Launch Report, November 19-20, 2005

No-one who was at the November launch at Whitakers will forget the event for a very long time. The weather was fine, winds were extremely calm, attendance was high, and several memorable flights took place – including the successful flight of the Phoenix project, which we will address (extensively) later.

It gives me a lot of pleasure to present this month’s motor use summary, certainly the longest I have ever put together for you:

That is a fine weekend at Whitakers! The most exciting news is that on Saturday we had 5 Tripoli Level 2 certification flights and all 5 were successful. I’ll detail the certification flights in alphabetical order.

Randy Hairfield brought an extremely well-finished PML Endeavour and used the Aerotech J350W for a very fine L2 flight.

James Rorrer flew his Syonic Hedge Hog on the Aerotech J420R and carried along a video camera with live telemetry down-link. We watched the video tape several times that afternoon and the quality was very high. A perfect flight and a perfect recovery. James brought a flight team with him to assist with the telemetry and they all had matching hats!

Ken Stroud flew his all-PVC rocket called HPR 101 on a J415W for a perfect L2 cert flight. This is a big event, perhaps even more important than the flight of the Phoenix. Those of you who have been attending the launches recently know that Ken has been attempting to cert level 2 with an all-PVC rocket. This material is hard to work with, heavy, and not very heat-resistant. These properties have made Ken’s chosen path a rocky one, to say the least, but on Saturday he succeeded, to everyone’s delight.

James Varrone flew his Samuri on a J350W for another perfect L2 flight.

Finally, Robert Wood brought a very fine Nike Smoke and used the J350W for our record-setting 5th level 2 cert flight on the same day.

Congratulations to all of you on your successes and many, many thanks to all of the helpful fliers at Whitakers who have advised and directed these guys and who make Whitakers such a fine environment for advancing in the hobby of rocketry.

There were a huge number of C6’s flown on Saturday. Charles Perkins accounted for a lot of them, but Matthew Mason and Jacob Hairfield were also cranking out the C flights.

Plenty of families in attendance on Saturday: Alex and Christopher Harris were there with their dad, Mike; Ben and Greg Izatt; Dustin, Monica, and Gregg Wallace, and Sarah and Gary Nance were all flying a lot of rockets on the low-power pads.

I have three favorite rocket names for this weekend: Dustin Wallace’s Aerobatically Challenged, Greg Izatt’s Blunt Object #4, and James Rorrer’s Syonic Hedgehog mentioned above in the certifications section.

Sunday was the most exciting and well-attended EX launch in several years, for reasons that will become obvious when I get down around the “E” section of this alphabetical list of flyers.

Jonathan Carter had 3 fine flights with a few different “augmented” dextrose formulas: The Micro-Bertha flew on a 1/2 A sugar motor, the Arcas used an excellent H180 and a timer for a fine flight, and a new rocket – Like a Woman Scorned flew on a very strong K950.

David Cox had 2 flights: his L3 rocket, the Juggernaut, flew on a 115mm 3 grain M2500 made by Alan Whitmore, for a perfect flight to the 8300 foot regions. He then loaded up his Magnum with a 2-grain 54mm J500 motor made from a “purple” formula. There was a problem with recovery and some damage upon landing.

Evan Daniel pulled off an excellent EX hybrid flight with his Blue Moon on a J300 PVC hybrid motor.

Sterling Edmunds led a team including Mark Lloyd, Blaine Jeffreys, and Ed Rowe who pulled off the most exciting rocket flight at Whitakers in many years. They stretched Sterling’s MMX3 about 5 more feet in length, designed a new tether deployment system for 2-stage recovery, and cut down the 8” diameter motor used in the the Bigger Dawg project to a 2-grain configuration that was rated as a P7000. The propellant was Mark’s standard 75:5 formula. The renamed Phoenix Project weighed 387 pounds on the pad and was finished to Sterling’s usual standard ( = darn near perfect). The flight was also “darn near perfect”. The motor lit up instantly, made a awe-inspiring amount of noise soaring to the 6935 to 7074 foot vicinity, and recovery was almost perfect: a little too much apogee charge powder ripped the nose cone from it’s mounting point and it came in ballistic, the recoverable parts suitable only for the dumpster. The main rocket body part came in under 2 x 26 foot parachutes for a soft and safe recovery, with only a small zipper in the stretching section. This was the kind of amateur rocketry project that stirs the soul! It was a huge technical challenge and it was conducted in a small, east-coast field, but it was carried off skillfully, bravely and safely. My sincere congratulations to all of the members of team Phoenix.

Mike Harris made use of the hybrid equipment to put up the first (I think) “tri-brid” flight conducted at Whitakers. The rocket was called the Ratt Fink and incorporated a part of Mike’s Snark. This flight never attained the desired thrust level and the stability was not quite optimal, but nothing was damaged, so Mike will take this data back to the lab and come back strong next time.

Jim Livingston flew his venerable Viper on a 4-grain 115mm N motor made from the very reliable CP3/200 formula, but this time the Viper could not take the aerodynamic stress and folded up at MaxQ, for some significant damage and a brief moment of abject terror as the parts rained down near the LCO table. A post-mortem analysis showed no damage to the electronics, parachutes, recovery harnesses, or the nose cone. This is one rocket that will definitely be back!

Mike McBurnett returned to Whitakers to make two very fine flights. His Apache flew on a J500 and the Ain’t Skeered flew on a K450. I was told the propellant formulas and have forgotten them in the general crush of information that the weekend generated. Apologies to Mike.

Neil McGilvray made the trip from Maryland to watch Sterling’s P flight, pick up some mammoth motor casings from the Lloyd Motor Works and to entertain us with the flight of his Bone Daddy on a 3” diameter M2000 that really rocked!

Tim Watts is getting into EX now that he has certified L2 and this weekend he flew his Excel Plus on a J800 that produced some serious acceleration. Recovery was on-the-money.

Alan Whitmore flew the Spork on a M3000 ‘Black Velvet” motor in a new 7600 N.s casing that was not up to the task. The motor burned through at about 2 seconds into the flight and the destruction was general and widespread. Jim Scarpine’s parachute and Sterling’s Walston unit were also destroyed. This is going to cost your correspondant some serious cash!

Alan Whitmore

Prefect, Tripoli East NC

Phoenix Project Liftoff
photo by Mike McBurnett