DARS Frisco Launch
July 17, 2010

With July in Texas comes the heat, but also calm winds.  Saturday's DARS launch in Frisco promised both.  And did not disappoint.

First flight of the day was this upscale Midget (Quest T40) on a C11-0 to C11-7 combo.  After two burnt ignitors with no joy, I used a Quest Q2G2 courtesy of Chas "Buzzard" Russell.  It had a great flight and was recovered in excellent condition.


Loops are formed in the shock cord and wrapped with tape to form shock absorbers.  During a hard deployment, as the shock cord becomes taut, the tape tears to absorb the shock thus sparing the airframe and parachute suspension lines.  In the pic below, you can see one of the loops is completely torn through while the other is completely intact.  

This is a perfect example - half the tape is torn, the other half is not.



Next up was my old cone rocket, the Conehead.  Here it lifts off on a C6-3. 




The third flight of the day was my BT-55 upscale Midget on a B6-0 to C6-7 combo.  It had a great flight and was recovered in fine condition.



12yo Haley arrived after my third flight, and we began flying her rockets.  Here she poses next to her Full Moon on the pad.
In this blurry shot, the Full Moon lifts off on a C6-5 and puts in a great flight.




Our last flight of the day was Haley's Comet.  We had planned to fly it on an E9-6, but the winds had picked up a little, so we used a D12-5 instead.


Unfortunately, the shock cord parted at deployment.  The airframe descended tail first in a nearly horizontal attitude and landed safely in the grass with no noticeable damage.  The nosecone and parachute, now much lighter, drifted a long time, finally coming to rest east-northeast of the field.  They were recovered after a long walk.

My current recovery harness topology consists of a kevlar cord from the motor mount, then a ribbon through the body tube opening and then more kevlar to the nose cone.  In this case, the ribbon was a synthetic fabric, nylon I think.  It appears the heat got to it and it finally failed, having several flights on it. 

This is one example of many where I've experimented with different materials trying to find a suitable ribbon to place in the shock cord to guard against zippers.  This one will be replaced with a nomex ribbon which should last a long time.


It was great getting out today despite the heat, and I'm glad to have spent some quality time with Haley.  The flying was fun and exciting, and the damage will be easily repaired.  So we'll come back for more as soon as we can.


7-17-2010




Below are other pics I took during the launch today.  There are no captions for these, but if someone recognizes their rocket, feel free to use the pic.