Well, couldn't make excuses any longer....had to go and fly my Saturn V. It was a good day for it. Partly cloudy and light winds. I had modified my Saturn V to fly with 29mm motors. Since empty weight was a little over 15 ounces, I decided to use the Econojet F20-4W. At only 83mm long, I had to make an adapter to make up the rest of the 120mm length in the motor mount tube.

Instead of the stock parachutes supplied by Estes, I used two 36 inch silk parachutes I got off of Ebay. Although a good choice for the bottom section, it turned out to be too much parachute for the upper section. Probably should have kept with an 18" parachute.

After screwing around what seemed like forever trying to get continuity with my Copper Head igniter clip, I finally just put some masking tape on the igniter (you know, a little on each side) and just hooked my regular aligator clips to it.

Launch was from a four foot length of 1/4" rod. The launch picture shows only the smoke starting. I usually miss these launches but I guess this one was too early. Nice and straight. Apogee at about 350 to 400 feet. That's what I liked most about this motor selection. Nice straight burn and the flight is still low enough that you can watch the events unfold. Seperation occured at apogee. Upper section parachute deployed almost instantly. Was slightly concerned when it took a while for the lower sections parachute to deploy. It looked like it didn't clear the body tube at ejection and may have just fell out afterwards. I may have to start laying it on top of the upper section parachute to make sure it deploys without the associated heart failure.

As you can see in the pictures, both sections came down nicely. As I said earlier, the 36" parachute for the upper section was way too much and resulted in a little extra walking to retrieve. It ended up hanging on the guy lines for a power pole......out of reach of course. After packing everything, I went back to see if I could safely retrieve it. The wind had pulled the parachute and had the rocket pulled against the guy wire. One little shake, and the rocket was free.

Damage assessment......Lower section - No damage. Upper section - escape tower broke. This was the result of the rocket being pinned against the guy wire.

Future Launches......I wonder how this will do on a G?

Don
NAR 53455

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Finally! Looks like the F20 was a good choice for an awesome flight. Thanks for the report. I believe I will go the 29mm route myself now. That altitude is just about right for what I would like to see as a minimum. Glad to see it worked out so well, but for the upper section damage. I've always said that if there's anything standing higher than 6 feet near the launch range, a rocket will head directly for it during recovery. (If it isn't one of Murphy's laws - it should be.)

__________________
John Lance Ladd
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems
Grovers Mill, NJ
Established 1938
lladd.netau.net

Lance,

Isn't that Ladd's Corollary to Murphy's Law?


Cheers,

--Jay