Luta eight!

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If it flies, I can crash it!

Very entertaining flights with this one, George.

I don't think I'll ever understand the fascination with Teri Garr.
If somebody said Christie Brinkley, then I'd understand. Or Heidi Klum or Kathy Ireland...

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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !

At the MASA launch Sunday, I made two flights of the Tractor Helix rocket.
Flight 1 went very well.



Flight 2 got off to a poor start. I was using chewing gum to hold the electric match wires in the nozzles. Normally I use clay or putty but it was too cold to stick (can't use tape, the electric match wires need to let go easily. And Estes ignitor plugs won't fit with the thicker wires). On flight 2, I happened to have the wires pressed to one side, of each nozzle, that ended up causing the gum to lift to one side at ignition, which vented thrust sideways, which caused it to start to roll the opposite way from normal. As it started up the rod, the nozzles cleared, and it the normal thrustline torque caused the wrong spin to stop. The roll had stopped when it left the rod, and unequal thrust (two different brands of C6's) caused it to tip to one side due to no roll to even it out. Once it left the rod it started to roll the normal way and did not curve any more, a slanted boost.

From now on, I'll make sure that the gum or clay is pressed the other direction, to help the correct roll to start at ignition (As I think happened on flight #1). This is one of the big benefits of having an at-pad-camera with that view, to see what really happened when something odd occurs that is not noticeable real-time from a distance.



Also, the tail plug had felt a bit tight, so I removed a piece of tape. Well, it ended up a bit too loose, falling out during the boost, causing the parachute to deploy early from the back. But it landed safely.


Video is here: https://youtu.be/vRabCzg8nGA


There is a lot more info on the project on TRF: https://www.rocketryforum.com/threa...project.169137/

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Flight 1 looked great.
Thanks for the interesting pics, George.

__________________
When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !