Yesterday was the last launch opportunity for Tripoli Idaho for this year. Normally we don't launch on back-to-back weekends, but there were enough people interested in flying that we decided to take advantage of the last date we applied for in our FAA waiver.
We got out to the launch site and had overcast skies, though the clouds were higher than last week. Site set-up went well with many hands helping to get things done. Soon it was time to start thinking about flying rockets. I'd managed to acquire a reload for Flying Colors from one of the other TIR members who wasn't going to be at the launch. This was a Cesaroni 540I470-15A. As there was fog lurking in the Snake River canyon and obscuring some of the hills off to the North-West I was concerned that it was going to move down and sock us in, so I decided to get my flight off while I could, despite the grey skies. Once again assembly was very straightforward and I quickly had my rocket at the pad. I did have to borrow masking tape to secure the batteries in my tracker as my roll had been removed from my tool bag the previous week, Fail #1. In my haste to get the flight card to the LCO I forgot all about setting up my video camera, Fail #2. Consequently I have no video from this flight. Flying Colors made another brilliant flight, but once again I was unable to see the chute deploy. The winds carried it to the East, close to the same track as flight #2, but not as far out. I grabbed my GPS to get landing coordinates and couldn't get it to work as apparently the battery was dead, Fail #3. I recovered the rocket and found it to be in excellent condition, with no evidence of any damage from this flight.
After grabbing a bite to eat I started prepping Dragon Fly for a flight. In preparation for going out to the site I'd trimmed down what I would carry out and only grabbed one of the two G76-10G reloads I had available. In the process I'd failed to grab the grease for lubricating the O-rings and threads, Fail #4. I had to borrow grease to assemble this motor. Assembly was straight forward, but as I started to head to the pad I glanced at my work table and saw the container of black powder used to deploy the recovery system still sitting in the plastic bag the motor shipped in, Fail #5. I would have discovered this when I got to the pad and didn't have the cap to secure the igniter in the motor, but was glad I saw it when I did. I quickly rectified this situation and headed out to the pad. One of the other rocketeers was also flying an Arreaux on a G76G and had his at the pad ready to go. I asked if he'd like to fly his in a drag race with mine and he agreed. When it was time to launch his rocket launched while mine spit out the igniter, Fail #6. My competitor had already had 2 or 3 such failures on previous launches of his rocket that day.
Video: Dragon Fly, Flight #4, Attempt #1
After my failed launch we were treated to a flight of Coldfire with automated flight commentary provided by "Kate".
Video: Coldfire, Flight 20
Once Coldfire had flown I serviced Dragon Fly at the pad. I had to borrow a replacement Copperhead igniter, having left my spares at home along with my grease, Fail #7. I got the igniter installed and made another attempted launch. Again the motor failed to start and the spent igniter was spit out, Fail #8.
Video: Dragon Fly, Flight 4, Attempt 2
One of the other attendees expressed the opinion that the Mojave Green propellant used in the G76G motors is hard to light under the colder conditions we were experiencing yesterday. Based on the number of failed ignitions I'm inclined to believe him.
After this failed launch attempt one of the other participants launched his rocket, Thumper on it's second flight on a "K" class motor. In the video you can hear the motor come up to pressure, with a sound like a bottle being filled with water. Warning, if you turn up your volume to hear this effect the noise at launch will be very loud. This phenomenon is also audible in the Coldfire launch presented earlier.
Video: Thumper, Flight 2
As you can hear this flight ended horribly. The chute failed to deploy and the rocket descended ballistically and impacted disturbingly close to the launch site, landing just East of the North-South road to our East. The nose cone was buried about 1.5' to 2' into the ground.
I borrowed another igniter, this time a "home brew" one and prepared the motor yet again. I had gotten lucky on the previous igniter installation and managed to feed it through the nozzle without having to disassemble the motor. The new igniter wouldn't feed through the nozzle, so I had to remove the rear closure and nozzle. When I pulled out the nozzle it pulled up the fuel grains as well. I was a bit concerned by this, but decided the forward insulator and O-ring were undisturbed, so proceeded with reassembly. This time the Dragon Fly flew when the LCO pressed the launch button, unfortunately, due to a misconfiguration of the launch controller so did another rocket sitting on the next pad.
Video: Dragon Fly, Flight 4, Attempt 3
Video: Dragon Fly. Flight 4, Attempt 3 (Slow Motion)
The Dragon Fly won this unintentional drag race, leaving the pads first, going higher, and landing last. This result was predictable however since the other rocket was a Level 2 certification attempt flying on a "J" motor. Bigger motors take longer to come up to pressure, so my little "G" motor launched quicker. The thrust-to-weight ratio also favored my rocket, consequently my higher altitude (expected: 2724.57995', actual:2863).
As can be seen in the videos, the skies improved during the day until we got a nice big blue patch above us. This allowed a Level 3 certification flight to launch on an "M" motor. The flight was awesome and successful, going at least 14,000'. I attempted to record this launch, but due to technical difficulties at the launch pad I ran out of battery power about 2 seconds before it flew.
After this flight there was a test flight on an "L" motor of a rocket that will be
flown in the spring for another rocketeer's Level 3 certification attempt. This flight also was very nice.
Photo Album: 2010-11-06, Last Launch Day of 2010
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Sunday, November 7, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
I passed with Flying Colors.
Saturday, October 30, was finally the day to put my new LOC/Precision Vulcanite H76 to the test and attempt to get my Tripoli Rocketry Association Level 1 certification. If all went well I also intended to go for my Level 2 certification as well. We got to the launch site early so I could get our shelter set up before the other rocketeers arrived and it would be time to help set up the launch equipment. Precisely at 9:30 the other people started showing up and we quickly got the gear unloaded and set up. By shortly after 10:00 we were ready to go, so I started preparing my new rocket, Flying Colors for launch. For my L1 certification attempt I would be flying a Cesaroni 538I303-16A motor with the full 16 second delay. The preparations went smoothly and I soon found myself standing at the launch pad double checking my check list. This was the first time I'd flown a Cesaroni motor and I couldn't believe how easily it had gone together. With some trepidation I turned in the flight card for my rocket and when the Launch Control Officer (LCO) was ready to go quickly started the video camera rolling and got back to the flight line. Here is the launch, both at full-speed and at 1/30th normal.
Video: Level One Certification Launch
Video: Level One Certification Launch (Slow Motion)
After walking 1.21 miles I found my rocket in good order laying on the desert floor. Actually I should say that I found Jim, our local rocket finder, standing next to my rocket laying on the desert floor. After snapping some photos to document the condition of the rocket I opened the payload bay to check my altimeter. The altimeter reported a maximum altitude of 6732'. Pre-flight simulations had predicted 6735.91841'. Apparently it is unusual to have a prediction that close to the actual altitude as several comments were made about it.
I didn't initially find any damage, but when carrying it back to the launch site I noticed that I had lost some paint toward the leading edge of the sustainer, apparently from an impact with something. I had not initially seen it because it was on the side of the rocket that was laying on the ground. The underlying fibreglass and kraft paper tubing was undamaged, so I passed my L1 certification flight!
By this point the weather had degraded to the point that I could not attempt my L2 certification due to low ceilings. I grabbed some lunch and prepped my Aerotech Arreaux, Dragon Fly for flight. This is the rocket that was lost for nearly 2 weeks in the Spring on its second flight. I had not had time to paint it in the Spring, so this was the first time it would be flown in a completed state. I had acquired 3 Aerotech G76G-10 reloads for this rocket for use in the Fall launch window. I prepared the motor and was about half way through when I discovered that the reload kit had included the wrong igniter. There were actually three igniters in the package and all of them were too short to be used. Fortunately one of the other rocketeers was able to provide me with a a suitable igniter and I finished preparing the rocket. As I was completing the assembly of the rocket the skies decided to clear and it was obvious that I could go for my L2 attempt, but I didn't want to leave a loaded rocket sitting around and I could not unload it, at least not without compromising the ejection charge of black powder. I hastened to get the Dragon Fly launched and recovered so I could get going on the Flying Colors. Below are the videos for the Dragon Fly's launch.
Video: Dragon Fly, Flight #3, Launch
Video: Dragon Fly, Flight #3, Launch (Slow Motion)
Dragon Fly landed .34 miles from the launch site and achieved an altitude of 2948' vs. a pre-flight estimate of 2665.10535'. Recovering it was straight-forward, but ate quite a bit of time. By the time I got back to base we had clouds moving back in and I had to hurry to get my L2 attempt ready to fly. For this flight I would be using a Cesaroni 658J357-17A with the full 17 second delay. The ease of assembly of this motor really helped get me to the pad quickly, so quickly that I went through my check list twice again to make sure I'd not forgotten anything. With even more nerves than before I turned in the flight card for my L2 attempt. Again I started the camera rolling when I got the sign from the LCO and cleared the area. Flying Colors once again leapt off the pad and tore off into the sky. Below are the videos for this launch.
Video: Level Two Certification Launch
Video: Level Two Certification Launch (Slow Motion)
We lost track of it for a while but it was spotted coming down on the chute. While this was the highest flight of the day, it was also the shortest walk I had, landing only .34 miles from the launch site. There was no new damage. I took a picture of the rocket as it lay, but somehow I don't have it in the camera. Apparently I didn't get the shutter release fully depressed. I did open the payload bay to see my altimeter and have a photo of it, the only one I thought to take of it all day. So my highest flight to date has photographic record. The pre-flight estimate for this flight was 7408.37892'. The actual altitude was recorded as 7434'. This should have been my first supersonic flight with a predicted maximum velocity of 1180.7712 ft/s (805mph), but unfortunately I don't own the instrumentation necessary to verify that. Given the accuracy of the height prediction however, I strongly suspect that I achieved at least that velocity.
Below are photos taken during the day by my daughters and myself.
Photo Album: 2010-10-30, Rockets (TRA Certification Day)
Map of Launch and Landing sites:
View Rocket Flights in a larger map
Video: Level One Certification Launch
Video: Level One Certification Launch (Slow Motion)
After walking 1.21 miles I found my rocket in good order laying on the desert floor. Actually I should say that I found Jim, our local rocket finder, standing next to my rocket laying on the desert floor. After snapping some photos to document the condition of the rocket I opened the payload bay to check my altimeter. The altimeter reported a maximum altitude of 6732'. Pre-flight simulations had predicted 6735.91841'. Apparently it is unusual to have a prediction that close to the actual altitude as several comments were made about it.
I didn't initially find any damage, but when carrying it back to the launch site I noticed that I had lost some paint toward the leading edge of the sustainer, apparently from an impact with something. I had not initially seen it because it was on the side of the rocket that was laying on the ground. The underlying fibreglass and kraft paper tubing was undamaged, so I passed my L1 certification flight!
By this point the weather had degraded to the point that I could not attempt my L2 certification due to low ceilings. I grabbed some lunch and prepped my Aerotech Arreaux, Dragon Fly for flight. This is the rocket that was lost for nearly 2 weeks in the Spring on its second flight. I had not had time to paint it in the Spring, so this was the first time it would be flown in a completed state. I had acquired 3 Aerotech G76G-10 reloads for this rocket for use in the Fall launch window. I prepared the motor and was about half way through when I discovered that the reload kit had included the wrong igniter. There were actually three igniters in the package and all of them were too short to be used. Fortunately one of the other rocketeers was able to provide me with a a suitable igniter and I finished preparing the rocket. As I was completing the assembly of the rocket the skies decided to clear and it was obvious that I could go for my L2 attempt, but I didn't want to leave a loaded rocket sitting around and I could not unload it, at least not without compromising the ejection charge of black powder. I hastened to get the Dragon Fly launched and recovered so I could get going on the Flying Colors. Below are the videos for the Dragon Fly's launch.
Video: Dragon Fly, Flight #3, Launch
Video: Dragon Fly, Flight #3, Launch (Slow Motion)
Dragon Fly landed .34 miles from the launch site and achieved an altitude of 2948' vs. a pre-flight estimate of 2665.10535'. Recovering it was straight-forward, but ate quite a bit of time. By the time I got back to base we had clouds moving back in and I had to hurry to get my L2 attempt ready to fly. For this flight I would be using a Cesaroni 658J357-17A with the full 17 second delay. The ease of assembly of this motor really helped get me to the pad quickly, so quickly that I went through my check list twice again to make sure I'd not forgotten anything. With even more nerves than before I turned in the flight card for my L2 attempt. Again I started the camera rolling when I got the sign from the LCO and cleared the area. Flying Colors once again leapt off the pad and tore off into the sky. Below are the videos for this launch.
Video: Level Two Certification Launch
Video: Level Two Certification Launch (Slow Motion)
We lost track of it for a while but it was spotted coming down on the chute. While this was the highest flight of the day, it was also the shortest walk I had, landing only .34 miles from the launch site. There was no new damage. I took a picture of the rocket as it lay, but somehow I don't have it in the camera. Apparently I didn't get the shutter release fully depressed. I did open the payload bay to see my altimeter and have a photo of it, the only one I thought to take of it all day. So my highest flight to date has photographic record. The pre-flight estimate for this flight was 7408.37892'. The actual altitude was recorded as 7434'. This should have been my first supersonic flight with a predicted maximum velocity of 1180.7712 ft/s (805mph), but unfortunately I don't own the instrumentation necessary to verify that. Given the accuracy of the height prediction however, I strongly suspect that I achieved at least that velocity.
Below are photos taken during the day by my daughters and myself.
Photo Album: 2010-10-30, Rockets (TRA Certification Day)
Map of Launch and Landing sites:
View Rocket Flights in a larger map
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