Christmas Loot, High Speed Camera and Just Plain Ol' News

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!