Launch Report - Frisco, Texas May 19, 2007

I headed out to fly some rockets with my 9yo daughter Haley on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Between her brother's 10am and 3pm soccer games, there was just enough time to get in a few flights at the DARS sport launch.

Our first flight was the only bad one of the day. Our Squirrel Works Imp/Freebird had been converted to fly as a 2-stager, and had made several previous successful flights. Alas, that was not to be on this day.

The booster motor had a normal burn, but then fizzled at the end. No second stage ignition. Zip. Nada. Nothing.

As soon as I heard the booster burn out and didn't hear the pop of the stages separating, I knew things didn't sound good.

Normally, the booster burning thru will create a significant amount of pressure, typically enough to separate the stages regardless of whether the sustainer lights or not. Not this time.

Not sure why in this case, but I've seen this type behavior on only two other occasions - in well over a hundred staged flights - when the motor just quit burning, and in both those cases, it was the sustainer motor, and the failure was attributed to moisture contamination of the delay elements. One was an A3-6T and the other an A3-6m, both quite old with questionable storage histories.

However, in this case, the motor was a booster - there is no delay element - and there is otherwise no sign of failure - no blown nozzle, no ruptured motor case, no unburned propellant. And there have been no problems with any of the other motors from this pack.

The end result is as right. Ouch. Fortunately, it appears there's enough good rocket left to make it repairable. We'll see,

Here's another flier's Mach10 clone lifting off. After ejection, it had a good but steep glide to a successful recovery.

Here's someone's Red River Rocketry P-Chuter Xtreme lifting off.

Here's my Imp/Freebird on its fateful flight.

This is Mark Sims' red frisbee on a G77 redline IIRC.

Here's an Estes Gauchito that the flier converted to a cluster of four 13mm motors. Looks like he got them all lit here.

This is Tim Sapp's NASA Pegasus clone, still in primer, on a check-out flight. Tim said the humidity has been too high to paint. I know exactly what he means. I have several pieces in the queue just waiting for the humidity to drop below 60%.

Haley finishes loading her rocket on the pad.

Here's a liftoff shot of my K-40 Midget clone using a booster motor from the same pack as the ill-fated Freebird/Imp. Great flight. No problems.

Haley loads our Toy Rocket onto the pad. The slow burning booster motor resulted in weather-cocking off the rod with the result being that the rocket headed for the trees upwind. Fortunately, it came down in a clearing amid the trees where it was readily recovered.

This rocket is called Silver Magic. That name has proved to be most fortunate. It was built as a sacrificial rocket for flying out-of-production motors which are expected to be less reliable. On its very first flight last year, the ancient D6.1-0 booster motor failed and fried the booster motor tube which was subsequently replaced. The rocket has since had several successfull flights.

This time around, it had a Quest B6-0 in it. Concentrating on my camera, I didn't actually see the liftoff, but heard the staging event occur quite soon after liftoff, so I thought maybe a malfunction had occured, but wasn't sure. The booster burn, while short, didn't have the loud pop common with catos, and the sustainer lit for a successful flight, so I wasn't sure if there really was a malfunction. But Paul Holmes and Tim Sapp both witnessed the flight and told me it was definitely a cato. When I finally saw this pic, I had to agree.

This is the second motor from that pack to cato. The other was even more spectacular and resulted in a lawndart.

I wonder how the remaining motor from that pack will do.... For that matter, I wonder about all the other B6-0's from that batch I have.

Haley giving a last look at her tiny Bertha while Paul's good looking son Alan checks continuity. The half-A motor took the downscale Bertha just to the limits of my vision, but not too far. The rocket was recovered in fine shape.

It was an awesome day. Doug.
May 19, 2007