So, as usual for
a winter launch that falls so close to a holiday, attendance was down. There was one very good sign, however: Three certification flights were attempted. Sterling Edmunds drove in from Johnson City, TN to
fly his modified LOC Minnie Magg on an H143SS
for a successful level 1 cert. Tim Watts from Rockingham flew his Nemisis on a J285 for a successful level 2 cert,
and Stan Wilkins certified L2 with his Quantum Leap
on a J420 Redline. Congratulations to you all
on jobs well done!
Several
interesting items appear on the cards: Dave
Morey should have some digital movie “footage” to show us if that camera rocket
flight went well, and Stan Wilkins lost both stages of a 2-stage project that must have
been very exciting – a I284W in a Terrier
booster to an H180W in a Mini-BBX sustainer. Be on the lookout for those parts, Dr. Bubba will
want that one back!
The two Alpha rockets that have been traveling North America for the last four
years were launched in the name of North Carolina. More info on this project can be found
here:
The Alpha 40 Project
Sunday was still
cold, all of the puddles were frozen when I arrived at 9:30, but the winds were calm. Dave Muesing was there with his unconventional
propellants that are getting very reliable. David
Cox had the most flights on Sunday, with one G and 2 K flights in his Magnum. One
load was cast with a cobalt oxide catalysed mixture that was pretty tame and the other was one of those green chromic
oxide-containing formulas that was extremely sporty.
Ed Rowe had a
breathtaking flight with a K motor made from his sparky formula, flown in his Standard Arm.
Those sparky propellants are just plain loud. This one made more noise than
either of the two L launches described below. Later
on, Ed provided the motor for a collaborative project with Mike McBurnett. Something went bad wrong (details are still coming
in) but it looks like Mike will get to build another one of those Binder Excels that he likes so much.
Jim Livingston
showed up with a brand new rocket designed for Mach busting. The Carbon
High is 5.5” in diameter, 103” long and built like the proverbial brick
porta-potty, full of carbon fiber laminates and beefy reinforcement. He tested it out with an L1727 made with a
Whitmore recipe: CP3/200. The bird is very
stable, and achieved 7922 feet on a motor delivering 3800 N.s. An M motor should be just the ticket for something
over 1140 feet per second.
Alan Whitmore
launched the weekend’s other L motor flight. The
Flying Buttress went up on a midrange L made from a wicked mixture that Jeff Taylor called
Babysh*t5. This is one of that family of iron
oxide catalyzed APCP formulas that tend to be pretty fast.
This motor carried an M motor nozzle that got the Kn down to about 180 and
it didn’t blow up. The 25 lb rocket was
moving at 1023 feet per second at 2.44 seconds after ignition and experienced 19.1g of
acceleration at 1.43 seconds into the flight. The
maximum inertial altitude recorded was 7721 feet.
The winds aloft
on Sunday were the screwiest I have ever seen. Rockets
would weather-cock over the church on NC 33 and drift back down the long dimension of the
field until they got to about 2000 feet, where they would take a hard left turn and slant
out over Red Hill Church Road as fast as they could go.
Very cute!
Alan Whitmore
Prefect, Tripoli East NC