I completely racked in all of the rocket stuff I could've wanted. I got multiple rocket kits, some of which are a LOC/Precision 2" Black Brant X (one of my favorite rocket designs), a Madcow Rocketry PAC-3 and a Wildman Drago, and I couldn't have had a more fun time building these rockets, although I've still got a bit to work on for the first two, but they should be finished soon enough. I got numerous motors and motor cases and hardware, but probably the coolest present I got was a Casio FH-100 high speed camera, which provides me with tons of entertainment, related to rockets or not. It takes great pictures and is like a miniature DSLR camera, for a fraction of the price. I really love it!
As I've said, I've done a ton of work on rockets, and I did get a chance to fly two of the five large rockets I got during the holiday season. These two rockets were a LOC/Precision Lil' Nuke and the Drago. Both were flown at the February launch at Culpeper, and performed great. The new rockets were only in primer, as there were not many opportunities for painting in this season. I arrived to the launch somewhat skeptical, as the weather was to be perfect if it wasn't for the high winds that were supposed to come. The wind wasn't horrible and it was blowing in a favorable direction, so I decided to fly the Lil' Nuke on a E18-4, which had a nice, swift ride to about 800 feet, with a nice recovery in the soft mud. Unfortunately, I didn't get a liftoff video or picture. After that, I flew my Apogee Components Nemsar on an E9-8. It went WAY higher than expected, over 1,200 feet by the looks of it. The rocket separated at apogee, and the two pieces came down not too far away, but i just couldn't find them after over an hour of searching. Apparently, someone found the two rocket parts while I was looking for it. They brought it to me after I was looking for quite some time. Well, the shock cord seemed to come off from the heat of the ejection charge melting the glue that attached it to the motor mount. But thankfully, all is repairable and it will fly again. After that, and seeing everyone else's rockets recover relatively close, I built up enough courage to fly the Drago on a reloadable G79-8 motor in a 29/180 case using a Reload Adapter System. The boost was wonderful, with a loud roar and a sweet roar. It went lower than expected, probably lower than 1,400 feet, but I got a ton of great liftoff pictures with my camera, as one is shown below. The recovery was great, if a little late, with a 21" CATO 'Chutes hemispherical parachute, which looked very cool and realistic coming down. It was a great flight, and performed perfectly. To top it all off, I flew my good ol' trusty Rock-It on an E9-8 for a great flight. Overall, it was a great launch and I got a ton of nice videos. I'd like to share them, but I have to upload them to YouTube first. So for now, I'll give you a few pictures from the launch.
Lil' Nuke recovery.
The Drago on the pad.
Drago liftoff.
Rock-It recovery.
Edit: This was made a long time ago, and I have been slacking off on this blog. Expect more posts and flight reports as the summer progresses.
Happy Flying!
I arrived at the launch site mid-day on Friday, and only launched a small Estes cluster rocket before the rain came and I headed out. The next day, the weather was more promising. I launched my new LOC/Precision Black Brant X on a F35 for its first flight (right). It was slow and low, but went very well. I also flew my Wildman Rocketry Darkstar Lite on a G76 Mojave Green (left). I attached my micro keychain camera to the rocket, as I was expecting awesome footage from a 1,400 foot flight. The boost was swift atop a green flame, and was perfectly straight. Unfortunately, due to a faulty homemade retention system, the energy of the ejection charge went into breaking the weak epoxy joint on the motor retention instead of fully deploying the parachute. The rocket flat-spun down and literally cracked one of the fillets right off. It has just been easily repaired, and the rocket will fly again soon, but with a new retention system. But, apparently, the impact caused the micro keychain camera to not record a single second of video from the flight! Although that was a major bummer, that didn't stop me from flying my Wildman Drago (below) on a Cesaroni Pro29 3-grain G54 moon-burner. This was the biggest motor I could fly before I get certified, but it was an easy prep with a Aero Pack retainer and the low assembly Cesaroni motor, the rocket was ready to go in a short time. The motor lit instantly, and the rocket streaked into the sky atop an awesome red flame. The motor just kept going and going! The rocket went to about 2,500 feet, and it would have gone higher if the rocket didn't have a strange tilt immediately after it left the launch pad. There was little wind, and the rocket had a safe, close recovery. That concluded Saturday, and the weather for Sunday was promising another great day of rockets.
On Sunday, the first to go up was the Black Brant X again on an Aerotech F62 with a reload adapter system in a 29/180 case. The boost was quick, but after about a second from motor burnout, my personally drilled delay burned through too early and popped out the parachute. Oops! I think I'll be more careful drilling my delays. The only damage was a snapped shroud line on the parachute because of the high speed ejection, but since the rocket was only a couple hundred feet in the air, the rocket was unharmed. After that, I flew my Lil' Nuke on an Aerotech F24-7 (left) for a nice, quick flight to 800 feet. The ejection of the parachute was pretty late, so I think a 4 second delay would be better. For the last flight of the launch, my stretched and very heavy (the nose cone is filled with a ton of steel shot and epoxy) Madcow Rocketry PAC-3 flew on an Aerotech G64 (below). The motor came up to pressure instantly and the rocket took off quickly with a sharp left turn of about 15 degrees off of vertical, but straightened out in a split second. I think that next time, I should use a longer launch rail for such a heavy rocket. The rocket headed pretty far downrange and suffered from a late deployment and a failure of the parachute to exit the body tube to recover the rocket at a slow rate. Fortunately, there was little damage when it hit the ground, only a partially cracked fin fillet and a bent body tube. It is currently waiting a fresh new paint job and should be clean and spiffy very soon.
