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Old 06-01-2009, 12:57 PM
rokitflite's Avatar
rokitflite rokitflite is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 952
Default Yes! QUEST Big BP Motors!

As I am sure many of the folks here will tell you; working for or even owning a model rocket company will not make you rich in most cases. But sometimes being an employee certainly has its benefits! FINALLY after several scrubbed attempts, Foosefest 2009 was a go and I got to test fire about half a dozen of the new Quest D, E, and F black powder engines. In short I will say they will be worth the wait!!! The only real instruction I received with the engines was “not to wear my best underwear when flying these motors”. That was good advice since I started with an F12-4. I was a little concerned about the weight of the model as I understood this to be about the same thrust rate as an Estes D12. We loaded the engine up into Jim Filler’s “Extended” Big Daddy which was basically a standard Big Daddy with a 29mm engine mount and a full 34” length 3” dia. body tube. The model weighed in at 409 grams without the engine, with the engine installed, the weight was bumped up to 511 grams. Knowing that an Estes D struggles with anything over 12 ounces and we were now over 16, we called a “heads up flight” and pressed the launch button… POWHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!!! The rocket leapt off the pad and for over 4 seconds rode upwards on a column of thick white smoke. What is interesting about all of the new Quest engines is that the delay grain burns loudly so instead of 4 seconds of thrust and 4 seconds of delay, it SOUNDED like 8 seconds of thrust… VERY COOL!!! A little after apogee the chute popped and after what SEEMED to be a close to 1000 ft flight, the model landed within about 50 yards of the pads. Beautiful!

The second engine I chose was the D8-3. I ASSUMED, as did the rest of us, that this would be a slightly whimpy D, and thus loaded it up into my BT-80 upscale mosquito which weighed in at 212 grams. I had flown this model with C11s so I figured it should be safe. The engine ignited instantly and blasted the model off of the pad with more force than I had seen in any flight it had made with a D12. And the nice long roar was very pleasing! The model went way higher than it had on any previous flight, and thanks to Jim’s advice; “You should point it straight up” (instead of a little into the wind), I had a 10+ minute walk to recover the model.

Craig WAS going to fly his Pem Tech Kraken on one of the D8s, but after we saw what it did to my Mosquito, we decided to put the engine in his heavier Neubauer Rocketry Orion II. The model ripped off the pad to a very respectable altitude and recovered safely. Another outstanding flight, and the delay time seemed spot-on.

Next up was my “Pirates Booty” rocket which had been waiting to fly for months http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?t=1043 . I decided to go with the E12-4 for this model. Without the engine the model weighed 430 grams, the engine added another 87 grams for a total weight of 517 grams or 1 lb, 2.24 oz. Yet another flawless flight with lots of smoke and noise. These motors really sound “angry”, and that just adds to the coolness factor. I would guess that it made it to around 600-700 feet and I got more exercise recovering it.

Kevin’s Valkyrie got the next E12-4. The model weighed 360 grams without the motor so we were confident that the E would do its job. We were not disappointed and it roared skyward for another great flight.

The last flight was Jerry’s Standard ARM with another D8-3. The model weighed about 10 oz. and had itself a picture perfect flight. Unfortunately I was waist deep in tick grass looking for a model when it launched so I did not round up the photographers in time.

To sum it up, THESE ENGINES ROCK!!!

Below are some of the outstanding photographs that Craig took, and Kevin will be adding some youtube links to this thread later on.
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