even though I used the same shutter speed. Liftoff speed was similar to the Zenith, but I guess it was a little slower since it didn’t blur as much.



My upscaled 1969 Big Bertha was the last flight. I flew it on a D12-5 and two A10-3T’s. The Bertha had a nominal flight at first glance, but when I recovered the rocket, I noticed some slight damage (easily repairable) to the motor mount. Upon examining the photos, one of my A10-3T’s had a CATO at mid burn. Usually they go right at liftoff, so this was odd. This A10-3T was from a different batch than the last one, but I don’t remember the code. I used some of my precious and dwindling Thermalite for simultaneous motor ignition. The A10’s are in blocked off motor mounts and kick out at ejection while the D12 keeps chugging along. In one photo you can see the CATO. I’ll add a couple of zoomed shots that show the other two motors are still firing when the CATO took place, and a shot of the A10-3T still burning from both ends.

A10-3T CATO

Now for the bad stuff. I’ve flown my Omega/Cineroc clone as a single stage with C11-3 with great success. I staged it on D12’s this time around. Liftoff was slow and the rocket tipped off…or more accurately arced off the pad. I assumed it was purely due to the heavy weight of my Cineroc clone payload with video downlink, but when I looked at photos I saw something. I’ve never noticed the “poopy clay syndrome” before, but I believe I was a victim with this flight. I know that the two stage configuration is heavier, but with the advertised 4.9 lbs max thrust for the C11-3 vs. 6.7 lbs for the D12-0, it shouldn’t have been a problem. After studying the launch photos, I saw that the rocket had vectored thrust. That made me take a look at the booster motor. The booster’s nozzle was eroded adn considerably larger than the sustainer’s and there were a couple of chunks missing. I’m sure this hurt the max thrust considerably, giving it a much slower liftoff and making the vectored thrust that much more harmful to the flight profile. I haven’t looked at the launch video yet. The rocket took off to the right and back over us, so the transmission was likely blocked by my truck within two or three seconds of liftoff. Not only was my rocket and payload trashed, most likely I didn’t get any video of the downrange portion of the flight.

On the upside, I’m learning more about the use of my new digital SLR, and the photos I’m taking are letting me see things that I never would have known without it. I would have thought the Omega/Cineroc flight was totally my fault if not for seeing the vectored thrust. I would have never thought about looking at the motor nozzle in the post mortem.









Thrust Vectoring close-up. The rocket is already tilting toward back toward me and to the right. If I had been standing farther to the left, I would have been able to see just how much of a vector angle it had.

You're doing this on purpose, I know you are.
I can't see one of them. They're all firewalled here at work. Now I have to wait until I get home to see them.

__________________
Bill Eichelberger
NAR 79563

http://wallyum.blogspot.com/

I miss being SAM 0058

Build floor: Centuri Design Contest F-150 Hurricane Estes - Low Boom SST Semroc - Marauder, Shrike, SST Shuttle

In paint: Canaroc Starfighter Scorpion Estes F-22 Air Superiority Fighter, Multi-Roc, Solar Sailer II Semroc Cyber III

Ready to fly: Estes - Solar Sailer II Semroc - Earmark, Groonie Der V 1/2

BwaaaaHaaaaaHaaaaa!

More great photos.

Where can I find information on your Cineroc clone? It sounds like a great project for lofting with my Omega.

Mario