Launch Report Saturday February 23, 2008

The running water in the drainage ditches told a story of an early morning rain. The access roads were covered with standing water as were a good portion of the fields but we managed to find a dry area to setup in. The rain had just ended hours before arriving at the field and the clouds were very low. A few hundred feet at best.

Alan did a wonderful job of deciphering the flight cards from Saturday so look below for details. I think the only discrepancy that I can recall would be that we had three L1 attempts but the flight cards may not have indicated all of them. Congratulations go out to Natalie Harrell on a job well done for her successful L1 flight. The other two attempts were unfortunately unsuccessful due to recovery problems.

All the meteorologists that forecasted clearing weather later in the day were wrong. It seemed to clear a bit in the mid to late morning and the sun even came out for a brief period but the clouds soon got thick again. A cold breeze was fairly persistent and we had to pause for a few showers but continued to launch in a light mist right up to the closing of the waiver at 6pm.

See ya at the next launch, Paul Hoetjes

Launch Report February 23-24, 2008

I was not able to attend on Saturday, but the flight cards tell a most interesting part of the story. I can’t speak to the weather, but in Chapel Hill it was cold in the morning, rapidly warming up to cool, breezy, and cloudy to partly cloudy all day.

The big news is always the certification flights, and this month I was delighted to see that Natalie Harrell achieved NAR level 1 certification with her Talon 2 flying on an Aerotech H97J. Congratulations to Natalie and Welcome to High Power! There was one other L1 attempt that was not successful.

The sport flying on Saturday seemed to be dominated by the efforts of three different TARC teams, warming up and getting the background data necessary for a serious assault on this years’ challenge. The motor use summary will show this with a big run on G motors!

TARC team 6150, which includes (at least) Raphael Du Sabloh [Sorry for any misspellings] flew their aptly named Egg Killer C or D twice on an F52. One flight was pretty good, to 801 feet, but the other one resulted in what is described on the flight card as a "splat over easy". Never a good sign in one’s rocket!

David Hash and Ben and Gret Izatt flew TARC Prototype I four times on the G71 package. I cannot tell the order of the flights from where the cards occur in the pile, but one of the flights reached 764 feet with a duration of 48 seconds. Very close, very good prospects for this team.

TARC team 6167, which is, I think, headed up by Natalie Harrell (because all of the flights were conducted under her NAR number) brought in a rocket called either Egg-splosive or Egg-splosion, depending on who filled out the flight card. This team is apparently still searching for the appropriate motor, because the four flights were conducted with one each G79W, G64W, G80T, and G71. Lots and lots of good data gathered in these flights, but altitudes on the cards were a little low and the durations were a little too short, so the rocket seems a little heavy for a G. Plenty of time left, I’m sure this team will get the details worked out and to put that rocket on a diet!

I’m sorry I missed this day, and especially sorry I missed the TARC flights. I see by the flight cards that another old friend from the Whitakers days made the trip to Bayboro for the first time. Reed Goodwin-Johanssen returned to make several flight which included a flight of his X-calibur carrying a video camera. Reed, send the video file to Ed Rowe so he can post it on the web site.

John Hobson, Eddie Haith, and Joe Hill also made the trip and contributed to the action.

On Sunday, the TRA Research guys came back to the field to fly some homemade motors. We all had a lot of fun, the weather was great, but it was not a record of flights to be especially proud of: 6 launches and 3 CATO’s. I think I can recall the flights in order: Jim Livingston started the action with a flight of his AAMRAM (or is it AMRAAM?) on a 3" diameter L motor made with some black copper oxide. It left with 5 feet of bright blue flame and was recovered perfectly. Alan Whitmore then followed with a flight of his Smooth Green Snake on a 4-grain 38mm I motor. Perfect burn and recovery.

Then, things started to unravel. Dennis Hill flew his SP-6 on a 6-grain 38mm I motor mixed up by Alan Whitmore from a formula suggested by Blaine Jeffreys. The boost was fast and vigorous, but the casing got hot and melted through, pushing the forward section off and burning the shock cord through. Plenty of damage.

After that, Johnny Hoffman flew his Small Endeavor on a 38mm sugar motor somewhere in the I range. The boost part was perfect, but all of the parts did not manage to stay together during the recovery phase.

Alan Whitmore then flew the venerable Generic Four Inch on a 4-grain K motor made from a formula that featured a high solids loading (84%). At 0.7 seconds into the flight, the graphite nozzle shattered and came pattering down in tiny pieces over the LCO table and over Jim Livingston, who was shooting pictures very close by. The rocket continued the flight up to 4750 feet and was recovered intact.

To finish off the carnage, Johnny Hoffman flew his Almost a Thor on a 54mm sugar motor that contained 5% red iron oxide (!!!) . The rocket boosted clean and straight for about a second and then started a severe coning maneuver, slewing all over the sky. At recovery, it was obvious that the casing had burnt through just in front of the nozzle and the hot gasses had blown the body tube off of the rocket between the fins. This aerodynamic instability, and the vectoring of hot gasses coming out of the side of the rocket, caused the rocket to become partially unstable, but because of the good basic design and construction, it continued up and did not become dangerously unstable. All of the recovery events took place on schedule.

There is one point that I would like to call attention to. On Sport Launch Saturday there were no motors launched that would have required a TRA or NAR L2 certification. On Sunday, fully half of the motors launched required a TRA level 2 or level 3 certification. At other fields and launch sites around the country there is a lot of commercial motor L2 and L3 activity. All of the other places where TRA and NAR people fly see a lot of Aerotech, Cesaroni, AMW, and LOKI motors flown in the M or N range. For some reason, we have managed to force ourselves into a 2-tiered system where our sport launches only fly the little motors and none of the people who fly big motors want to spend the unbelievably high asking prices that Gary and Anthony and Paul and Jeff are forced (by regulatory and HAZMAT regulations) to charge for their bigger commercial motors.

I don’t know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. This just may be the way hobby rocketry is going in our part of the world. One possible solution would be for all of the usual flyers of commercial motors to become very wealthy and all get their LEUP’s. That way you could just order any motor you want from commercial suppliers and have them delivered to your door. And this could continue until Ken Allen gets his ATF dealers permits back and can deliver the motors to the field.

Alan Whitmore, Prefect